At sixteen, I worked at Rodale as one of its youngest editorial interns.
Rodale is a global publishing company that publishes recognized magazines like Runner’s World, Women's Health, Men’s Health and Prevention.
During my time with Rodale, I persisted in gaining editorial experience, learning my first industry skills in production, fact-checking, interviewing, news clip compiling, subscriber mailings, and maintaining an online presence during content's digital coming-of-age.
During the 2008 campaign cycle, I started a local Students for Obama chapter with several classmates, working with area offices on get out the vote (GOTV) campaigns, fundraising efforts, rallies and first-time voter registration.
I wrote campaign collateral and educational literature targeted to my locality, as well as designed an distributed event notifications, and led meetings. It was an invaluable introduction to grassroots campaigning efforts, and the power of written messaging in political environments.
I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Social Psychology from Emory University.
While in school, I worked full time to produce projects like TEDx, Spotlight Emory, and the Online News Association. I was also a staff member at The Wheel.
After turning down an offer to study product launch development for a Master of Arts at Georgetown University — due to the enormous debt burden it would cause — I decided to jump headfirst into the kind of work that I live for.
To me, education is a lifelong pursuit that enhances our natural talents, and empowers our curiosity. I am currently dabbling in courses at MIT, Yale, and UT-Austin as part of EdX.
In addition to brainstorming fresh new ideas and launching the inaugural TEDx event on the Emory University campus, I coordinated with a team of fellow undergraduates to produce ideas worth spreading.
To say that this project was "my baby" during my time at Emory is an understatement. This project shed light on what it means to work with a bootstrapped team, and to put in all waking hours not spent studying toward something of greater value to the community.
During my time with TED, I oversaw online social media and networking through TEDxEmory, formal invitations to leading experts, advertising through graphic prints, student speaker competitions, and Atlanta-area as well as Emory campus outreach to make this the largest TEDx event in the Southeast.
Dot Complicated, a community of women living out loud in the digital age, was founded by Randi Zuckerberg in late 2012. Dedicated to helping us "untangle our wired lives", the site opens up dialogues about issues we've never encountered before -- like how to unplug from the web, navigate online etiquette, and manage an online presence.
I recently contributed this article on money saving apps for smartphone shopping:
I played a behind-the-scenes production role in Internet Week 2010, preparing guests with background and interview Q&A. I helped coordinate a session on internet privacy and public culture, featuring Jeff Jarvis, new media critic and author of "What Would Google Do?".
Research topics I pulled included:
Contact me via email, or set up 30 minutes through the link below. I’l be in touch soon!
During my time in Washington, I worked with and on behalf of a team of dynamite lawyers who represented the International Criminal Court, (Guantanamo Bay) and Human Rights Watch, among others.
Through daily collaboration with our Section and Membership directors, my responsibilities included international membership and retention.
I also took the initiative to build a platform dubbed ABAi, short for ABA Interactive, a three-pronged blueprint for a more effective digital presence for the organization globally — the digital strategy combined streaming newswires for attorneys, in-depth diplomatic analysis, and the ability to exchange communication with other international attorneys.
During the end of my term at the organization, I presented my proposal to a team of leaders from across several sections, and set plans in motion to bring future Emory University students to the ABA.
Together, the ABA Section of International Law is comprised of 60+ regional and special interest committees, task forces, and professionals representing the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa, to promote the rule of law worldwide.
I worked in content strategy, copywriting, and business strategy while at Atlanta-based UX consultancy firm, Nine Labs. Nine Labs assists ambitious companies, startups and technology ventures seeking out more meaningful experiences for their customers. Most importantly, Nine Labs "finds out why". Why it works. Why it fails. Why it resonates. And yes — why it needs to be better.
I contributed B2B copy for the Nine Labs website, internal collateral, and Nine Labs clients, while also participating in UX and web development projects. My time at Nine Labs gave me a deeper, strategic understanding of the voice and tone necessary to reach large B2B and corporate clients, as well as the focus necessary to improve new websites and build big-brand ROI through content audits, production, and governance.
Related Projects: Atlanta Web Design Group, Web Afternoon
Event announcement, newsletters, and coordination.
During my time at Nine Labs, I wrote all copy and produced each event with the Atlanta Web Design Group, a monthly meetup for 3,000+ web practitioners, from developers to designers. This position allowed me to brush shoulders with our city's most talented creative and strategic minds, while also honing my conference copywriting.
While producing copy for AWDG, I wrote for Dan Mall (Big Spaceship), Kyle Steed (Over, etc.), Josh Netherington (MailChimp, Mandrill), Brad Frost, and Marty Ringlein (Twitter, White House).
An incredible opportunity to serve an incredible community of passionate Atlantans who love the web. My copy strengths grew thanks to the opportunity, too, as my writing was built to excite, engage, and bring energy to every AWDG event.
Web Afternoon is a conference for people who love the web. Born in Atlanta, the event is a no-frills experience for the people who make, develop, design, and serve our Internet in all its glory, created to inspire greater acts of community, curiosity and engagement with short talks given by those with abnormal ambition. Since its debut in 2010, Web Afternoon has traveled to Charlotte, and is soon expected to land in Austin, Boston, and Charleston.
I was one of Web Afternoon's earliest team members, brought on board to juggle several spinning plates and control the inevitable chaos that comes with the logistics of conference organization. Which is, really, the roundabout way of saying: I loved every minute of it.
During the summer of 2012, I helped orchestrate Web Afternoon's Charlotte series, managing a combination of: inviting and securing speakers, writing all bios and collecting head shots, vetting sponsors and venues, managing several dozen travel schedules, writing the conference's philosophy and creating its voice and tone, community building via social media, planning the run of show script, hanging posters, distributing lanyards, and of course, streamlining everything on event day.
Since my time with Web Afternoon, the conference has been named by Campaign Monitor as a "Conference to Watch".
Remix South is a conference whose mission is to tickle the curiosity of designers, developers, artists and startups. I was brought on to the core Remix team to develop all event content for the Remix South website and direct marketing campaigns, as well as 25+ speaker bios and featurettes with interviews and Q&A.
I also directed all content needs for each of the five learning tracks: Web, UX, Mobile, Startups, and Future Tech.
The conference attracted almost 1,000 members of the Atlanta web community, due in part to its stellar lineup of guests, including keynote speaker Bill Buxton (Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research).
Consulting
I’m not currently accepting new clients, but I’d love to introduce you to a fellow content designer in my network.
Speaking
I love to speak about content strategy best practices, design processes, careers in UX, and other niche topics. (Let’s talk!)
Workshops
Looking to design a workshop for your event? I can curate a session that’s actionable through workshops with specific outputs and takeaways.
I partnered with Maybe For You to provide full website content and web content strategy.
Maybe For You is a cross-platform digital agency that designs custom multi-screen solutions for big brand clients like the NBA, CollegeBoard, InterContinental Hotel Group, and Lowe’s. Designed for Chief Marketing Officers and top-tier executives on both the agency and brand side, the site had to convey Maybe For You’s unique, often technical offerings, as well as its roster of success stories with past and previous clients. I was hired to develop the site's new architecture, then compose each page of new website copy, including headlines that adopted a voice and tone similar to the team’s own friendly, yet brainy, personality.
In addition to the agency's new site refresh, I was asked to write 18+ Maybe For You case studies, detailing the complexities of the initial problem, the agency’s solution, and the buildout and/or deliverables submitted, in addition to the ROI or success metrics each individual project garnered.
When opportunity looms, fast turnaround times aren't a luxury – they're a necessity. The Maybe For You team had 48 hours to write 26 pages of content for an upcoming project with Transitions Lenses, a brand known for its polar lenses that can be worn by users both indoors and out. My writing and strategy were tapped by the team over the course of one weekend.
The mission?
Relay the agency's technical capabilities to discover, design, develop and deploy a custom CRM system, sales associate tablet app, "How It Works" in-store display, style matching and frame selection tool, ordering system, point of sale system, Android and iOS customer exploration app, as well as an interactive map, visit itinerary, HD curved video booth, closed circuit system, and training application.
My expertise in writing longform copy in short bursts of time came in handy. The RFP was submitted to brand strategists come Monday morning – signed, sealed, and delivered.
EventBooth for iOS is old-fashioned photo booth fun for a more connected world. Users can transform their iPad into a memory-making machine that makes taking photos together a snap. Own the night by adding custom designed event graphics or company logos to any shot. With EventBooth, you'll never have to worry about the hassles of hooking up a printer, since your photos are ready for wireless printing with one touch. Since you'll want to share your shots with the world, we've integrated Twitter and Facebook so that your most important moments show up in all the right places.
With EventBooth, you're ready to capture memories. All you need to do is bring the fun – and finger foods.
EventBooth is an app concepted and developed by the Maybe For You team. I wrote its case study during the website refresh, but the time was right to unveil the app's beta version to the public in early 2014. The team asked me to find the new product's voice and tone, targeted towards technology-literate users that were wary of expensive photographers.
Developing copy for EventBooth PhotoBooth, the physical offshoot of the product, was part of this project as well. Identical to its first iteration, PhotoBooth included a standing tower and camera, designed for large parties and multiple subjects. Copy for this section of the website was designed to attract the attention of corporate event planners, or larger teams looking to inject fun into their night.
Finally, I was hired at a later iteration to develop all EventBooth Help Center copy. This included mostly technical writing, how-to's, and login instructions for the iPad app and web interface. Writing here had to be highly detailed and instructional for the user, walking them through challenging troubleshooting scenarios like password resets and archival processes.
In 2013, I wrote and produced the run-of-show script for Startup Rally, an event coordinated by Atlanta startup hub Hypepotamus as the official launch of Startup Georgia under the Startup America Initiative.
The event — the largest gathering of startups in Atlanta since 1895 — called 100 budding companies from our state to action with the help of notables like Scott Case, CEO of Startup America and former CTO of Priceline, as well as beloved entertainer Jermaine Dupri, former CEO of SoSo Def Records.
I worked with Hypepotamus leadership to execute the day's lineup, and prepped the event host backstage, making sure to run through script flow and "talkability".
As part of the show script, I wrote eight historical vignettes that bookended the day's panel sessions, highlighting the stories of invincible Atlanta brands like Spanx, Delta, Turner Broadcasting, and Cinnabon.
As a Founding Member of Peers, I'm committed to devoting my time and talents to making the sharing economy shine in Atlanta and beyond! Through citywide organization, social media, and event coordination, I'm leading our Atlanta neighbors in their efforts to make the economy ours — by sharing skills, cars, homes and time. Peers is partnered by Airbnb, Skillshare, Chegg, TaskRabbit, Zaarly, General Assembly, and startups around the world.
In the summer of 2012, I worked closely with Uber DC to help manage its workflow, filling in where necessary while the service expanded. Working with Uber's team of Community Managers, I strategized ways for the service to find its greatest visibility as an alternative transit source around the DC metropolitan area through events and marketing. I also assisted with the launch and organization of other cities, including Uber’s latest addition, Atlanta, by building local rapport and giving insight on market competition.
As a transit nerd and everyday user, I love what Uber is doing, and think it's an excellent case study in brand loyalty and excellence through execution.
In early 2014, I was brought on to produce a monthly column for Branding Magazine, the industry's most popular and respected source of branding, marketing, and strategy news.
My first column just debuted, and I'm beyond thrilled to produce more thoughtful, insightful posts for colleagues in the branding space.
To subscribe to my column, please visit me here.
New York Nonstop, a 24/7 digital lifestyle channel designed for the constantly evolving metro market, launched in 2009 and has been consistently met with large audience appeal for its diverse array of shows, personalities, and conversations.
During my work at NBC New York (WNBC), I produced segments by pulling together interview material, videographers, location bookings, celebrity preparation, and script writing. I had the great privilege of working with contacts from brands and companies like:
I'm an urbanist at heart, so when the opportunity to write about Atlanta's push to become more bike friendly came, I gladly took it.
Curbed is a network of city-specific real estate blogs, with sister networks Eater and Racked. The company was recently purchased for $20+ million in 2013 by Vox Media.
Thanks to this contribution, I had the privilege of speaking to leadership at the Atlanta Bike Coalition.
