Hi, I'm Erin.
I focus on brand building, growth marketing, content, and social media marketing for transformative tech, lifestyle, e-commerce, and media brands.
I’m a cerebral person with insatiable curiosity. I’ve always been driven to look deeply at persistent and pervasive challenges, identify patterns, and write about what’s going on in the world.
“The desire to write is like an affliction, which you’re either born with or you’re not.”
Growing up I wanted to become a journalist. But when I started college in 2005, journalism and traditional media were in turmoil. Web 2.0 was taking off and enabling more people to communicate at scale than ever before. It transformed the Internet from a “dark and anonymous place” to an interactive virtual reality and threatened mass media channels.
The effects of Web 2.0 on traditional media were so profound that the CU Boulder School of Journalism in which I intended to enroll temporarily closed, so I decided to study political science and the subject matters with which I was concerned instead. 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, anywa.
By the time I got my degree in 2014, Web 2.0 had opened up new ways for brands and organizations to communicate directly with their target audience. Writing on behalf of brands and organizations with missions I supported aligned with me and is how I found my way to brand storytelling and content marketing.
"One of the exciting things about the Internet is that anyone can publish whatever content they can create."
My career in marketing has progressed, but I’ve never been able to pull myself away from studying complex systems.
And recently I realized that, ironically, one of the most effective interventions for solving societal problems was the very technology that upended the traditional media landscape: the Internet.
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. 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 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 and advantages for all members of society and the planet. It could radically change government structure, reduce bureaucracy, and even eliminate our current concept of corporations. Web 3.0 also stands to change the relationship between brands, organizations and consumers.
I still spend a lot of my free time studying. I believe that preserving native habitats, 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 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. 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 of living deliberately in nature stirred something deep inside me that continues to guide me. My experience in Alaska 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 humanity and all that nature provides.