Innovation
Culture
Brand
Innovation
My career started in Creative Development at Sesame Workshop where I was excited to learn the creative process from some of the best. On my second day, I was sent to meet with Sesame’s head of Research and Development. The meeting changed my life. “Who was your favorite character growing up?” she started. I told her it was Grover and she proceeded to tell me how many siblings I had, my favorite subjects in school, whether I liked team or individual sports, and how adventurous I was with new opportunities. Everything she said was spot on. I sat with my mouth agape, “that’s the power of research” she said. This was my first taste of innovation--the powerful outputs of research, understanding, and creativity. I was immediately hooked.
Since that first exposure, I’ve seen the word “innovation” evolve from a budding business philosophy to a hot buzzword, and now just another tired noun on the corporate jargon scrap heap. But a new idea or not, I believe innovation should be essential to every organization because it keeps the focus squarely on humans and their needs. Throughout my career, I’ve designed for employees, customers, end-users, fascinating communities, and yes, 3-5-year-old Sesame Street fans. Working with people and for people is my favorite part of what I do. And the best part of it is opening the eyes of an organization to the power, emotion, and potential of solving for humans. Along the way, I have developed toolkits to help organizations solve their biggest problems and founded innovation teams for rabble-rousing creative consultancies, hot tech startups, and even 160,000-employee multinational conglomerates. Those teams have developed industry-leading new digital products, redesigned breakthrough service offerings, and worked with clients to cultivate their own capabilities to think progressively and adventurously about their humans, and in turn, their business.
For more information on my innovation work, my best experiences, or the difference between puppets and muppets, shoot me a note and we’ll chat.
Culture
As psychedelic drug treatments begin to sprout up more in traditional medicine, so too does the term “set and setting”. The mindset of the participant and the setting for their experience are the two most important factors in the outcome of their treatment. By providing the confidence to explore, make mistakes, be vulnerable, emote, and feel, facilitators empower patients with the mindset for a profound trip. And holding a safe, stimulating, comfortable space creates a setting that puts the participant at ease, and therefore opens them up to push their own limits. The way I see it, these same elements should be deployed in the surreal world of corporate culture.
With remote employees, complex partnership teams, dozens of communication channels, and global workforces, it has never felt harder to create a cohesive set and setting for employees. But with the right ingredients, the opportunity for dynamic culture quickly outpaces the complexity. Through building new behaviors and establishing exciting new ways of collaborating and interacting, I’ve helped presidential campaigns, branding agencies, digital fitness companies, and multinational tech companies transform the way they work.
In-person and virtually, I’ve worked with diverse teams and organizations to create healthy, interactive, exploratory, human cultures for real engagement and experimentation. If transcending your current corporate reality to reach a higher plane of engagement sounds good, holler at me and we’ll meditate on how to build culture together.
Brand
There’s a whole tie-wearing serious science to branding, but I’ve found that there are really just two necessities for creating a great brand: deeply understanding the organization, and expressing that inherent character in ways that resonates with real people. Because a brand is just personality. That’s it. And the best ones aren’t trying to be anything but themselves. They’re authentic. Often times brand is considered storytelling, but I think the dynamic is different, it’s an ongoing conversation with customers and community. The best brands speak to people like the smart, multidimensional, and fun but still also really discerning folks that they are. And, most importantly, they listen.
This human approach to thinking about brand came from my beloved grandma, Betty. Whether it was work stress, romantic anxieties or pretty much anything else that was troubling you, my grandma would tell you the same thing, “you’re fabulous, so just be yourself.” She saw you as the best version of yourself and helped you, and the world, see you that way too. You had wonderful heart and personality and what more did you need? She loved getting to know you and then telling the world all about why you’re so fabulous. What more should a brand strategist be striving to do?
Over the years I’ve created full brand suites for contemporary art museums, leading Pokemon card influencers, burgeoning CBD oil producers, cutting-edge theater groups, massive consulting firms, and B2B customer service solutions. Some organizations needed more of the science and structure on their branding journey, while others had breakthroughs chatting over a few scoops of luxury ice cream. Whatever your organization’s style, just like my wonderful grandmother would do, I’d love to get to know you and then help tell the world all about why you’re so fabulous.
About
I am a storyteller and creative who has 15 years experience in building snappy brands, innovation groups, and badass culture. Today I’m working with a nonprofit called Project:Camp which pops up day camps for children in disaster zones. I’m working to redesign their campsites from a human perspective and rework their brand to better encapsulate who they are. I’m always learning and developing, and tweaking my process and practice along the way to make things more effective.
Like all humans, though, there is more to me than my work. I am also a certified sound meditation practitioner, a beekeeper, and a new dad.
I am most interested in the things that inspire the masses; arts and culture, sports and athletics, travel, and engaging media. I like a mid-summer baseball game, an argument about modern art, and a solid tropical bar. But my absolute favorite thing is groups of smart people who value creating smart work and taking interest in the world. I’m always looking to work with groups of people who inspire that are making things that thrill me, and others. If you’re this far into my site, my guess is that you fit into at least one of those categories. So shoot me a note and we can meet at a place where we can drink out of a coconut and talk about how we can work together.
Cheers!