Tim Shores

Work History

Detailed experience across technical communication, knowledge architecture, data, operations, policy research, and community work.

Technical Education Content Developer

Cisco | May 2024 - Present

  • Content strategy lead for Cisco Secure Access, working in close collaboration with product, engineering, UX, and CX teams. Architected end-to-end content strategy for Secure Access, launched a new documentation set for SASE Management, and drove quality and accuracy improvements to IPsec tunnels documentation. Domain range spans SSE/SASE, IPsec tunneling, SSO, and AI assistant integration with SaaS products.
  • Member of the Content Modeling workstream on Cisco's AI-Native Content Strategy initiative — a cross-organizational tiger team restructuring Cisco's entire documentation corpus, past and future, into a graphRAG-structured, AI-native content system. Delivered hands-on content modeling and context engineering work for a PRD, designing structures that enable AI reasoning and dynamic, persona-driven content experiences. The broader initiative spans AI-assisted authoring, intent-driven content retrieval and governance, and continuous quality improvement.
  • Developing information architecture expertise as a formal IA mentee and applying it to AI-ready content structures across the Secure Access product line. Led collaborative context engineering work supporting AI tooling adoption and culture change across technical communications, including enterprise CMS metadata and content/data analysis for migration prep. Earlier work includes researching and writing documentation for the Cisco Assistant LLM feature and co-developing a hackathon proof-of-concept for LLM-generated, identity-based technical content.

Technical Communications Specialist

Cisco | February 2022 - May 2024

  • Customer communications lead and data-informed content researcher for Cisco Duo on the Security Documentation team. Planned and wrote communications connecting cybersecurity product customers with what they needed to know about product changes, vulnerabilities, and required actions. Wrote release notes each sprint and coordinated customer communication impact studies with Product and Data Science teams.
  • Worked to extend the Duo communications model to other Cisco Security products. Facilitated discussions with SMEs across design, engineering, and product management, and contributed to content performance analysis and process improvement for the team's publishing operations.
  • Mentored early-career coworkers and students.

Researcher

Town Common Research | January 2022 - August 2023

  • Community-based participatory research for towns and community organizations in Western Massachusetts. Collected and reported data for Age-Friendly needs assessments and supported equity and justice initiatives, helping local organizers build evidence-based knowledge for community-driven decision-making.

Forest Policy Campaign Researcher

Partnership for Policy Integrity | October 2019 - January 2023

  • Working to defend forests.
  • Researched and wrote in support of the Forest Defenders Alliance campaign to remove forest biomass from the European Union Renewable Energy Directive and end the counting of wood burning toward emissions reduction targets. Managed the campaign website and participated in outreach.
  • Built a database of Members of European Parliament tracking party and committee memberships and voting patterns on forests and environmental policy, supporting campaign monitoring and targeted outreach.
  • forestdefenders.eu

Director of Data & Donor Experience

Hope for Haiti | August 2019 - February 2022

  • Managed revenue data, grant writing, grant pipeline, and donor services for a nonprofit working to improve quality of life for the Haitian people, particularly children. Designed program concepts for Haitian farmer support initiatives and wrote funding proposals to sustain them. Helped coordinate galas and fundraising events.
  • Led fundraising response through an extraordinary sequence of crises: COVID-19, civil unrest, the assassination of President Moïse, and the August 2021 earthquake.

Platform Analyst

VentureWell | November 2016 - August 2019

  • Salesforce platform lead for a nonprofit cultivating early-stage STEM ventures.
  • First responder for development planning and implementation, second-tier resource for user support and training. Designed and built solutions supporting grants management, impact evaluation, program monitoring, digital marketing, and relationship management across funders, investors, and program participants.
  • Worked across Salesforce Community, Pardot, Service Cloud, Process Builder and Flow, Apex, Lightning Web Components, and Nonprofit Success Pack, integrated with NetSuite via SOAP API and supported by tools including Form Assembly, Conga Composer, and RStudio.

Program Lead, Tech, Innovation, & Coalition Development

Not1More | August 2015 - August 2019

  • Technology and coalition development for a global environmental justice organization supporting frontline forest defenders facing violence and reprisals.
  • Designed and deployed technology solutions for researchers and defenders in remote forest sites, including Forest Threat Sensor (peer-to-peer alerting and mapping for defenders encountering risk), TIRTL (rights violation documentation and reporting), and DefenderDirect (direct giving fundraising).
  • Managed CRM development, data collection design, web development, and digital marketing.
  • Built coalition relationships and wrote for fundraising and advocacy. Supported the Forest Defenders Conference, the "I am Chut Wutty" documentary campaign, the Bloodwood report on unauthorized rosewood plunder in Guinea-Bissau, and the Amazon Security Framework community of practice for defenders under threat in the Amazon.

IT Services Manager

Computer Courage | January 2013 - November 2014

  • Led a team of 5 to 7 technicians serving 150 small business customers at a Berkeley IT service provider and web developer. Personally closed 30 contracts through business goal analysis, clear proposals, and reliable service.
  • Collaborated with the President on business operations improvements including CRM implementation, project management templates, cost forecasting, service outcome evaluation, and KPI monitoring.

Production Manager and Senior Database Specialist

DOMICO Software | June 2006 - January 2013

  • Database software company specializing in the self-storage real estate subsector. Worked on a small team supporting finance and management clients through data migrations, software customization, QA, and feature development on SQL Server.
  • Reduced support call volume 20% and improved resolution time 40% by mentoring technicians, constructing and managing a knowledge base, and driving process improvement and automation for QA and ETL workflows.

Helpdesk Technician

Borders Group Inc | January 1999 - September 2000

  • Remote support for Windows NT and OS/2 systems across Borders and Waldenbooks stores, connected by VSAT. Supported email, inventory, and point-of-sale applications.