CIO Bulletin

An award-winning agency and consultancy transforming businesses by designing technology for people: Mindgrub Technologies

Competition between businesses has increased like never before. Gaining a competitive edge has become more challenging than ever. A custom solution may help you. It is essential to be different in the way you market your business. Finding ways to outsmart your competitor and having the custom solutions your business needs will make you different from others. Gaining a competitive edge is crucial for businesses today because there have been similar types. Everyone is marketing its products and services online. Being different has become more difficult. Mindgrub is an award-winning technology innovation agency that creates custom mobile, web, and digital marketing solutions for a variety of clients to bring their brands to digital. Mindgrub Technologies also leverages emerging technologies, such as virtual and augmented reality, robotics, wearable tech, and mobile gaming, to solve tough client challenges.

Providing utility customers with an engaging, accessible mobile app experience

Entergy Corporation is an integrated energy company engaged in electric power production, transmission and retail distribution operations. Entergy delivers electricity to 3 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy owns and operates one of the cleanest large-scale U.S. power generating fleets with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, including 8,000 megawatts of nuclear power. As customer expectations evolve and disruption within the industry accelerates, Entergy wanted to provide its customers with a mobile app solution that would scale to meet changing demands. Mindgrub designed, developed and delivered a native iOS and Android application, enhancing the customer experience. Entergy is building the premier utility and is continuously striving to create a more sustainable future for their customers, communities and world. With the belief that all companies should be good corporate citizens, Entergy continues to be a leader in economic growth, environmental sustainability, and social responsibility throughout its service territory. Therefore, it was important to Entergy that its mobile app meets the needs of their diverse customer segments. The app needed to offer tooltips and make it easier for customers to pay bills, report outages, interact with the outage map, and more. As part of Mindgrub’s “Sprint 0” discovery process, the company conducted a comprehensive review of all branding materials and competitors’ applications, and performed an API audit and technical assessment. Mindgrub used information gathered from 150 ethnographic interviews conducted by Entergy’s market research group to better understand their unique customer base and establish the necessary functional requirements to meet and exceed customer expectations. To identify all possible user types, Mindgrub defined and documented user personas and user stories. Once the company finalized the layout of the app screens, workflows, and functionality, Mindgrub used Entergy’s branding guidelines and style guide to design each element of the app.

Protecting the world from the dark web with a robust security platform

As the leader in dark web monitoring, security training, and process management, ID Agent provides cybersecurity solutions to private and public sector entities across the world. Dark Web ID is ID Agent’s flagship product that delivers validated intelligence to identify, analyze, and monitor compromised or stolen employee and customer data. To uphold their mission of delivering people-centric security solutions, ID Agent contracted with Mindgrub to improve Dark Web’s user experience and visual design, scale its infrastructure and capabilities, and create data visualization dashboards to advance its suite of monitoring functionality through two distinct project phases. Research shows over half of companies have more than 1,000 sensitive files open to every employee. It’s no wonder that 68% of business leaders feel their cybersecurity risks are increasing. To meet this critical need, ID Agent sought to improve its secure, robust Dark Web ID platform that proactively monitors compromised password threats to an organization. Mindgrub was involved with Dark Web ID during two critical project phases (1.0 and 2.0). From the start, the information architecture, navigation, and user experience of the existing digital application dashboard were enhanced with responsive design to ensure a smooth user experience. New dashboard features were implemented, including automated support forums and improved filtering and sorting abilities. Interactive graphs and PDF/CSV reports were added, making it easier for users to sort through, visualize, and understand their data. This data visualization simplifies the steps needed to take appropriate action against security threats. All of Dark Web ID’s existing clients were migrated to the new platform.

Meet the leader behind the success of Mindgrub Technologies

Todd Marks, a 40 under 40 and 2x EY Entrepreneur of the Year Nominee, is the teacher-turned-technologist Founder of Mindgrub Technologies. Mindgrub, voted CRTC's Tech Company of the Year and placing #520 on the Inc 500/5000, is a mobile, social and web app consultancy, working with companies and organizations in a variety of industries to bring their brand to digital. Marks maintains status as Chief-Everything-Officer for the company. He leads information architects, user experience specialists, creative interface designers, and top-notch developers to solve business and consumer challenges in application development and rapid prototyping. Marks founded Mindgrub in 2002 and has developed enterprise systems for a wide range of clients such as Exelon, Under Armour, Royal Farms, Wendy's, DELL, Adobe, Motorola, The Economist, and Discovery Communications; Federal Agencies such as the FBI, NSA, VOA and the US Navy; and several education organizations such as MSDE, Wrox Press, and O’Reilly Media.