Projects

Workshops and Speaking: 

I run design-thinking workshops for cross-functional teams in and outside of McClatchy. My workshops focus on everyday design-thinking tools, making a business case for empathy and developing inclusive practices.  

Customized design-thinking sessions. I facilitate design-thinking workshops and product sprints for businesses and non-profits.

McClatchy New Ventures Lab Workshop. I led a design-thinking workshop for McClatchy New Ventures Lab “Storytellers in Residence” program, a 6-month fellowship to develop nonfiction augmented reality experiences for mobile. (McClatchy New Ventures Lab, June 2018)

Spark Series. My colleague Jeremy Gockel and I developed a two-day design-thinking program focused on introducing design-thinking fundamentals to every employee at McClatchy. (McClatchy Innovation, September 2017)

Case studies:

I’ve worked on a variety of user-centered challenges, from small-scale, efficiency improvements to brand-new, experimental products. 

INDULGE Miami events strategy. I worked with Miami’s luxury magazine team to develop a reader-centered events strategy; increasing events revenue and attendance. (McClatchy Innovation, August 2017)

Morning Buzz: daily audio briefing. The McClatchy Innovation team tested multiple early prototypes for a daily audio news briefing; later launched in seven markets as a three-minute daily briefing in partnership with Google and Spoken Layer. (McClatchy Innovation, January 2018)

Loro: experimental video platform for English-learners. As part of McClatchy’s partner program with Matter, a media startup accelerator and VC firm, I led a cross-functional team in developing a solution for Spanish-speaking audiences in our 30 markets. We also created a living toolkit for McClatchy employees interested in reaching these communities, including design-thinking materials in Spanish. (McClatchy Innovation, 2017-2018)

Legacy.com’s ObitWriter. I facilitated two product sprints for McClatchy partner Legacy.com focused on increasing digital obituary placements and streamlining the obituary writing process. Using insights and prototypes from the sessions, Legacy.com went on to launch “ObitWriter” an AI-supported tool that helps users create and place an obituary with their local paper. (McClatchy Innovation, October 2017).

Activate Good website redesign. I worked with Raleigh non-profit, Activate Good, to design a website that worked well for its two users: volunteers and non-profit organizers.

Reporting:

My first love was writing and reporting. I’m most interested in writing about food policy and business, religion and how history impacts our world today. 

A young scientist’s dream for his country: Growing the Bio-Science industry in Haiti. (Bon Sel Dayiti, November 2016)

Criminal justice in the South. (State of the South, November 2015)

For many in Zimbabwe, Cecil the lion only tells part of the story. (CNN, August 2015)

Mexico’s hidden people. (CNN, July 2015)

Variety show broadcasts school’s past and present. (The News of Orange County, November 2014)

Eats 101: Exemplary or unattainable? (Carolina Eats, March 2015)

The campus food dessert. (Carolina Eats, October 2014).

The last supper. (Carolina Eats, October 2014).

Entrepreneurship:

I got started with entrepreneurship at age 11, selling poorly designed purses to my very forgiving friends and family. Later, as a journalism student at UNC, I launched Kinethics, an anti-corruption compliance-training platform. Building Kinethics was an invaluable experience in taking big risks, learning quickly and failing strategically. 

It takes a village: Selling Kinethics. My founding team and I came to a crux in June 2016. We had spent the past two years building and testing our game-based compliance-training platform, which used real corruption cases to educate employees of multinational organizations. We raised seed money, secured testing partnerships with Fortune 500 companies and gained acceptance into an award-winning accelerator program. To continue, however, we would need to raise more money and bring in a CEO with corporate compliance experience. Ultimately, we decided to close up shop and I decided to get back into journalism. (Kinethics, June 2016).

Connecting gender & corruption. (Kinethics, March 2016)

What if one solution doesn’t exist? (Kinethics, September 2015).

Corruption, compliance and why it all matters. (Kinethics, June 2015)