Services & Stories
I started out as a storyteller, working on small fiction and nonfiction films, mostly in post production roles. Here I developed a taste for collecting, compiling, and arranging visual moments that evoke an emotional response and convey nuanced information to audiences. To make ends meet in that lean industry I worked in social service roles for some of the most vulnerable people who rely on these resources. Here I discovered two things about myself and how I wanted to work. Real people are more important than the stories we tell about them, and when services fail to deliver it’s because they’re poorly designed.
Apps & Innovation
I pivoted from producing time based media to mobile apps at the birth of the smartphone and tablet era. As a producer I managed dev and art deliverables for mobile games across multiple partnering startups in Silicon Valley. Here I learned everything it takes to bring a product to market including managing software development, defining experience design features, usability testing, PR & marketing, executive and investor relationship management, and the struggles of turning an MVP into a replicable product pipeline. Here I discovered two more things about myself and how I wanted to work. Innovating for entertainment purposes is less interesting than innovating for more serious human issues. I wanted to develop a strong foundation for my career so I could apply innovation to these serious challenges.
I spent the next five years completing two masters degrees, the first in media studies. Here I focuses on participatory platforms for civic engagement and social innovation. Outside of my coursework I worked on digital products in operations and content roles.
Social Innovation & Digital Media
The academic setting afforded me the opportunity to work on projects that were sustained by grants rather than profit, which provided a new set of constraints and strategic objectives.
Through my coursework I built up my qualitative research chops under the guidance of experts in applied methods from science and technology studies, social movements, building on top of my undergraduate work in visual ethnography, and historical archaeology.
Strategic Design, Service Design & Speculative Design
Just before wrapping up my media studies degree I was pulled into a meeting with Jamer Hunt, and introduced to him as someone who should be working under his guidance. I took a major leap of faith and applied to his MFA at Parsons, which was, and is, the best decision of my professional life. I reframed my practice as one of transforming the current state into a preferred future state.