Hey! 👋 I'm David.

Here's a little of my backstory...

made to create

I always excelled at math and science when I was young. I had lots of people telling me I should be an engineer.

And somewhere along the way, someone told me I sucked at drawing (which I really liked doing) and all my creative pursuits of art, music, writing... took a hard stop.

They stayed dormant for many years.

I was exposed to web development in high school and loved building interactive applications. This new direction seemed like an acceptable form of creativity with its strong ties to technology.

So I studied Computer Science in college, but after graduation, I spent the next 20 years working in a global non-profit.

wearing all the hats

Like many non-profits, I wore lots of hats. 

Those hats included team leader, event planner, product manager, strategy director, marketing director, experience designer, researcher, project manager, program manager, portfolio manager, scrum master, agile coach, head of production and director of digital experience.

Most of those roles were connected by a thread of designing user journeys that involved both in-person and online experiences.

Many of the teams I built and led operated more like startups, and over time, they tended to be more distributed and cross-functional. Even while my teams were small and focused, I still had to lead and communicate at the scale of a large organization.

finding space to create

In 2019, I returned to designing again, and I took a role in creative production. It was a fun mashup of agile coaching, visual communication, and design thinking.

My teammates were all creatives, and during that season, my own creativity awakened again. I began drawing and writing more. I also explored creativity through designing and building in physical spaces.

Then in 2021, I became the director of digital experience for one of our divisions. This role provides a nice return to tech as I take what I learned in years of experience design and apply it more specifically to UX in web and mobile design. I began relearning to code, which was fun, frustrating, exciting, maddening...you know the drill. 😅

convergence and synthesis

Throughout this journey, I've used writing to organize and synthesize what I'm learning. I began everyday design to continue my learning and synthesis.

Everyday Design was founded on the premise that there could be a more creative and intentional way to approach life. Why not take an innovative and iterative approach to life?

As I began moving more towards a work-life integration approach, it made sense to explore how what I knew from leadership, design thinking, messaging and an agile mindset could apply to everyday life.

As I'm synthesizing what I'm learning and practicing, most of it comes out in articles or guides with some videos thrown in for good measure.

helping others win

Reflecting on the first 20 years of my professional career, I discovered a common thread of helping individuals and teams win. I love to problem solve and innovate, and I found the most common space for this was helping others get unstuck and eventually win.

As I stepped back to observe this pattern, I realized that I wanted to help these people win because they were trying to make the world a better place. If I could help them win, then together, we could change the world.

All this led me to make a shift in 2022.

All my work now focuses on helping others make the world better. It ranges from writing to coaching, consulting, designing and facilitating, and it includes contexts from startups to construction companies or financial institutions to international nonprofits. 

Wherever you are in your journey, I'm guessing you want to have an impact on the world around you. If there’s a way we can collaborate, I’d love to explore that possibility.

You can follow me on Medium, reach out on LinkedIn or shoot me a message here on the site.

If you curious about working together, you can explore my services, portfolio or resume.