Kangadillo is NOT your typical digital marketing agency.
In November of 2014 the paths of Scott Vann and Sha Menz crossed for the first time at State of Search in Dallas, TX. Sha was representing her company rmoov as a sponsor, and Scott was working the event as a board member of annual host, DFWSEM. It was not much more than a “Hi, my name is…” conversation as they were both very busy those two days, but it was the genesis of a very unique relationship.
Sha returned to her home on Kangaroo Island in Australia and soon found Scott on Facebook to suggest a copy edit on the DFWSEM web site. On November 27 the first Facebook private message was exchanged. Since then it’s been a non-stop multi-channel conversation including:
- Facebook private messages
- Tweets
- Twitter direct messages
- Text messages
- Facetime
- Skype
- Google Hangouts
- Phone calls
Not to mention a few face to face meetings along the way.
During this time Scott and Sha have had the opportunity to collaborate on a few projects and it has been amazing how well they work together, and how much they think alike. Much like twins often finish each other’s sentences, or have the same idea at the same time, frequently Scott & Sha are doing the same. In this case two really is better than one.
In January of 2016 it became clear they needed to partner together and offer their services to clients who appreciate the level of detail, breadth of knowledge, and pursuit of excellence Scott and Sha provide when they work together. Thus the birth of Kangadillo.
Why Kangadillo? It’s an amalgamation of the the words kangaroo and armadillo. Since Sha lives on Kangaroo Island, where ‘roos roam the countryside, and Scott lives in Texas, where armadillos are so prevalent you often see them as roadkill, the name seems appropriate. A perfect name to represent the unique pairing of two people who live in opposite hemispheres, on opposite sides of the world, joining together in a way that can only be described by creating a brand new word.
Scott Vann
Scott has been helping organizations use technology since the early 80s when the private high school he attended had someone donate a Radio Shack TRS-80 computer but no one on staff knew how to set it up. Scott volunteered to take on the project. Soon teachers were inputting grades online and report cards were rolling noisily out of a dot matrix printer.
Scott went to work for Texas Instruments straight out of high school and landed in a department full of engineers who were used to working on a mainframe type system and only just starting to get their first PCs. He became the go-to guy, knowing how to make the system that priced their development projects spit out the right information. In those days this meant you had to enter information, wait for the mainframe to process, then wait for the report to be printed. One mistake and you started the whole process over again.
After leaving TI Scott worked for the first company in Dallas that sold software in a retail store, back when you actually had to buy packaged software to make your computer run! He ran the company distribution center, shipping product around the country, and immediately began to automate the process. Before UPS had a website, Scott was getting a data feed from them every night and processing the information. When customers called to say they hadn’t received a package the customer service department could quickly look up the information and give them an answer – “The package was signed for by Jane on the dock at 10:52 yesterday.” Yup. That was the beginning of parcel tracking. Where would we be without it?
As a licensed Texas real estate broker Scott has constantly been on the cutting edge of technology to service his clients. Whether building his own WordPress website from scratch, integrating an IDX feed so his clients could search for property online, or sending and receiving documents with electronic signatures, if things can be made easier and better with technology, Scott will be among the first to make it work for his clients.
As President of the Dallas/Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association he led the charge to get a new membership and event portal built, enhance email, social, and website communication, and accept online payments. With a keen eye for usability and an innate ability to understand the needs of all stakeholders, Scott has been proud to lead an energized and forward-thinking Board as the organization moves forward with plans for improved meetings, greater member participation, and an annual conference event that will far exceed even the successes of previous years.
Technology is constantly changing, and Scott is evolving with it. Whether you need someone to manage your social media campaigns, launch a new website, or create some solid content Scott is ready to put his years of experience to work for you and his desire to grow will help keep your company moving forward.
Sha Menz
With the arrival of the very first Apple 11 at her high school in 1979, Sha became an instant Apple devotee. Before long she had become an unofficial Apple tech for those who simply couldn’t resist the lure of the Apple craze.
Sha moved to Adelaide to attend the South Australian Institute of Technology after high school. Returning to Kangaroo Island, she cut her teeth in event management by organizing the “World’s Biggest Pie Fight”, a successful attempt to outdo the official world record as part of a massive fundraising Gala Day for her local school alma mater. She would later be at the helm of the SA Variety Bash visit to Kangaroo Island, several Kangaroo Island Produce Fairs, KI Cup Carnival Street Parties, Regional Development conferences and a formal dinner for 430 guests in a giant tent by the sea.
Sha soon went to work as a junior reporter for the local newspaper, and within three years was offered the Managing Editor’s position. Being a small regional paper, the promotion brought with it a range of other responsibilities: Photographer, Advertising Sales Manager, Paste-up and layout artist among them. Before long Sha was back at the helm of her beloved Mac, pulling together page layouts on the desktop, as she oversaw software improvements that would reduce the weekly process of typesetting, trimming and hand-piecing paste-ups from five days to three.
When the demands of a 24 hour-a-day, always on-call journalist/photographer took their toll, Sha went to work for the Kangaroo Island Development Board. It’s fair to say she may not have seen her next brush with technology coming. This was her first taste of internet technology. Again the impromptu tech person, in the thick of resolving connection issues for the organization and its Board members, as email became central to doing business. With the arrival of a new Board CEO in 1995, came an audacious joint venture project which saw Kangaroo Island establish its own ISP. Soon Sha discovered her responsibilities had expanded. Of course the Development Board must have its own website, and with no budget allocation available, Sha was handed the job of getting a site developed. A trip to Adelaide to research HTML at the public library dispelled any reservations she might have had, and within weeks her first website project was launched.
Soon local tourist operators were asking Sha to build web sites for them in her spare time. By the year 2000 demand for her graphic design, desktop publishing and web development skills had grown to the point where she decided it was time to launch her own business. A brand new PowerMac G4 and huge FujiXerox four color printer copier driven by a separate NT Server became the engine room of her business, allowing her to provide complete marketing solutions.
As Sha’s business expanded, more complex web development projects saw local accommodation providers taking online bookings and showcasing their offerings to the world. This was when Sha discovered a fascination for SEO — long before she knew there was a name for it. Being found in an Alta Vista search was key in those days, and every spare hour was spent learning how to make that happen. Recognizing the value of an authoritative web property even in those early days, Sha built her own Kangaroo Island Web Directory and opened it up for other island businesses to list. Very soon her Kingscote office was a constant hive of activity as she invested in an internet kiosk and became Kangaroo Island’s first public Wi-Fi provider.
After ten years in small business, Sha was ready to forego seventeen hour days and impossible printing deadlines. After two years combining part-time copy writing, editing and SEO for a US web development company with her own business, she gladly accepted the offer to move to full-time in 2010.
Regular search engine optimization duties took a back seat to penalty recovery when Sha conceptualized the rmoov tool within days of the arrival of Google’s Penguin algorithm in April 2012. Her work as a Penalty Recovery Specialist has more recently seen her running full-service link removal campaigns for clients, but she loves nothing more than using her abilities as a marketer to create projects that touch people personally.
As a team, Scott and Sha are pretty formidable. Their creative energy and openness to possibility are boundless. Combine this with a healthy dose of practicality and a desire to partner with individuals and companies with that “special something”, Scott and Sha love doing business the Kangadillo way.