Week 3 – Personal Contributions with Bionica Labs

After completing my third week at Bionica Labs, I’ve grown very comfortable in my position and have greatly enjoyed the work I’ve been doing. I was also excited for this week as it was a transition from building a knowledgeable foundation to actually creating and working toward a larger project.

The focus for this week was building and rebranding the company website. Bionica Labs does have a website, however, it is very bland and does not provide concrete information about the company or the exciting projects they are working on. When I started, I suggested editing and restructuring the site to prepare for commercialization later on when the company is ready to sell its products. My supervisor thought it was a great idea and it became my focus during the third week.

I began by examining our competitors’ websites and noting what unique features or layout design they incorporated. These small things would eventually help me wireframe our new website and really helped me understand who Bionica Labs is going up against. After my research had been completed, I transitioned into wireframing and writing copy for the new website. I spent Tuesday laying out and designing how each page on the website would function and how people would move through the site. Once I got my supervisor’s approval, I moved into writing the sections that would go on these main pages. I spent the remainder of the week working on these drafts and going through a collaborative editing process with my supervisor.

The really interesting aspect of this work, to me, was the interactions I had with my supervisor. Casey is a smart and well-established CEO. We share a lot of similarities and we have a very effective form of communication that allows us to be highly creative and collaborative, especially when it came to drafting the website. However, Bionica’s potential market and consumer base are split into two categories: researchers and ordinary consumers. Researchers would be other scientists who want to use Bionica’s technology to assist their own study or experiment. Consumers are everyday people who might be looking for a new piece of technology or interested in how Bionica’s technology could integrate into their own lives.

Writing for researchers is a lot more tricky than I  had originally thought. Instead of my very casual or conversational writing style, I was writing for an audience of smart and highly driven people that knew the meaning behind the large scientific terms that I had been using. This is where Casey came in.

I know how to write for a regular consumer audience. Don’t use complicated words and keep everything simple. Casey knows how to write for our other market. By pitching new copy and going through it alongside Casey, I was able to write for both audiences and finish my assignments for the week.