tl;dr

I’m a content designer for Miro. Current obsessions: upgrade flows and naming conventions.

Before Miro, I was at Bulb (2018-2020) as their first content designer. If you’ve ever entered your password wrong and got an error message, you’ve seen my work.

Trying to get paid to write? I put all my reckons into this short guide: paymeforwords.com.

I write a newsletter about looking at life very closely called 100%.

I maintain a list of the 100 things I like most about living in London. It’s a bit neglected these days.

Ten years experience as a copywriter and creative. (See: Game of Thrones exhibition, Lost My Name/Wonderbly content platform, Dyson recruitment narrative game.)

Five years as a teacher, and three as a business and policy analyst (just for laughs).

I also have three degrees: Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Education, and Juris Doctor.

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The story so far...

Vancouver (1999 - 2011)

As a high school teacher I worked mainly in special programs for at-risk youth. For two glorious months I was an elementary school librarian.

My crowning achievement from my time in the library was a collaborative song I wrote with a group of eight year-olds titled, ‘I Like Bubblegum In My Hair’.

Finding two degrees insufficient, I returned to school for a Juris Doctor. I joined the Government of British Columbia first as an intellectual property officer, and then policy analyst for the Ministry of Transportation. Historians will one day refer to this period as Thom’s Experimental Phase.

An accurate depiction of my writing process.

Having accomplished all I could for large-scale shipping policy, I applied for and got the first copywriting post I saw on Craigslist.

I worked at Vancouver Film School for 1.5 years as part of a small marketing team, writing everything from print ads and radio scripts to 30 foot-long banners for trade shows. We won exactly no awards.

London (2012 - )

With this experience under my belt, I moved to London and had the good fortune to land at Poke (2012-2015).

I started as a social creative for the launch of EE. I spent over a year on the Game of Thrones Exhibition, first as a creative on the pitch team and then as the creative lead during production. This included an 18-hour day at the O2 during the inaugural show’s setup, soundtracked by back-to-back recordings of Strictly Come Dancing.

I left Poke with a slightly heavy heart for a wonderful opportunity at Lost My Name (now Wonderbly), helping them build out their brand and comms strategy.

My first major project was producing a newspaper with children summarising 2015.

I was the main writer for the new content platform, Clever Ideas, as well as emails and social content, including this viral sensation:

And I was the mind and hands behind a series of magic tricks, Tiny Magic.

I left to become Senior Creative at Livity (2017), where I produced a branching narrative game for Dyson. I developed TOV guidelines for Nominet Digital Neighbourhood, a program that matches young skills with local businesses, and created a new course for Barclays LifeSkills.

I was the Senior Copywriter for SamKnows (2017-2018), helping them shape their brand and tone of voice.

Thom elsewhere:
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