3.01.2009

Professional Overview

I am a strategic writer and strategist who is equally comfortable developing a distinctive brand voice, articulating a vision, writing a white paper, finding the right name for the right thing, or creating some impossibly succinct tagline.

• Extensive experience as senior copy writer and namer—web, print, ads, white papers, decks, speeches
• Extensive experience as brand strategist and for breadth of companies
• Award-winning Information Architect (Comm Arts, ID, ASCI, among others)
• Founder of ArtandCulture.com and 10Plums.com—a social network and social media app, respectively
• PhD in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley

Experience

Writer, Namer, Brand Strategist
Self-Employed, 1998-present

I interview stakeholders, develop a brand position, delineate the goals and rhetorical milieu, and then write what needs to be written.

• Johnson&Johnson/Neosporin: Wrote and co-developed future growth vision
• Odopod: Worked with agency to develop brand and create name for client
• Universal McCann: Developed position and copy for relaunch of corporate site
• Organic: Wrote brand position book aimed for mass audience distribution
• VideoEgg: Developed position, tagline, and copy for relaunch of brochureware
• Salt Branding: Created names for a range of clients and products
• Dialhouse: Wrote presentation to explain a Fortune 500 company’s brand semantic usage
• Catalina Marketing: Developed sales materials for world’s largest targeted marketing firm
• Clorox: Created names and brand concepts for proprietary product

Founder
10Plums.com LLC, September 2008-February 2009
10plums.com

• Conceived concept, developed architecture, and oversaw production of web 2.0 social utility application

Founder, Chief Product Officer
ArtandCulture.com, August 2006-September 2008

• Conceived and raised seed round for arts based online social network. Conceived all functionality; wrote functional specification documents and wireframes; wrote positioning papers

In-House Writing Coach + Knowledge Sharing Officer
Stone Yamashita Partners, 2003-2005

• Performed audit of everyone's writing; developed specific strategies for each person. Created and wrote the agency's first knowledge sharing tool set

Director of Writing and Research
Progrexion (now Cicero Group), January 2001-2003; 2005-2007

• Created brand strategy, copy, and concepts for diverse client base, including Applied Underwriters (workers' comp bundled with financial services); DIRECTVDSL; Centex Homes; Covad; Lexington Law

Adjunct Professor
UC Berkeley, 2001-2008; San Francisco Art Institute, 2002-2006

• Taught composition, argument, and critical thinking to undergraduates. Taught introductory lecture and upper division electives in critical theory

Manager of User Experience
Answerthink Consulting Group, 2000-2001

• Created site flow, site maps, wire frames, page maps, and functional specifications for clients, including: Catalina Marketing; an educational science site/CD ROM aimed at kids for Dow Chemical; an interactive web site developed around Levi's Re-Engineered Jeans

Managing Editor
ArtandCulture.com, 1998-2000

• Oversaw production from seed idea to full implementation of multiple award-winning web site: Communication Arts Award for Info Design, ID's Silver Medal for Interactive Design, SXSW's Best Online Cultural Experience and Best of Show, Art Director's Award, among others

Education + Personal Interests

Education
• PhD, Rhetoric, University of California, Berkeley, December 1998

• MA, Rhetoric, University of California, Berkeley, Fall 1994

• BA, History & Literature, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, Spring 1991. Cum Laude. Honors


Personal Information + Interests
My passion is philosophy, particularly 20th and 21st century French and German philosophy. But my focus is usually the pleasure of deploying these philosophies in interpreting particular objects—art, film, books, martini glasses. For the past several years, I’ve written widely on contemporary art, film, and new media, contributing essays to the Tate Museum as well as to numerous art magazines and gallery catalogs. I recently wrote an article on the different things I’ve learned from eating Uni (as in the sushi, raw sea urchin gonads—yum!).