Michael Lazzaro
Founder
Chief Software Engineer

Michael Lazzaro has been working in the World Wide Web and e-commerce software since the dawn of this fast-growing area. His problem-solving skills, melding a strong sense of practical customer and business needs with an equally strong grasp of the enabling technology, make him an unusually gifted Internet developer.

As one of the founding members of Presence Information Design (one of the first commercial web design companies), Mr. Lazzaro was responsible for the design and construction of Presence's proprietary server-side products enabling e-commerce, shopping carts, "session-based" connections, user registration, bulletin boards, and other technologies.

Presence differentiated itself through sophisticated technology design, specializing in highly dynamic, data-driven, customizable sites. At Presence, Mr. Lazzaro created the underlying technology for websites for clients such as Pacific Bell, Home Savings of America, Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Silver Pictures (Tales From The Crypt), Trader Joe's, and Hot Hot Hot, one of the first e-commerce web sites (.net Magazine's 'Site of the Month' in the Premiere Issue, 1994). Mr. Lazzaro also assisted in the authoring of proposals and contracts between Presence and its customers, including technology specifications and proposed interface designs, and often produced design analyses of preexisting websites for Presence clients.

While at Presence, Mr. Lazzaro served as a key architect in the development, technical design, and construction of Pacific Bell At Hand (now SBC SMARTpages), one of the first 'Yellow Pages' sites on the Internet. The site coupled "yellow pages" style merchant directories with reviews and other consumer-oriented content. Mr. Lazzaro served as a consultant in the initial planning stages of the project, helping to define the product goals and strategies and detailing necessary technical considerations and solutions; created the architecture for serving the site's highly dynamic, high-traffic pages; and supervised the construction of the site using that architecture.

After leaving Presence, Mr. Lazzaro assumed a principal role in the ongoing development of the SMARTpages site. As a technical consultant, Mr. Lazzaro continued to assist in the analysis, design, and construction of new site features, assisted in the training and technical supervision of website programmers, and frequently acted as a liaison between technical and non-technical staff members. Among the projects produced during this period were the conversion of the site from a California-only to a nationwide merchant directory service; more robust search and display capabilities; user-customizable Address Books; integrated maps and driving directions for yellow pages listings; and numerous individual, database-driven consumer features.

In 1999, Mr. Lazzaro became Chief Software Engineer at learning.net, designing and developing its KIRA learning engine to serve the LMS and CMS needs of a variety of continuing education and corporate training clients, including CCH, the California Association of Realtors, and Deloitte & Touche.

Mr. Lazzaro brings to Cognitivity extensive knowledge and experience with server-side page compilation, dynamic page content, database integration, and legacy and third-party systems integration for large, high-traffic websites; with automated, large-scale page construction & maintenance tools; and with advanced web server management, load balancing, and distributed systems. As a principal designer and architect of numerous and varied websites for a wide variety of clients and objectives, Mr. Lazzaro also brings a strong understanding of e-commerce consumer expectations and attitudes towards a variety of web design styles and strategies.

Elaine Lindelef
Founder
Operations Manager

Elaine Lindelef has amassed considerable experience managing software and technology projects, successfully building teams and guiding them to complete innovative products under tight budgetary and schedule constraints. Ms. Lindelef's strong engineering and overall technical skills allow her to effectively direct complex technology-based tasks, and to guide technical decisions based on personal knowledge of and experience with the technologies and issues presented.

After graduating from the California Institute of Technology in Engineering & Applied Science, Ms. Lindelef began her career working as a staff engineer on NASA's Mars Observer Camera, a next-generation lightweight low-cost orbital digital camera, which was launched in November 1992 aboard NASA's Mars Observer and in November 1996 aboard NASA's Mars Global Surveyor. As part of Altadena Instruments, an engineering firm with an active consulting relationship with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, as well as other leading-edge clients, Ms. Lindelef developed innovative packaging and structural designs for a variety of small, light, and sophisticated prototype instruments both for NASA and commercial applications.

When the World Wide Web emerged as an potentially important technology in 1994, Ms. Lindelef helped found Presence Information Design, one of the first companies to provide consulting and product-based services for Web applications. Ms. Lindelef actively managed the design and production of technologies to allow complex, dynamic website development, including one of the first programming applications specifically designed for website production, as well as the production of websites for numerous clients using those developed technologies, and developed and supervised new project managers to serve an expanding client base.

Among the projects managed by Ms. Lindelef at Presence was the technical design and construction of Pacific Bell's At Hand, a California-wide online yellow pages that included a large and rapidly changing base of editorial content. This site later became SBC SMARTpages.

Ms. Lindelef then moved to a consulting position within SMARTpages, where she developed new feature ideas and managed them through implementation, as well as doing significant technical work refining the site database and search engine. Major projects at this time included the expansion of SMARTpages from a California-only to a nationwide yellow pages, substantial refining of the site databases and search engines, and ongoing refinement of the processes by which both the yellow pages data and the editorial features of the site were continuously updated.

Attracted by the emerging need for internet-based training, she assumed a key role at learning.net. Ms. Lindelef managed all IT operations, where she designed and oversaw development of a custom learning engine designed to enable subject matter experts to easily create and manage professional continuing education courses without programming knowledge.

Ms. Lindelef brings to Cognitivity substantial technical knowledge combined with strong project management skills, enabling Cognitivity to customize its product affordably and quickly to meet client training needs.

Jennifer Borja
Content Development Specialist

Ms. Borja has extensive experience in the design and construction of e-learning and other online content. Ms. Borja's strong authoring and editing skills, excellent knowledge of e-learning design methods and the technologies that drive those methods have been key to the successful completion of many large web-based projects. She has designed, authored, illustrated, and implemented several large online content initiatives covering subjects as diverse as accounting and tax practices, real estate, medical practices, and internet technology.

Before joining Cognitivity, Ms. Borja worked as Manager of Content Production at learning.net. Under her direction, the internal production staff produced several hundred course hours of content for various clients, including Deloitte & Touche, CCH, the California Association of Realtors, Hall Kinion, and HireRight, and assisted in the automated conversion of several hundred ElementK courses into the learning.net proprietary system. Ms. Borja was also the primary designer for learning.net's content authoring product. Previously, Ms. Borja was a member of the original content development team for Pacific Bell's At Hand website (now known as SBC SMARTpages), a site designed to merge "yellow pages" style merchant listings with custom and licensed content providing information about those businesses. Ms. Borja was instrumental in the design and production of tightly integrated content from Zagat Surveys, Access Travel Guides, the HomeFinder real estate search service, MapQuest maps, and other sources.

Ms. Borja has a degree in Journalism from the University of Southern California (USC).