Consulting and Engagements
Generative AI is upending how products get built, and design has not yet found its footing in the shift. Most AI products are being shipped by engineering and product teams, with experience design added late or not at all — which you can feel the moment you try to use one of them for anything beyond a demo. I believe AI is one of the most interesting design opportunities in a generation, but making the most of it means getting comfortable with new modes of interaction: conversational, linguistic, and less visual than designers have been trained to work with.
I bring a communication-centric approach to the design of AI products, built out of long-standing interests in sociology, linguistics, and philosophy alongside three decades of shipping digital experiences. My view is that interaction in this space is a matter of language grounded in natural language use and user competencies — that technology should adjust to meet the user rather than the other way around. I have written about this at length in the Design and AI section of the site.
Since 2023 I have been reading widely in the AI research literature and building an active research-and-writing practice around it, using an Obsidian vault of over 2,500 white papers, the arscontexta plugin, and Claude as a collaborator. The introduction page describes the background; the Articles on AI section shows the work that setup produces. The practice has given me a working research base across conversational AI, reasoning, agent design, domain specialization, alignment, and related topics, which I bring into any engagement.
I am open to a range of engagements, from strategic advisory to hands-on design work. A few that fit well:
- Conversational AI design. Persona, grounding, repair, trust, and the turn-by-turn experience design that determines whether a product actually works for users. See Conversational AI.
- Domain-specific AI. Translating an organization's documentation, expertise, and workflows into the materials an engineering team can use to build, tune, and evaluate a domain-specific AI system. See Domain-Specific AI.
- AI product strategy and ideation. Working with founders and product leaders on what to build, what not to build, and what the user experience has to be for an AI product to earn trust and adoption.
- Design theory and methodology. Helping design teams develop the heuristics, vocabulary, and methods for approaching AI as a design surface rather than a black box. See Design Theory.
- Writing and thought partnership. On conversational AI, AI UX, social interaction design, and the design-theory implications of generative systems. See Articles on AI for examples of the work.
My experience spans startups (from the early web years through recent AI-era companies) and large multinationals running complex ecommerce and customer-facing systems. I am as interested in working on AI-centered products as in advising on corporate implementation roadmaps and organizational design. My background in media and communication theory, and in social interaction design, gives me a perspective on AI that remains relatively uncommon — AI is not yet socially capable in any full sense, but it is evolving in that direction, and the social-design perspective on it tends to be useful.
The best way to reach me is through LinkedIn. I am happy to talk through specific product problems, engagement shapes, or research collaborations.
With Deloitte Digital (2012-2017): partial client list
- Janssen
- Cisco
- Atlassian
- Agilent
- Wells Fargo
- Humana
- Intel
- Massage Envy
- TOMs
- Chevron
- Deloitte Tax
Social Interaction Design: partial client list
- Likelist
- Klout
- Extractable
- Traction
- Partec (Peerpong)
- Sociable (formerly PartyBuzz)
- Greatnonprofits.org
- Razoo
- AdCouncil
- Orange (France Telecom)
- Asmallworld
- Anderson DBB
- Popularmedia.com
- TrustedOpinion.com
- Razoo.com
- Click.tv
- Clipsync.com
- Goingon.com
- France Telecom
- Echo
- Brickriver.com
- Ourstory.com
- 3bubbles
- Great Non Profits
Web Partial Client List
- The Yoga Journal (custom cms development and complete site with ongoing updates )
- Game Ready (complete web site update and maintenance)
- Marin Bikes (complete web site)
- Sierra Designs (complete site updates; ongoing)
- Intraspect (Identity, UI, and site)
- Webvan (UI review and icons)
- Reel.com (identity, site, and consulting)
- Smith & Hawken (site)
- EZ Login (site and consulting)
- Wave 38 (site and consulting)
- The Busy Planet (site and consulting)
- Winkler Advertising (online application interface)
- Briggs & Riley (site and consulting)
- Addwater (naming)
- Next Monet (naming)
- Tanqueray (naming)
- Co-owner, SF Matchmaker franchise
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