Growing up on a 100 acre farm in rural Michigan, I never believed I could do what I do.
Hell, I didn’t think that I would be able to go to college. But here I am.
I was always fascinated about psychology, but there was no way I could afford all that schooling. A good friend said I should look into marketing and gave me the book Buyology by Martin Lindstrom. It discusses brain scan experiments proving that devout Harley Davidson fans seeing their logo have the same level of activity, in the same part of their brain, as Christians when they see the cross.
I was hooked. Marketing was the cheat code to continue to learn psychology. I immediately changed my major.
Not long after, it was time for me to pack up from the farm and be off to the Windy City.
I started at Ogilvy and Mather as a Project Manager. If you know anything about traditional agencies back then, the PM didn’t have a say on anything outside deadlines though. Still, I would stay up late watching tutorials on all of the tools people used and read about different experience philosophies.
I’d study artisans solve design challenges and present their work to internal and client teams. I noted the nuances to their approach. Psychology coming into play once again.
I started mapping out the people and relationships to catch how they framed things. Who is making the decision? What matters to them? What are their goals? What’s their boss’s goal?
It was a power map. I just didn’t know that yet. All the psychology. I couldn’t believe I was getting paid for this.
It wasn’t a year out of college before I was leading the program management team for our client, S.C. Johnson. When my role expanded, I was introduced to digital and I dove in any chance I could.
I left to focus solely on digital at Wirestone. There, I cut my teeth on things like site redesigns, paid media, analytics, and SEO for P.F. Chang’s, Pam’s Cooking Spray, and Carhartt. The flood gates were open. It was a new world to explore, new learnings about psychology at a macro level. New tools to spend late nights digging into.
I obsessed with how psychology impacted experience and vice versa. I found my voice in the room because I could cite analytics, speak to design, and more broadly shape a better experience.
Those late nights learning “enough to be dangerous” were paying off.
I've worn a lot of hats and my role has morphed into something hard to describe.
I’m an experience strategist.
I help teams find the right ideas and ultimately create something real because I obsessed over this stuff for over a decade. I still do.
It’s helped me guide teams and launch experiences like motif and Ascension that impact millions of users a day.
Years back, Tanarra Schneider, a good friend and mentor, told me “You’re amazing at what you do, but you can’t scale yourself. You need a plan to bring others up if you want to make a bigger impact.”.
I fully leaned into that. Helping people find new talents and creating a space for good work to happen is my new obsession. It’s been amazing to see how people evolve when given the space, trust, and support to do so. That's why I’ve been trusted to shape $300mm digital transformation programs for Fortune 500 companies and care deeply about supporting everyone on a team. Titles don't matter.
We are all still learning.
Always iterating.
What can we create next?
Really enjoyed working with Nick for his ability to bring together creative designs that were also technically feasible in complex matrixed organizations.
I can't recommend Nick enough as a partner and leader across all aspects of CX/UX, Dev, Change Mgmt., Operations, Finance, Field Teams, etc.
Nick was a true partner that would challenge the client and internal teams to create better experiences. He brings together experience strategy and product management to get real experiences in market.
Nick is an exceptional leader with a proven ability to navigate complex organizations and lead lead cross-functional teams to bring experiences to life.
