Managing Director of Future Medium Pty Ltd, Glen Johnson, is a uniquely qualified young entrepreneur from the web design and development sector… with an intriguing mix of strategic business nous, team creation and management skills, and hands-on creative direction experience.

Glen Johnson at Apollo Bay Victoria

Glen has extensive experience in Internet Design and Development, online businesses, marketing, creative services, and project management. In 2004 Glen completed a Graduate Certificate in Management under a scholarship at Australia’s National University in Canberra. The certificate covered growth management, entrepreneurship & new ventures, corporate strategy, and organisational behaviour. In recognition of his abilities Glen secured a position as finalist in two categories of the Zinifex 2006 Tasmanian Business Leader Awards.

Establishing himself in the web design and development industry in 1998 as a founding member of a successful Internet Development Firm, Glen has a solid and diverse background in multimedia, fine arts, corporate design, and web technologies.

Armed with a strong discipline in customer service and stakeholder analysis, he is also a strategic thinker and has broad experience in business strategy and development.  More recently this has been elevated to a formal acknowledgement by undertaking elements of an MBA with the Australian National University on a fully funded scholarship.

An entrepreneur at heart, he launched his first business partnership, ‘ICS‘ (Image Creation Studio) in 1993, providing multimedia and motion graphics services to the retail and hospitality industries, then another as sole proprietor specialising in print and web design as ‘Design301‘ in 1998. 

With a desire to create a robust business drawing on collaborative skills he formed a partnership with two Tasmanian residents and a Victorian businessman in 1999.  This was the birth of ‘Little Devil Media’ (LDM).  The LDM venture was founded on the back of a large 12-month contract involving interactive web projects and online branding components with Sporting Pulse (an online sports directory) and  SportTip (an internet betting client).  This was the dawn of web-based betting and application development occurring at the height of political debate and licensing issues prior to the dot-com crash. 

In less than two years of trading as LDM he and his partners became market leaders, setting the benchmark in their field for product and service delivery in Internet design and development.  In 2000 the partnership gave birth to ‘autopublish‘ – the web based content management system.  Content management, web-based applications, and in particular the design and development of financial transaction-based applications soon became the core business of the partnership.  This was more than just a service area for their businesses; this was adopted as a philosophical approach to design and development for the web and has since formed the backbone of all of Glen’s web-based business activities. 

In 2002 the partnership created a nationally recognised Real Estate directory, ‘PropertyPoint‘; and then in 2004 a property listing management product ‘AgentPoint‘ with extensive online services and user management components.  In each project Glen carried out the creative direction and personally produced the finished art aspects of each product suite. 

After 5 years of successful operation the LDM partnership was dissolved (in June 2004) to allow clear separation between the business units that had emerged.  Throughout its existence, and under Glen’s creative direction, the LDM partnership was considered a key stakeholder in the local and interstate IT industry. 

Present

In 2004 Glen relaunched the core web design and development business as Future Medium with his longstanding friend and business associate, Patrick Herrera.  Together they retained the rights to the autopublish product technology and scaled up operations, whilst also launching complementary ventures with partners in strategic locations across Australia.  Future Medium evolved to become a tightly focussed vehicle for combining brand sensitive interactive design skills with content management philosophies and web application experience.  Recently this has led to the design and development of experimental web-based financial applications and user management systems.  These developments, more often than not, are through collaborative ventures that require Future Medium to work closely with other service providers, namely project managers and technical teams, to provide seamless and business focussed outcomes.  The emphasis on strategic alliance formation has given Glen great insight into creating and monitoring processes for interaction between his company and its allies.  In his role as Creative Director, Glen has been responsible for the production of standardised document deliveries that accurately summarise implementation requirements for creative and front-end aspects of project processes.

The combination of Glen’s concepts, creative vision and thorough understanding of online business models results in dependable and innovative solutions for his clients.  His requirements analysis and review processing is from both the end-user and client viewpoints and often coordinated with other industry experts.  The quality of these specification documents determines the success or failure of each and every project and has a direct relationship to his businesses standing in the industry.

Future Medium, employs 15 Tasmanians in fulltime capacity with a committed crew of contractors.  He takes great care in monitoring HR issues, managing staff needs and morale.  Glen keeps his team happy and focused, and is proud to say that they are testament to these efforts.  He considers himself to be a role model and mentor to his staff and leads by example.  He strongly encourages leadership and initiative amongst all employees, assisting them in learning project management and delegation of authority. 

As well as managing a dynamic team of employees, he is also involved in mentoring newcomers to the industry.  His commitment to management methodology not only ensures professional staff development within his company, but also allows him to offer his skills to the greater community.  He has regularly supported work experience students, both from schools, and individuals seeking to improve their skills.

He achieves much success and recognition for his design, management and service to his long-term clients.  He receives regular interstate and international exposure for his innovative and functional solutions through his company.  His project execution and personal conduct have allowed him to form strategic working relationships with key high profile players and influential members of various market sectors, both local and interstate.

Awards, recognitions, and achievements

• Finalist in Zinifex Tasmanian Business Leaders Awards in both ‘Owner Manager of the Year’ and ‘ Young Manager of the Year’ for 2006.
• Designer of Macromedia International Site of the month – for Positive Information Technology – in 1999.
• Designer of www.directory2b.com a Channel Nine Brother Small Business Awards Finalist for 2001
• Interface designer for the Autopublish product which featured in the technology section of The Age newspaper under ‘websites as easy to update as chewing gum’ on Dec 3^rd 2002.
• Fashion model for Blundstone shoe products in 2002. Photos of Glen were displayed on GDS tradeshow stands in Germany and Australia. He also designed and art directed the tradeshow stands.
• Lead creative and project manager on www.blundstone.com which received ‘Australian webdesigners.net site of the day’ award for ‘Technical Excellence, functionality and Good design’ in June 2002
• Designer and Project Manager for www.autopublish.com.au a Channel Nine Brother Small Business Awards Finalist in 2002.
• Recognised as a ‘Clever Devil’ in the once a year feature section on Tasmanian innovators in The Mercury Newspaper, Sep 10^th 2003 for Propertypoint web based property management systems and online directory.
• Tasmanian ICT Tradeshow delegate for 2003
• Featured in Internet.Au magazine issue # 92 in 2003, interviewed about design and project management.
• Recipient of the EDS IT Scholarship to ANU NGSM 2004 for a National Graduate Certificate in Management. The scholarship was jointly funded by the Australian Taxation Office and the global IT firm EDS. Nationally, only fourteen places were made available for this scholarship, and Glen was the only Tasmanian to be selected.

Education

Glen has had a varied but valuable grounding in many disciplines and academic areas.  He achieved excellent TCE Matriculation results at The Friends School Hobart, 1993 with focal study areas being physical sciences, mathematics, computer science, and geometric design graphics.

He undertook the first year of Bachelor of Computer Systems Engineering, 1994 (University of Tasmania), withdrawing to pursue a career in the Arts.

He later completed 50% of a Bachelor of Fine Art and Design, 1997-98 (University of Tasmania) and was placed in the top ten percent of his year group in first year.  He refrained from pursuing the full degree to pursue full-time activities in small business.

In 2003 he was awarded an all expenses paid scholarship to the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra for a National Graduate Certificate in Management at the NGSM division.  He has since graduated; receiving both ‘distinctions’ and ‘high distinctions’ for his efforts towards this certificate.  During his time at ANU, he assisted the senior lecturer of his course with preparation of case studies and case material specifically in the area of ‘managing growth businesses’.