Colby Johnson was named Director of Development at CommonPlaces Interactive, a digital agency specializing in B2B and nonprofit custom web experiences in Manchester. He is a UNH graduate with a degree in computer science.
Johnson has worked on award-winning projects such as the Verizon Wireless App Challenge, California’s carbon footprint sustainability project Cool Block, Harvard College’s LASPAU and Cummins Diesel website consolidation project.
“The Cool Block is an ambitious citizen-empowerment application, and the first of its kind," said Sue Lebeck, Website Manager for Cool Block.
"As such, we rely on our technology partner Common Places to help us realize our vision, and together are committed to building and evolving the ideal scenario for our users. Colby Johnson is a valued player on the Cool Block-Common Places team. A thorough thinker, he considers every angle, clarifies assumptions, and conscientiously considers alternative points of view. We rely on his commitment to excellence to help us turn our use cases into the simplest and most effective software possible.”
Johnson started his career at CommonPlaces in 2014. Quickly rising through the ranks as a developer and recently promoted to Director of Development after three years of developing customized Drupal websites for CommonPlaces’ clients. He will be working closely with all departments at CommonPlaces to make sure client's needs are communicated clearly and that projects run smoothly.
“He has amazing ideas from an infrastructure and process standpoint that will help us streamline communication and development,” said Kendra Strickler, Director of Client Success at CommonPlaces, Interactive.
Since he started at CommonPlaces he has build a solid software infrastructure which includes a hosting platform that allows custom web application in different environments to run on the server and created a knowledge based system called Zeus. He also implemented a state of art automated project management and customer support system to improve customer communication.
Johnson loves the challenging programming tasks that allowed him to think creatively. “I do lose sleep over some of it but I like this job because it makes me think,” he said.
“I like to see what I am capable of, taking it all in and powering through.”
CommonPlaces instituted a casual dress code and Flex Fridays several years ago. It is the workplace culture that sold Johnson on the company three years ago with the family-first attitude and work/life balance. “The culture also gave me the opportunity to see my ideas flourish,” he said.
“It’s a startup mentality at CommonPlaces, and I feel like we are listening to what customers want and taking to heart what people say,” Johnson said.
In his spare time Johnson is a tinkerer and always thinking of new inventions.
“I try to build things - highly technical things.”