Meet the Author

It’s been 20 years since I built my first website and 12 years since starting Nebo. And while I’ve learned a lot over the course of my career crafting digital experiences and teaching interactive design, writing a book wasn’t something that I had planned to do.

The story of how I came to write a book began in May of 2014. I had just finished giving a talk at Web Visions in Portland, Oregon on the topic of Changing Behavior by Design.

In marketing, we talk a lot about worldviews. You can’t be everything to everyone, so instead, you find an audience, you work to understand their worldviews and you create marketing that resonates with them.

It’s why Starbucks recently ran ads in major newspapers asking people “To go beyond the hatred and vitriol” and find unity during the political process, and why brands as varied as Disney, the NFL, MailChimp and Salesforce took a stand against discrimination and released statements against Georgia’s recent religious freedom bill. They all wanted to align themselves with the core beliefs of their audiences.

This summer, we announced the launch of the next phase of our Choose ATL campaign. Along with BBDO, Porter Novelli, and the Metro Atlanta Chamber, we’re continuing to grow the grassroots initiative by sharing why Atlanta is such a great place to live, work, and start a family. A new ad campaign showcasing exciting facts about Atlanta has launched, highlighting everything from walkability to our amazing food scene.

However, there’s another focus of phase two of the grassroots initiative: education. This doesn’t just mean showcasing the 66 superior universities that call Atlanta home, but also encouraging the brilliant minds that graduate from schools across the country to choose Atlanta as their city after college. In order to do so, we needed something big. Something that would show why Atlanta is the best place for recent grads to build a life after graduation. So we teamed up with the Metro Atlanta Chamber to launch the Ultimate Job Interview Contest.

The ChooseATL campaign started as a grassroots effort to change perceptions of our city. It was a completely volunteer-driven effort made up of several people that wanted to better tell Atlanta’s story. The original task force was comprised of the most talented people from Atlanta’s biggest brands, including other agencies, startup leaders, government representatives, non-profit partners and more.

The first phase was an incredible success. We drove more than 40 million media impressions, our social campaign led to thousands of photos and tweets shared using the #ChooseATL hashtag, and we even threw a flash-mob style lantern parade right in the heart of South by Southwest interactive.

But, one of the questions we’ve come across more recently was how will we build, grow and sustain this effort? Working with Metro Atlanta Chamber and their partners throughout the 29-county region of Atlanta – along with BBDO and Porter Novelli – we’re proud to announce the launch of the next phase of the campaign.

The Atlanta Beltline is the most transformative smart growth project in the United States. A 22 mile emerald loop of parks, trails and transit will soon encircle our city and represent a new path towards a better Atlanta.

As a fan of new urbanism and someone who is passionate about our city, it’s a project I’m proud to support. So when Jennifer Dorian and her team from the Atlanta Beltline Partnership reached out to us to discuss ways to help them hit their 2014 fundraising goals, we immediately offered to help.