CropLife / IRAC · c. 2000–present
Specialist knowledge, made useful.
A long-running relationship spanning scientific databases, mobile applications, publishing tools and the work of distributed contributors.
Different information needed different structures.
IRAC and the wider CropLife network publish specialist scientific guidance. Early work helped move information from printed material and conference posters into websites. Over time, the relationship expanded into databases, applications and publishing systems.
The scientific expertise belongs to the committees. My responsibility has been to understand how the information needs to be organised, maintained and accessed, and to design and build the digital systems around it.
- Detection Methods
CropLife’s Detection Methods work began as an undeveloped concept for a web-based database. I helped the team turn it into a working tool, accommodating changes and complications during implementation.
This required both an information structure and an interface that made specialist methods searchable.
- IRAC applications
The Mode of Action applications put scientific classifications into a different form of reference. Later work brought related classifications together across insecticide, fungicide and herbicide guidance.
The design and development work connected the underlying structured information with the ways it could be accessed on web and mobile.
- Publishing tools
Making information available also meant considering the people maintaining it. Content-managed systems enabled contributors to update material, while later work explored how distributed working groups could coordinate and communicate their activity.
Deciding what was worth doing next.
As the digital estate grew, navigation, duplication and competing requests became harder to consider separately. I worked with the coordinator and committee stakeholders to identify opportunities and turn them into costed proposals.
Those discussions included benefits, drawbacks, budgets and implications for future development. The useful contribution was often making the options clear enough to choose between, as well as delivering the agreed work.
“He took an undeveloped concept for a web-based database and guided our team through to implementation, accommodating numerous changes and complications.”
Continuity that supports useful change.
The relationship has lasted roughly 25 years and generated further commissions across the network. It gives me a long view of the products and the organisation around them: what people use, how information is maintained, and what can realistically be supported.
It is also a practical counterpart to my enterprise work. I have continued to take responsibility for designing and building the systems, maintaining them and adapting them as needs change.
Sources and scope
This account draws on my IRAC/CropLife experience synthesis. The recommendation is an exact excerpt from Laura Tagliani’s supplied recommendation about the Detection Methods database.
The page describes delivered digital work and a sustained working relationship. It does not attribute changes in scientific practice or agricultural outcomes to the digital products.