So, who are you and what do you do?

I was born in the 70s in Vegas to a showgirl and a jazz guitarist.

Shortly after that, I started designing and building websites - and then dropped out of college to help an advertising agency develop a digital studio. Off to a great start, eh?

Well, 25+ years later, I’ve been a designer, a programmer, a web animator, Flash designer, Action Script-er, a front-end programmer, a researcher, an information architect, a user experience lead, a planner and a strategist. I’ve led marketing and publishing for games. I’ve worked for startups. I’ve loved it all.

What’s the through-line here? Well, true to my primal training, I am a performer - sort of a strategic ringleader. For over 20 years, I’ve been hacking human attention in high-stakes rooms. What I’ve lacked in training, I’ve made up in brutally earnest, honest, charismatic chemical connection with “the room.” I became a workshop and framework junkie. From positioning to brand strategy, from value management and weighted prioritization, to user-centered design and journey-based comms planning - I can lead teams to fruitful dialectic and collaboration. I am a moderator, creative facilitator, strategic storyteller and team-builder-upper. I am comfortable working at the C-level to construct strategic plans, leading collaborations on vision and new ideas. I can lead brand and marketing functions, crafting strategic, brand, marketing and creative briefs - and this work typically requires a strong collaboration with product strategy, but that typically has belonged to someone else’s team.

I haven’t written a manifesto for myself - but, if I did, it might start out with some stuff like this:

  • Boldness has magic, genius and power. (Sorry, Goethe…I butchered that.)

  • Creative conversations unlock the treasure of secret ideas - ingredients for insight, stowaways of mind.

  • Human consciousness and attention is sacred.

  • Brands should be experienced in action and service. This will be the new advertising.

  • All you need is love.

In addition to “conducting and orchestrating the unfolding of the next” at work, I enjoy writing and producing music and I am positively addicted to a daily yoga and meditation practice. I live in Santa Barbara (for now) with my wife, Karalea. Our three boys are “out there” right now, learning and doing stuff - in the Games program at University of Utah, the Data Theory program at UCLA and in Entertainment Arts at Art Center of Creative Design in Pasadena.

I am the creator and author of the Info Play Masterclass on Presenting Big Ideas. The course is a guided journey through idea development, strategy storycrafting, pitch creation, and meeting planning and design - as well as developing visual communications.

The Info Play Masterclass is for anyone who wants to present their ideas clearly - especially useful for those of us who need to present a new idea that needs support in order to survive.

Work with Tim

Complete Deck Design

Here’s what “Complete Deck Design” means:

Presentation Design AND
the words and answers you’ll need to build your idea into reality.

Tim and his team build presentation materials for all sizes and kinds of companies and teams.

  • Startup Pitch Decks

  • Agency Capability Presentations

  • Strategy and Company Communications

Moderation, Strategy, Training

If you or your team need to level up in idea development and pitch readiness, Tim can formulate half-day or full-day experiences to give you the tools you need to earn and reward your audience’s attention.

Reach out to discuss how you can transform your decks into collaborative conversations.

Here’s the process for making a deck together.
It usually takes a month.

This is how we do what we do. The process is straight-forward. But, every team has slightly different needs. If you and your team are aligned, super-buttoned-up and you feel great about your strategy and story - you’ll fly right through, and we’ll be happy to craft a deck for your stage of idea development.

Tell Us Your Story

We make it easy to get ready to pitch. Simple forms and a chat together will get us clarity on the core of your strategy story: people, plight, problem, idea, plan and promise.

Point to the Fences

Help us understand who you will be presenting to, and what their hopes and needs are. You may be on the hook for more data and proof to support your story at this point.

Draft Strategy Story

You’ll get a draft of the deck and a directional narrative layer. No fancy visuals - just pacing, overall story plot, some ideas on visual devices to clarify the idea.

Slide Deck Design

You’ll get all the slides, designed according to your brand design guidelines and the narrative per slide.

Ideal Performance

Animations, transitions and narrative performance synced to the slide content. Deck files and content, ready for the room.

Most of the rest of us are in various states of early development on our ideas, our strategy and our story. If this is you, you’ll definitely have an awesome deck to present within the month - but, we will err on the side of simplicity to help you put some miles on your story and evolve it before we polish it. (Yes, we will make visual evolutions to the deck, but we’d recommend evolving the strategy story and performance before redesigning as you go.)