nDash.com is a content creation platform that provides brands and agencies with access to the world's top freelance writers.
• 30+ year history of creating cultural, instructional and foundational content for the web and multimedia applications and products
• Three decades of work experience at Fortune Global 100 companies (5+ years), mid-size companies (15+ years), and startups (10+ years) across a wide range of industries: finance, technology, advertising, media, manufacturing, medical, education, hospitality, retail, and entertainment
• Substantial medium- and long-term project and content management skills; has overseen multi-year writing projects and content development efforts
• Consistently informed by the most wide-ranging and authoritative news services, alternative content and specialty market media
• Creative out-of-the-box thinker with incredibly broad and fertile imagination Strategic multi-phase conceptualizer, with ability to oversee the effective meshing of multiple layers of moving parts
• Immersed in trends and industry back-and-forth in hospitality, financial services, technology, entertainment design, social media and advertising
• Visionary — has predicted inventions and innovations in the advertising, home automation and retail industries
• Persistent investigative sense with deep “big-picture” analytical tendencies; quick to recognize broad patterns and grander themes
• Keen and genuine interest in culture, international relations, geopolitics, history, and social change
• Unrelenting motivational drive
An overview of Bauhaus designer and typographer Herbert Bayer. An excellent example of my cultural, historical and/or blog writing. (Click on the "Art & Design" heading to see the sample.)
A biography of Oliver Reed, the British acting great. A great example of my entertainment writing. (Click on the "Entertainment" heading to see the sample.)
A piece about Gareth Pugh, the British fashion designer. Exemplary writing for the fashion industry. (Click on the "Fashion" heading to see the sample.)
A description of workout supplement Beta Alanine and its benefits. (Click on the "Fitness" heading to see the sample.)
White paper-like piece on the benefits of careful selection of a consistent corporate typeface. (Click on the "Marketing" heading to see the sample.)
Excellent lifestyle piece contrasting barbers and hairdressers for a men's publication and website. I am equally adept at writing similar articles geared for women. (Click on the "Men's + Women's" heading to see the sample.)
A piece profiling Yello, the Swiss musical act, who have given scant interviews despite selling more than 10 million albums and earning more than $200 million from their songs. (Click on the "Music" heading to see the sample.)
A standard news/journalism-style article. (Click on the "News" heading to see the sample.)
A bio piece on Daniel Patrick Moynhihan, the famous senator from New York State. (Click on the "Politics" heading to see the sample.)
A brief commentary on some of the pitfalls of trying to find an apartment in New York City, written from the perspective of a veteran in the real estate industry. (Click on the "Real Estate" heading to see the sample.)
One ad of many I wrote for a real estate company in Brooklyn. Over an eight-year period, my ads earned the company $500,000 in sales. (Click on the "Sales Copywriting" heading to see the sample.)
A product review of a high-tech consumer product, discussing features and benefits. (Click on the "Technology" heading to see the sample.)
A very complete guide for photographers taking pictures for the real estate company I worked for. Many technical procedures are explained in easy-to-understand, easy-to-follow language. (Click on the "Technical Writing" heading to see the sample.)
A travel guide piece about visiting Tokyo, written from previous experience. (Click on the "Travel" heading to see the sample.)
Presently, I lead a team of writers who produce content and copy for clients in the publishing, financial, government, travel, hospitality, entertainment and education industries. Our work is viewable at: www.writing.direct. We have over 100 years of combined writing experience. Our words are bespoke, clear and elegant. Most of our writers write up to 2,000 words per day. We've produced both online and offline content for websites, books, blogs, catalogs, social media, advertisements and more.
Company: Writing Direct
I worked there from 8/2016 until now
At Sunrise Real Estate Corp. (and later Voro Real Estate) I wrote all content (including advertising copy) of a database-driven website, viewable at: www.sunrisebk.com. For this site, not only did I write content, I also determined the task flow, interaction design, navigation strategy, content specifications, typographic colophon and mobile interoperability. I was entirely responsible for all content, UI/UX, photos and coding. My content earned Sunrise approximately $500,000 in transactions.
Company: Sunrise Real Estate Corp.
I worked there from 1/2006 until 1/2014
For Intuit, I re-wrote instructional copy for the Transaction Download section of Quickbooks, the company's premier product, as part of an effort to increase user engagement and revamp the UX of their subscription process. The copy I wrote was a significant improvement to the previous text, and better targeted Intuit's customer base, which is small business people and sole proprietors who tend to be less technical and less financially fluent than certified accountants.
Company: Intuit
I worked there from 12/2012 until 1/2013
I was the public relations officer, manager and designer of a 24-room hotel in Williamsburg Brooklyn. I created the concept, interiors, signage and collateral for the hotel from start to finish. In addition, I wrote all sales copy describing each room and the hotel's unique features. This copy was used in advertisements on multiple websites and networks to drive reservations and promote the hotel. The hotel was 90+% occupied year-round, with originating from more than 36 countries.
Company: SPACE 347
I worked there from 4/2009 until 12/2013
I was Vice-President in the E-Business Division of Credit Card Services of the largest North American bank. I co-managed the company’s credit card website and content management system, and co-managed online advertising and campaign content integration. I helped upgrade content presentation and management software during revisions of the user interface. I heavily contributed to the copy on the website and to copy for other Chase-branded sites integrating Credit Card Services content.
Company: JPMorganChase
I worked there from 2/2001 until 3/2003
I was employed as a Human Factors/UI design consultant, reviewing interface designs, revising them, and "thinking outside the box" to exclude any and all scenarios whereby certain answers to the company's form-related questions could be unaccounted for. Part of this responsibility included looking at the content on the pages to make sure the user understood the tasks at hand, and could grasp what was expected of them.
Company: Frictionless Commerce (now part of SAP)
I worked there from 10/2000 until 2/2001
I created interfaces and visual elements for units of Cahners Electronic Publishing, a unit of Reed Elsevier (a large Dutch/English publishing conglomerate and FT Global 500 company), including Semiconductor International, Test & Measurement World, and CahnersTV (a portal for the television industry). My responsibilities included information architecture and user interface design. I completely redesigned their Test & Measurement World website and did redesign work on Semiconductor International.
Company: Reed Elsevier (Cahners Electronic Publishing Division)
I worked there from 4/2000 until 8/2000
I single-handedly redesigned the Web Site of Aspen Technology, a $250 million (revenues) specialized industrial process software and technology company. The site consisted of over 1000 unique pages, with graphics elements, tables, and forms on most pages. The launch was coordinated with an offline and online ad campaign. I created the new site from scratch, offering Aspen several different looks-and-feels to choose from in the strategizing stages. My work included all UI and navigation design.
Company: Aspen Technology
I worked there from 10/1999 until 2/2000
I created all online advertising for the company's main e-commerce website, Staples.com. I conceptualized, art directed, designed, wrote copy for and created all ads placed on the company's multiple advertising venues, such as Yahoo, PCWorld, The Globe, Hotwired, GoTo and Snap. All ads tied to product or splash pages on Staples.com.
Company: Staples
I worked there from 2/1999 until 8/1999
I redesigned the company's website, formerly virtually text-only, into a cohesive, unified property that featured colorful graphics and a streamlined user interface. I incorporated links to PDFs and product information documentation and made the company's new product lineup easy to understand and parse.
Company: Hologic
I worked there from 8/1998 until 3/1999
For McCann Erickson (then the world's largest ad agency), I was a Web Designer/Creative Lead at their Thunderhouse division (later merged into Zentropy Partners and subsequently known as MRM Partners Worldwide). I created online advertising (banners, interstitials, others) and website elements for clients such as AT&T, Motorola, Chase Manhattan, Charles Schwab, Philips Electronics, Nestlé, Intel, Silicon Graphics, Hasbro and Durex. My responsibilities included copywriting and art direction.
Company: Thunderhouse (a division of McCann-Erickson)
I worked there from 8/1997 until 2/1998
I created a 10-minute animated multimedia marketing presentation for Softkey's sales and marketing departments, using materials and decks given to me by the company. After being presented at a quarterly company-wide meeting, the presentation was pressed on CD-ROM and distributed to team members.
Company: Softkey (now a part of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
I worked there from 11/1996 until 1/1997
For this small Boston, MA-based design partnership, which boasted among its clients the MIT Media Lab and Houghton Mifflin, I collaborated on multiple CD-ROM, print and packaging projects, including a self-promotional CD-ROM that came in a unique acid-etched, silver-plated custom-made metal jewel case. The multimedia piece on this CD-ROM was unique in that it featured a wordless, text-free interface, and "anti-interactive" animation that only played if the user did not interact with the piece.
Company: Ultra16/Toast
I worked there from 3/1996 until 1/1997
For Camel/Land Rover, a branding co-venture between R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and Land Rover Ltd., I created a prototype multimedia CD-ROM highlighting the 1996 Camel Trophy Race event in Borneo, Indonesia. The Camel Trophy Race was a vehicle-oriented competition between 20 international teams (teams of two people from each country) that involved navigating treacherous off-road conditions, grueling environments, and extreme climates. I integrated content elements including photos, video and music.
Company: Camel/Land Rover
I worked there from 2/1996 until 3/1996
I created an interactive prototype for the Drivin' Route 66 CD-ROM title, published by Creative Multimedia Corp. I built the prototype in Macromedia Director, and integrated music, photos and copy I wrote. Featuring photos by photographer Linda Lewis of the sites and cars identified with the famous road, this CD-ROM package went on to be one of the more distributed commercial CD-ROM titles of the 1990s.
Company: IHS Markit (Creative Multimedia Corporation unit)
I worked there from 12/1995 until 2/1996
It's Alive! was a company I founded to produce multimedia work after gaining experience using Macromedia Director as an authoring tool while working for Macromedia (see below). Employing four other people and occupying a 6,000 square foot office space in a 100 year-old building in the heart of downtown Boston Massachusetts, the company executed projects for Harvard and Harvard Business School, GTE/Sylvania, Gillette, John Hancock, Apple, and many other firms.
Company: It's Alive! Multimedia
I worked there from 11/1988 until 11/1995
For Sanyo, I created a standalone, turnkey multimedia trade show display advertising their real-time no-glasses-required three-dimensional displays, a radical new product. I incorporated sequences of athletic movement originally motion-captured and rendered on Silicon Graphics computers using Wavefront software into Macromedia Director animations on Mac OS. The entire project was produced onsite in Tokyo and delivered in three weeks.
Company: Sanyo
I worked there from 9/1995 until 9/1995
For America Online, I produced a full-screen animated Macromedia Director presentation that was broadcast via satellite to all their employees at their annual worldwide team meeting, immediately before a speech by Chairman Steve Case. The twin themes of the presentation were "diversity" and "fun," and it featured a driving musical soundtrack, brief text, colorful animated strips of people and a 3-D animated fly-through of the AOL logo at the end.
Company: America Online (now Oath)
I worked there from 4/1995 until 5/1995
I produced onsite in Tokyo Japan a self-running turnkey multimedia trade show display, featuring a fast-paced soundtrack and intense animations of colorful photos, technical images and Japanese text, for Asaca Shibasoku, a Tokyo-based manufacturer of High-Speed Magneto-Optical Disk Drive products. The trade show, IGAS, was at that time Asia's largest printing equipment show, held in Chiba (Tokyo) Japan.
Company: ASACA Shibasoku
I worked there from 9/1993 until 10/1993
I created a prototype multimedia retail store display for Romeo Gigli, a well-known Italian high-fashion brand. Featuring catchy music by St. Etienne, the display incorporated photos from their runway shows of recent years, and was well-received by their American subsidiary.
Company: Romeo Gigli
I worked there from 4/1993 until 6/1993
KGB Magazine was an independent pop cultural magazine with national ambitions produced on New York's Lower East Side. For the magazine's introduction to the New York press and advertisers, I produced a dazzling, full-screen, interactive 5-minute animated presentation that fit on a single 1.4 Mb 3.5" diskette, featuring thousands of 1-bit black and white images, text, a game and rave music by the British group Orbital.
Company: KGB Magazine
I worked there from 12/1992 until 2/1993
At Gillette, the premier men's disposable razor company and one of the largest and most successful companies in the history of the Northeast U.S., I created in Macromedia Director the company's 1992 annual stockholders' meeting presentation, that was given to stockholders, analysts and press in Boston and New York. The hour-long presentation was narrated by, and synchronized to, a speech by Chairman Alfred Zeien, and featured a shimmering, animated color-cycling logo at the conclusion.
Company: Gillette (now a division of Procter & Gamble)
I worked there from 8/1992 until 9/1992
I created many interactive multimedia works and applications during an extended period of consultancy for Harvard Business School, mostly using Macromedia Director and other MacOS-based tools. For one of the applications, for the Program for Management Development, I created a "Campus Tour" CD-ROM for incoming students (who each were given a Mac computer as part of the program) which introduced them to the campus, their professors and the surrounding area.
Company: Harvard Business School
I worked there from 8/1990 until 12/1991
I was hired by Macromedia Chairman Marc Canter to be one of two technical support representatives for the company's products during its fledgling startup phase in Chicago (it later moved to San Francisco and was eventually purchased by Adobe for $3.4 billion). I was employee 28. In addition to technical support, my duties included working with the development team to kill software bugs, testing various new beta versions of products and helping the company to prepare for upcoming trade shows.
Company: Macromedia (then known as Macromind)
I worked there from 12/1987 until 10/1988
I was a graphic designer at Palladian Software, an artificial intelligence software startup located at Cambridge Center, a cluster of office buildings, restaurants and a hotel in Cambridge, MA's Kendall Square, in close proximity to MIT and Harvard universities. I created over 1000 icons for the firm's Financial Advisor and Operations Advisor vertical market expert system software.
Company: Palladian Software
I worked there from 2/1985 until 11/1986