My background in arts and technology ties together design, research, writing, production, and facilitation skills. I have a special interest in investigating strategic challenges with qualitative and quantitative research and using graphics to clarify needs, synthesize ideas, and develop solutions.

I have an MFA in Arts Leadership from Seattle University; an intense applied program in arts administration including board and staff development, fundraising, change management, strategic planning, law, finance, and marketing. My thesis research explored communication and collaboration models for teams and how nonprofits can effectively respond to demands for more data-driven decision-making. This work has expanded my framework and enriched my approach to developing communication materials, branding, marketing, and educational tools in print and online.

Clients include PBS, Warner Bros., Oscar winning filmmakers Davis Guggenheim, Sean Penn, and Irene Taylor Brodsky, UCLA Center for International Emergency Medicine, and Barbara Grant Consulting Group (projects for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Washington Alliance for Better Schools (WABS), and Washington Global Health Alliance.) I have presented at conferences, facilitated panel discussions, and delivered training on technology and design topics in Canada, the US, and the UK. During the dot com heydays, I co-wrote a series of software books with Robert Reinhardt for Wiley publishing that sold over 200,000 copies and were translated into thirteen languages.

Before moving to Los Angeles in 1999 to start theMAKERS, I earned an International Baccalaureate diploma on full scholarship at Lester B. Pearson College on Vancouver Island, spent a year traveling and cycling solo, and then earned a BAA in New Media from Ryerson University’s School of Image Arts in Toronto. I believe that technology can help to solve human problems and human skills can help to solve technology problems, and through creative collaboration I hope to make a positive difference in the world.

About that name: I was born in the middle of winter in a cabin in the woods. My family lived without running water or electricity for many happy years in a remote river valley in the interior of B.C. I’m not a horse wrangler or an alpine hiking guide because computers came along and made it possible for this hippy kid to connect to a bigger world and to find a creative profession that hasn’t gotten boring yet.

www.snowdowd.com | www.theMAKERS.com | www.slideshare.net/snowdowd/presentations