Jennifer
Sheffield

Program Manager & Communications Expert

Greater Seattle Area

Willing to discuss relocation

Open to new opportunities

Team leadership

Program management

Communications & content strategy

Education & literacy programs

I have almost 10 years of professional experience translating complex, technical ideas into engaging stories and comprehensive support resources for a wide range of audiences. I am self-driven and motivated by improving team processes, engaging communities, and educating others. My long-term goals include a career shift into education and library sciences.

Complete Career History

Xbox Support Writer/Editor & Project Manager

Hanson Consulting, Inc. | March 2021 - Present | Remote Work

Advocate for support/education that minimizes cost and redundancies and improves efficacy of information reaching the customer
Design and lead content strategies to improve legibility and article discoverability by using customer sentiment data, SEO strategies, and empirical evidence
Copyedit/write for content across support platforms (website, mobile, console), focusing on conceptual content and technical support—improving language, upholding brand style and voice/tone, and maintaining accessibility standards
Coordinate with stakeholders to collaborate on the greater organization's content strategy and take ownership of communications efforts for feature announcements and troubleshooting scenarios
Focus heavily on areas of expertise, driven by prior career experiences, such as online safety, emotional and mental health, popular IPs (intellectual properties) such as Minecraft, and gender and sexuality inclusivity

Xbox Game development kit technical editor

Protiviti, Inc. | August 2020 - March 2021 | Remote Work

Edited Microsoft proprietary documentation for the Xbox One family of consoles and Xbox Series X|S; partnered with developers to revise conceptual articles and maintain Xbox hardware and coding concepts
Applied markdown and HTML knowledge, and built a skillset for Github and understanding developer languages
Improved personal fluency in the Microsoft Writing Style Guide and Xbox Developer Style Guide
Redesigned the onboarding training for editors and writers
Fulfilled special requests for executive-facing documentation
Reconstructed the architecture of the internal knowledgebase/wiki for developers

Xbox insider communications Manager

Murphy & Associates, Inc. | July 2019 - July 2020 | Redmond, Washington

Created a roadmap and team-wide content strategy playbook for internal/external communications and branding
Improved visibility and verification on social media platforms
Increased Twitter/X follower count by 295% and community engagement on social media platforms by 585%
Advised on subreddit engagement and announcement threads
Connected with Xbox partners and game studios to facilitate playtests of their products and features to a variety of internal and external audiences
Strategized marketing announcements and promotions of new experiences and collected customer sentiment
Crafted reports to stakeholders of the customer experience through telemetry, survey data, and social media listening
Incorporated content design and dynamic storytelling into fiscal goals, creating various media assets and templates for the Xbox Insider blog, social media, and internal communications
Redesigned the blog to enable rotating hero content, prevent daily release notes from burying announcements, and crafted new articles that gave the community insight into team process and their positive impact

Xbox Safety Project Manager

Apex Systems | July 2017 - June 2019 | Redmond, Washington

Handled investigations of hardware fraud, financial fraud, and harassment on the Xbox network
Communicated on special one-to-one cases with frustrated users to educate about the Xbox Safety enforcement process and ways to improve their interactions online and uphold the Community Standards for Xbox
Managed deep-dive investigations of sensitive cases related to sexual exploitation and harassment of minors—working closely with stakeholders to deliver case results to Microsoft Digital Safety and NCMEC
Maintained quick turnaround of high-priority escalations and threats to others or Microsoft personnel
Produced and facilitated training for new hires and tenured colleagues—training included moderation policies and collaborated efforts in refined wellness materials
Advised on colleague investigations and team best practices

Xbox Support Twitter Agent

Affirma Consulting | June 2014 - July 2017 | Redmond, Washington

Agent for @XboxSupport, providing technical and gaming support to the Xbox community
Maintained the social media strategy of the brand, crafting "PSAs" of service outage announcements, exciting release information, and upheld brand voice/tone when communicating with customers
Trained fellow agents and maintained and tracked personal and peer KPIs—such as PRR and output
Created a knowledgebase for known issues, best practices, and ways for each shift to communicate trends across the 19-hour operation days
Used social media listening, spikes in support platform traffic, and partner communications to stay alert to service outages or track/troubleshoot support trends for engineering
Co-created the Community Blog which became a communication hub for the Xbox Ambassadors Program
Conducted community and team interviews, and managed the content budget for the blog

English

Native language, fluent

French

Limited working proficiency

Japanese

Elementary proficiency

Spanish

Elementary proficiency

Causes & Organizations

Children's literacy

Reading Partners (Americorps)

Education

Arts and culture

Top professional skills

Team Leadership & Employee Training

Content Strategy & Architecture

Social Media Communications

Program Management

Community Engagement

Copy Editing

Project Management

Other Skills & Experience

Capable of working under strict deadlines to deliver high-quality content for internal and external consumption.
Knowledgeable in Microsoft Office, Google Workspace, Asana, Trello, Slack, Discord, SharePoint, Figma, Azure DevOps, SQL, COSMOS, SCOPE, HTML, CSS, Markdown, GIMP, Audacity, Affinity Publisher, Adobe Creative Cloud, WordPress, Wix, and other blogging platforms.

Freelance Work

Previously a staff writer and social media strategist for Pure Nintendo Magazine
Game review published with 8Bit/Digi
Article published with the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) blog

Volunteer Work

Reading Tutor for the Seattle chapter of Reading Partners (Americorps)
- November 2022 to June 2023
- January 2024 to present
Graphic Designer for the Organization for Transformative Works
- June 2023 to present
Volunteer for Page Ahead Children's Literacy Program
- October 2023 to present

Community/FANDOM management

Manage multiple online fandom communities, including one community with 400+ members for the game Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV), wherein I design and manage a seasonal magazine with community spotlights, reviews, and game information.

Educational Goals

Masters in Library and Information Science (MLIS)
Teaching certification for elementary and/or middle grades, to become a public school librarian or educator

academic Background

Valdosta State University

Bachelor of Arts (BA), English Language and Literature

Focus in Print Journalism

August 2009 - December 2013

Valdosta, Georgia

Activities

The Spectator

http://vsuspectator.com/

Independent, student newspaper

Editor-in-Chief (2013)
Managing Editor (2012-2013)
Management Seminar for College News Editors 2013 (MSCNE13)
Georgia College Press Association (2012 & 2013)

Omnino

https://www.valdosta.edu/english/student-resources/student-publications/omnino/

Undergraduate research journal

Design Intern (2013)

Project & Writing Samples

Official Xbox Support Website

Connect with friends in party chat | Xbox Support

I redesigned this article to include more info about what party chat is, explain how you can set up safety settings, and added support for party chat on other devices.

My Xbox controller won't connect or turn on | Xbox Support

This article was originally a "wizard" that stepped customers through branching questions and scenarios for their controller. When a new iteration of the support platform moved away from wizards, this article turned into a longform article for all controller troubleshooting scenarios. A coworker and I reworked this article to improve SEO, focus on two primary support scenarios, and reframe related articles:
- Pairing an Xbox controller to your console | Xbox Support (Improved SEO, removed the previous templated format that mirrored the article below, and cleaned up the introductory copy to get customers into the support quickly. See snapshot of previous iteration.)
- How do I connect my Xbox controller to PC? | Xbox Support (Improved SEO, removed the previous templated format that mirrored the article above, and cleaned up the introductory copy to get customers into the support quickly.)
- I can't update my Xbox controller | Xbox Support (Content improved and moved to a new article location from the original troubleshooter.)

Official Xbox Insider Program Blog

Xbox All Access available to U.S. Xbox Insiders this weekend

A special announcement post for Xbox Insiders about Xbox All Access, a monthly membership fee that offered U.S. players a new Xbox One X|S, Xbox Game Pass, and online multiplayer with Xbox Live Gold.

Where does your feedback go?

An article about how the Xbox Insider team triages bugs and feedback, with media and infographics also designed by me. Through social media engagement, I found a primary frustration for members was not understanding how their feedback was processed by Xbox.

Report a problem hands-free with Alexa

An article to inform members that they can use digital assistants to provide feedback. The article also intended to promote the feature to draw in more telemetry and data for Xbox engineering so they could iterate and improve on the feature.

(See More)

PURE NINTENDO MAGAZINE

Review: Afterparty (Nintendo Switch)

Date: March 19, 2020
Rating: 10 out of 10

Review: Stories Untold (Nintendo Switch)

Date: February 10, 2020
Rating: 9 out of 10

Review: Sagebrush (Nintendo Switch)

Date: September 7, 2019
Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Review: Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo Switch)

Date: March 23, 2020
Rating: 9.5 out of 10

(See More)

Miscellaneous Freelancing Work

Review | Kingdom Hearts III (Xbox One)

Date: March 17, 2019
Rating: 9 out of 10
Publication: 8Bit/Digi

Love to write? Visit your local library!

Date: February 4, 2019
An article about how a library can be the perfect place, not just for reading or research, but to find a safe haven to study and write. Being a patron of your local library is incredibly important, and I wanted to emphasize that for NaNoWriMo.
Publication: National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) blog

Design: Evergreen Coaching

Client: Joanna Marshall
Graphic designs and web consultant for life coaching business branding.

Design: Chelsea Miranda Hair

Client: Chelsea Miranda
Graphic designs for hairstylist business branding.

Popoto Patch Zine

Client: Popoto Patch community
Graphic and layout designs, copyediting, research, and interviewing for gaming fandom community.

Privacy & online safety
Official Xbox Support Website

Constructed a content strategy for refreshing privacy-related content on Support.Xbox.com. Privacy is the important pillar of online safety and use. A customer should always check for ways to protect themselves and their information before doing anything online (even with something as entertainment-focused as gaming). Updated several articles and created a new experience for stepping into privacy configuration for individuals and families/households using Xbox products and services.

Privacy & online safety | Xbox Support - This Hub (landing page) directs customers through the process of configuring and managing their own privacy. This is by far one of the most important aspects of online safety and use. We've dynamically displayed some of the beginning steps to privacy and online safety, and each section below walks the customer through different aspects of the experience. This Privacy project also tied in the work we would later do to transform Family and Xbox Safety content on Support.Xbox.com.

Additional copyediting and technical writing work:

Family & online safety
Official Xbox Support Website

Reenergized the "Family & online safety" space for Support.Xbox.com to include ways to set up and manage a family group, how to talk about online safety with your loved ones, configuring safety and privacy settings, and introducing inclusive language to incorporate all household and family environments that don't just mean the "nuclear American family" tropes.

Family & online safety | Xbox Support - A Hub (landing page) for our heavy-hitter content for family safety settings, the Xbox Family Settings app, and some privacy settings. This Hub was created in part with the Family team at Xbox to focus on giving parents & guardians a central location for setting up and troubleshooting family experiences across Xbox and Windows devices.

Additional copyediting and technical writing work:

Xbox Safety on Support.Xbox.com
Official Xbox Support Website

Worked with Xbox Safety to bring their Case Review process to Support.Xbox.com and create support content that explains Xbox Safety process, policies, and ways to be safe against bad faith players online. Xbox Safety has always been a supportability issue for customers, but we kept the experience separate, despite the fact that it is a high traffic driver for our customer support platforms. That is no longer the case.

Enforcements | Xbox Support - This new case review process (seen better when signed in to with an Xbox profile) was developed by Xbox engineers with the strings crafted and edited by myself. This new process has moved from its offsite location on the now-defunct Xbox Enforcement website to Support.Xbox.com.

Additional copyediting and technical writing work:

Games & apps
Official Xbox Support Website

Ongoing. Reconstructing the content strategy behind "Games & apps" on Support.Xbox.com to:

Focus less on market upselling when our mission should always be support first—Xbox.com is the marketing tool
Revise our SEO strategy to uplift our partner studios' support resources first, rather than compete with them by hosting support content the studios manage
Refocus our support platform to be what we can for customers rather than trying to be everything at the risk of negative ROI

Support.Xbox.com has landing pages that are meant to be sources for customers to quickly browse certain categories (particularly if they're not comfortable with search). However, the unfocused direction of this page (see snapshot) made browsing impossible for the average customer. This section has been refined to focus on setup and general use of products and services. Troubleshooting was moved to a new central location, and we've begun the process of platforming our partners first.

Help for Xbox games & apps | Xbox Support - This is the anchor to this project, a new Hub (landing page) for all games and apps troubleshooting.

Additional copyediting and technical writing work:

https://linkedin.com/in/dearjenna

jennifer.g.sheffield@gmail.com

Jennifer Sheffield

Complete Career History

Xbox Support Writer/Editor & Project Manager

Top professional skills

Team Leadership & Employee Training

Content Strategy & Architecture

Social Media Communications

Program Management

Community Engagement

Copy Editing

Project Management

Other Skills & Experience

academic Background

Project & Writing Samples

Let's connect

Jennifer
Sheffield