Hi, I'm Erin. Nice to Meet You!
I’m a marketing and communications strategist & manager who focuses on brand strategy and brand building via content marketing and community activation. I love my work, but before I dive into that, let me tell you about how I got here.
I’ve always been passionate about …
research writing & systems change.
Growing up I imagined becoming a journalist because I wanted to write about urgent problems facing the planet and society. I imagined myself reporting on humanitarian crises happening around the globe and publishing articles that would shape public opinion and change the world.
“The desire to write is like an affliction, which you’re either born with or you’re not.”
However, when I started college in 2005, web 2.0 was in the early stages of transforming the Internet from a “dark and anonymous place” to an interactive, virtual reality via user-generated content, CMS and social platforms. Web 2.0 had a profound, lasting, and direct impact on the journalism and media industry.
Web 2.0 demolished print media, catalyzed “millions of entrepreneurial experiments,” facilitated social movements and empowered individuals and groups to more easily and cost-effectively communicate their message at scale than ever before.
Given the traditional media landscape was experiencing massive disruption– the effects so far-reaching that the CU Boulder School of Journalism and Mass Communication, in which I intended to enroll, actually closed– I decided to study political science and the subject matters with which I was concerned instead of studying journalism itself.
Political science “deals with systems of governance and power, and [analyzes] political activity, structure, thought, and behavior.” My poli sci coursework exposed me to myriad social, environmental and economic problems and mechanisms for solving them, which is what I wanted to write about, anyways.
By the time I got my poli sci degree in 2014, motivated individuals, brands and institutions had become their own bona-fide media houses. This is when I realized I could write on behalf of any brand, organization or individual with a mission I supported. I instantly knew this was exactly what I wanted to do. And this is how I found my way to brand storytelling & content marketing, a form of new media, and my segue into all things communications and marketing.
"One of the exciting things about the Internet is that anyone with a PC...can publish whatever content they can create."
Fast forward to 2021 and– ironically– it’s dawned on me that one of the most effective interventions for solving societal problems was the very technology that upended the traditional media landscape. In poli sci we studied taxation, subsidies, incentives, constraints, feedback loops, and policy frameworks, all useful leverage points– but all mostly dealt with the existing paradigm. Throughout my coursework, we never discussed the paradigm-shifting potential of breakthrough technology such as web 2.0, and now, web 3.0.
“...To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Web 2.0 brought us social media, mobile apps, the cloud, and was the genesis of the Digital Age that began to flatten information sharing. But – and this is a big but– these services are almost entirely owned by just a few incredibly powerful telecomm and technology giants that have compromised the free and open internet.
Online service providers like Google, Apple, Amazon Web Services, and Facebook provide us invaluable internet “utilities” for search, storage, connectivity and communication, and have essentially stepped in as the internet’s trust layer. They act as an intermediary so that we can all “securely” transact and connect with one another, but it’s come at the cost of these centralized service providers becoming incomprehensibly powerful by monopolizing almost all of the internet’s so-called real estate. Being in the position of intermediary gives them unprecedented access to user data, from which they profit tremendously.
Web 3.0 “aims to wrestle ownership away from the corporations that rule the internet as it exists today.” The decentralizing force of web 3.0 attempts to de-throne this corporate web nobility, shift power from the center to the edges, and drive “open, trustless and permissionless” networks.-
"Web 3 is essentially a new way for individuals to use the Internet without giving up their privacy and valuable data."
Web 3.0 has the paradigm-shifting potential I was seeking in my poli sci classes. Web 3.0 is facilitating peer-to-peer trust and transactions without using costly or opaque intermediaries, attempting to flip organizational structures from community input to community led, and is starting to force governments and legacy institutions to adapt to these changes.
Web 3.0 has implications across all industries, advantages for all members of society, and arguably, for the planet. Web 3.0 could radically change government structure, how we interact with government, reduce or eliminate bureaucracy, and even eliminate our current concept of corporations.
It also has implications for all brands and organizations with a digital presence engaged in marketing and communications. Consider that future generations will be much more averse to big tech profiting off their data. This has far reaching implications for the current state of digital ad tech. Additionally, as time goes on, more people than ever before won’t need to trust brands; they will be able validate claims brands make using public blockchain ledgers. Brands that adapt to these cultural shifts will remain competitive while others will fall behind.
I feel deeply engaged when considering complex systems that govern our world, so I spend a lot of free time studying. I believe that preserving native habitat, protecting oceans, practicing indigenous, regenerative approaches to agriculture, and eating food from nearby are some of the most overlooked aspects of reducing the rate and intensity of human caused climate change, an area of study in which I take a deep interest. I’m also interested in scaling the circular economy and leveraging blockchain technology to radically decentralize institutions where power has been traditionally concentrated. My curiosity is boundless and I enjoy seeking out primary sources.
In addition, I love to be in the kitchen and outside. In 2013, I took a NOLS course, where I spent 30 life-changing days immersed in the Alaskan wilderness. This intimate experience with living deliberately in nature stirred something deep inside me that continues to guide me.
My experience in Alaska then inspired me to start rock climbing. By way of climbing, I’ve explored some of the most inspiring places in North America and pushed past my perceived physical and mental limits.
Above all, I seek to challenge myself and challenge norms, pursue adventure and rigorous thinking, cultivate mindfulness in ordinary activities, and use my marketing and communications skills for the betterment of the planet and society. As I continue on this journey, I fall more humbly and deeply in love with all that nature provides.