As a consultant and creative contributor, I combine a decade of academic research and teaching experience with 15 years of agency communications leadership. Well-known current and former clients include FedEx, International Paper, The Recording Academy, ServiceMaster, Smith & Nephew, and Cartus.I work as a private contractor, taking on particularly large, complicated, or ethically worthy projects that interest me. In the pandemic era, I’ve been combining pro-bono work for local… Show more As a consultant and creative contributor, I combine a decade of academic research and teaching experience with 15 years of agency communications leadership. Well-known current and former clients include FedEx, International Paper, The Recording Academy, ServiceMaster, Smith & Nephew, and Cartus.I work as a private contractor, taking on particularly large, complicated, or ethically worthy projects that interest me. In the pandemic era, I’ve been combining pro-bono work for local non-profits with paid work for companies near the front of the Fortune 500. Hit me up if you’re a company (agency or direct) that needs a crazy knot untangled, the perfect words to express your true self, or anything else that’s proving problematic in your communications world. I’ll exchange emails and have a free, one-hour Q&A with anyone about the challenge you’re facing. At the end of the call, my part will be done, or you’ll decide to ask me for a proposal. Show less

As inferno’s Senior Strategist, I worked primarily on the account side, from early engagement with clients through the hand-off to the creative department. The exact nature and scope of what I did for any client or project varied widely, as did the length of time I remain involved. As a Member of the Account Service Team:• New business pitches • Discovery processes with clients and/or their customers, sales force, etc. • Strategic approaches to client or inferno… Show more As inferno’s Senior Strategist, I worked primarily on the account side, from early engagement with clients through the hand-off to the creative department. The exact nature and scope of what I did for any client or project varied widely, as did the length of time I remain involved. As a Member of the Account Service Team:• New business pitches • Discovery processes with clients and/or their customers, sales force, etc. • Strategic approaches to client or inferno goals• Planning meetings and plan development• Shaping of unwieldy or unorthodox engagements/projects into a process of steps and deliverables• Client calls and presentations• Research and analysisAs a Writer (strategic and creative deliverables)• Proposals• Marketing and sales strategies• Analyses, reports, wrap-ups• Transitional written deliverables • Brand positioning and value propositions• Naming/Identity concepting• Website structure/content plans• Copywriting In June 2019, I resigned my position at inferno, so that I could donate a year of service to the city I love, Kalamazoo, Michigan. During that time, I am also available to discuss interesting, paid consulting opportunities, as outlined at the top of my profile. Show less

As inferno’s Senior Writer, I senior wrote, as well as supervising (training, hiring, and firing) the other writers. The position reflected my steady migration from a purely creative role toward one that straddled the creative and strategic needs of our clients and of the agency. I wrote for (literally) all of our clients, in all channels, and spent a harrowing (yet stimulating) year as the agency’s only experienced writer. You name it, I wrote it. Print ads, online banners, websites… Show more As inferno’s Senior Writer, I senior wrote, as well as supervising (training, hiring, and firing) the other writers. The position reflected my steady migration from a purely creative role toward one that straddled the creative and strategic needs of our clients and of the agency. I wrote for (literally) all of our clients, in all channels, and spent a harrowing (yet stimulating) year as the agency’s only experienced writer. You name it, I wrote it. Print ads, online banners, websites, videos, corporate manuals, sales sheets, brand guidelines, company names, global rebrands, radio spots, etc. The only thing I didn’t do routinely was TV advertising. This was a period when I wrote and supervised at lot of videos in both production and post-production. Most were informational (for the web) or in support of Sales meetings - which called for quite a range of styles and often got very weird. I once spent a day in a surgical cadaver lab, often lying on the floor, while filming a music video about a surgeon who fell in love with a piece of high tech equipment, to the tune of a gerrymandered pop song from the 1970s. Boy, did the client love that video! Show less

As Associate Creative Director, I vetted the output of the creative department for excellence and for fit with the requirements of the Creative Strategy Statements. Everyone loves a creative idea and a beautiful execution thereof, but if it didn’t match the client’s and the project’s needs, I said, “No,” in the most friendly and constructive way I could. Nobody ended up hating me, so I think I was a success. This position concluded when I became a telecommuter and couldn’t reasonably ride herd… Show more As Associate Creative Director, I vetted the output of the creative department for excellence and for fit with the requirements of the Creative Strategy Statements. Everyone loves a creative idea and a beautiful execution thereof, but if it didn’t match the client’s and the project’s needs, I said, “No,” in the most friendly and constructive way I could. Nobody ended up hating me, so I think I was a success. This position concluded when I became a telecommuter and couldn’t reasonably ride herd over the wild ferment of inferno’s creative teams. Nonetheless, I continued to pinch-hit in this role when I was the person who had the most expansive (or microscopic) perspective on the client or the project. Show less

I like to write all sorts of things. I don’t write academic literary criticism anymore, but a few years ago I had the opportunity to revisit and revise my long essay on “The Great Gatsby” for inclusion in a Harold Bloom-edited anthology of articles on the novel.I help out fiction and nonfiction writers with their projects in various direct and ancillary ways. Novelist Jonathan Lethem said of me: "You're the best ghost in the machine I can think of."I’m sometimes a writer and… Show more I like to write all sorts of things. I don’t write academic literary criticism anymore, but a few years ago I had the opportunity to revisit and revise my long essay on “The Great Gatsby” for inclusion in a Harold Bloom-edited anthology of articles on the novel.I help out fiction and nonfiction writers with their projects in various direct and ancillary ways. Novelist Jonathan Lethem said of me: "You're the best ghost in the machine I can think of."I’m sometimes a writer and blogger in the realm of comic books. My more extensive comic book endeavor, published online under the brand name 4CP (four color process), is a large collection of tiny comic book details gigantically enlarged. Those images have been shared and leveraged across the internet, on the sleeves of music releases, and who knows where else. (4CP.posthaven.com, 4CP.tumblr.com)Ongoing additional projects include research and archival photo collecting related to the 19th century mental hospital I grew up next to (Michigan Asylum for the Insane), and an ongoing music bootleg series that I distribute via the internet. Show less

This was my first career, extending from my enthusiasms as a college undergraduate. I earned my Ph.D. from Duke University in the mildly famous period when Stanley Fish and Fredric Jameson were masters of departments full of celebrity professors. The chaos they created and semi-managed was eventually judged to be, well, chaos, from a graduate program point of view – but as an autodidact, I strip-mined the gold out of it all and scored a very nice academic position at Rhodes College in… Show more This was my first career, extending from my enthusiasms as a college undergraduate. I earned my Ph.D. from Duke University in the mildly famous period when Stanley Fish and Fredric Jameson were masters of departments full of celebrity professors. The chaos they created and semi-managed was eventually judged to be, well, chaos, from a graduate program point of view – but as an autodidact, I strip-mined the gold out of it all and scored a very nice academic position at Rhodes College in Memphis.At Rhodes, I taught Southern Literature, African-American Literature, American Literature, modernism, junior seminars, argumentative writing, and several other courses. The students found sufficient value in my courses to take more with me, become English majors, choose me as their senior advisor, and ask me to “connect” with them on LinkedIn in the years after they graduated. At my tenure review, the experts in my field, who were chosen for an impartial review of my scholarly publications, judged me "among the best working in my field." (I published on American modernist writers and African-American blues music.) At the time I was there, Rhodes was hamstrung by some core curriculum requirements tied to large funding sources, which resulted in an under-powered and inconsistent first-year experience. In an attempt to do an end-run around this, I developed a first-year, interdisciplinary, residential, American Studies program that united courses in literature, history, art history, and composition. It was successful, and continued for some time after I left Rhodes.After six years as a professor, six as a graduate student, and four as a college student, I was getting restless, so I used my year off, following the tenure review, to jump the fence into the marketing career and other adventures outlined elsewhere in this LinkedIn profile. Show less