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Whether you call it custom content, branded content or native advertising, creating carefully crafted communications that drive traffic, cultivate leads and power conversion is essential to both B2C and B2B channels. Storytelling is crucial. Understanding the reader journey – from the Hero’s Odyssey to an industry-specific purchasing decision – informs voice, tone and style. And it’s as instrumental to success as SEO, keyword research and data analytics.
I draw on a unique set of professional experiences to combine the best of both worlds. An award-winning journalist, I create content from the audience’s point of view, enabling emotional connections to brands, products and services. And as the former managing director and CEO of a successful digital media brand, I understand how brands leverage personas, funnels and marketing technologies to create an effective and engaging content pipeline.
Recent high-level engagements have included content strategy and consulting, sales presentations for clients, and campaign planning. I’ve developed expertise in content reuse and repurposing to deliver the highest yields on content investment. And over the last five years, I’ve created hundreds of pieces of branded content for leading technology organization including:
Much of my content marketing work is informed by a long and fruitful collaboration with Frank Cutitta, founder of the HealthTech Decision Lab and the Center for Global Branding. Cutitta’s innovative work has focused on cross cultural communications, content enrichment and transformation to data driven business models, with special attention to the alignment of IT, marketing and data science organizations in the global enterprise.
If you’d like to discuss how we might work together to create content that generates results, please reach out to me via my Contact page.
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Reporting on the deadly impact of a three-week ice storm and blackout from the middle of Quebec’s “Dark Triangle.”
Exploring the economic and environmental impacts of the aquaculture shrimp industry in post-war Vietnam.
Providing a first-hand account of the perils of firefighting from inside a burning apartment building.
Cataloging the hopes and dreams of a declining Pennsylvania mining town as it expresses itself in a single autumn day — the run-up to a record-setting high school football game under the lights.
It’s been a privilege to write these stories (and hundreds more) because they powerfully refute the idea that there’s nothing new under the sun. The journalist’s job, at its most fundamental level, is nothing more than to develop evidence for the specificity and uniqueness of every life, every place and every time. It’s to take up Heraclitus’ thesis that one never steps into the same river twice. To do so requires the cultivation of a tool set that has become increasingly scarce in our day: keen eyes, empathic listening skills, a taste for truth-seeking, a powerful voice, diligent digging and a principled refusal to stop the search at the first sign of obstacles – natural or otherwise.
I’ve worked with dozens of editors over the past 25 years as a cub reporter, daily journalist, statehouse reporter, editorialist and freelancer. What’s more, I’ve edited award-winning publications in local news and healthcare, where a great deal of my work included helping other writers tell their stories accurately, fairly and with a bit of panache. Today, these experiences underwrite a “set and forget” process for assigning editors – from pitch to polished story, I understand every step necessary to deliver an assignment that’s trustworthy, read-ready and audience-engaging.
To get a better feel for my work, please spend a few moments reviewing my clips. Reach out via the Contact page if you have a specific assignment in mind, or if you’d like to discuss possible ideas. I’m always excited to work with your ideas or bring some of my own.
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Over the course of the past 10 years, I’ve been engaged as a content strategist, provided M&A advisory services to B2B media companies, generated ghost-written thought leadership content and occasionally provided confidential, one-on-one executive coaching. This work has been guided by two decades of successful organizational leadership, a plethora of publishing and media accolades, and deep immersion into the literature of flow, productivity, social and positive psychology.
I’ve been tightly focused and selective about the kinds of consulting work I accept, usually taking on one client at a time via a referral from a past client or colleague. As a former CEO, I found that the consulting relationships that created real value began with a gap-analysis, generated concrete deliverables and extended only for a clearly defined timeframe. The relationships that failed were typically designed as retainer-based, general “on-call” advisory services that lacked specific outcomes.
If you have a challenge or opportunity that might benefit from my experiences or skills, please feel free to reach out to me using my Contact page.