2018: New York, NY

January 7th, 2019

Hey Friends,

Another year is behind us… And I find one of the best ways to know where you’re going is to look at where you’ve been. Humans, unlike other animals living on this planet, have the capacity to change at an astonishing rate. Engaging with new ideas, concepts, and practices can actually change the shape of our brain.

I wanted to touch base and share some highlights of the past year of my life.

Work

This time last year I was working at Barnes & Noble Education (BNED), working on building out their predictive learning analytics solution and open ed resources courseware platform. My work there took me across the US and has shaped my understanding of the market for universities in America. One of the reports I co-authored last year — Troubled Transfers — explores the gaps in the community college transfer process.

I ended up leaving BNED to join ConsenSys – a venture production studio started by one of the co-founders of the Ethereum Blockchain. After learning about this space for the past few years I was excited to be joining one of the largest companies in this emerging sector. Blockchain promises to flip the ownership structure of the web and provide consumers with a way to safely and securely store their data and provision how it is used. If you’re upset about the data breaches of 2017 (facebook, equifax, etc.) then you should learn more about how decentralized applications can transform the way we engage with the web.

The project I joined was Cellarius, a collaborative sci-fi universe that pushed on the edges of intellectual property and remixing of assets. Through Cellarius I was able to work with some incredible storytellers. As exciting an opportunity it was, I opted to exit the team over the summer for a whole host of reasons that are common amongst early stage startups. I ended on working with ConsenSys Design on the Web 3 Design System and our appearance at Devcon. As that short term project wrapped up I found the opportunity to start ConsenSys Sports, a vertical within the consulting firm that helped major leagues, teams, and athletes identify and define opportunities to use Ethereum.

In a shocking plot twist, ConsenSys laid off a significant portion of the company to refocus… and my group was cut right before the holidays.

As 2018 faded I was fortunate to line up some exciting product marketing consulting work for 2019 — and I can’t wait to see where these projects lead.

Learning, Writing, and Teaching

I had a steep decline in number of books read (14 vs. 51 the year prior) and articles published. Diving into a new field – blockchain – had me focusing on learning via blogs, whitepapers, and podcasts (by the time something gets published in a book about blockchain its probably outdated).

The articles I published this year were:

The classes and workshops I took:

A one day data visualization workshop taught by Edward Tufte
I started getting into spin classes and took a kettlebell workshop
The Bootstrapper’s Workshop
The Marketing Seminar
Fordham’s Blockchain Disruptor Conference

The classes and workshops I ran:

Blockchain – User Onboarding in Practice
Blockchain – 101 and Sports Industry Use Cases
I held a few lunch and learns for ConsenSys Design – diving into peer reviewed research and applications for dApp design
Design Thinking Workshops for blockchain
Speaking on a panel at Animation Night NY on Blockchain and the implications for the film industry
Volunteering with CSNYC to talk to students from every borough about careers in tech
Working with several underrepresented founders to advise them on product and marketing

Adventure

2018 was a great year for me in terms of adventure. Some of the highlights were:

Jamming for a week with a dozen authors, artists, and designers on a series of stories for Cellarius at Cellcon 0
Traveling to Japan for two weeks of martial arts training at Honbu Dojo. It was one of the most intense trips of my life and it changed the way I view the art. I’m still unpacking the learnings from this trip and expect I will be for years to come.
Hiking and camping trips with friends
Exploring out west with the family – hitting Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Yellowstone, and the Grand Tetons
Attending a creative retreat weekend organized by a really great friend
Seeing Deadmau5 play on the South Street Seaport rooftop
Nerding out at New York Comic Con
Officiating two weddings for friends and supporting two more friends as a Groomsman
Seeing my first opera – the Magic Flute – at the Met
Wandering around the MoMa on a guided tour with Seth Godin for all the altMBA coaches
Going to Prague for Devcon, the Ethereum developers conference, where I conducted several UX audits for dApp developers

Life threw a lot at me in 2018, and the year did not go how I expected it would. As we start out on a fresh year I am unsure of where I’ll be this time next year – but I’m excited for the journey, to keep learning and working towards making a dent in the world.

✌🏽, Sean

p.s. how’s your year been? shoot me an email or give me a call, it would be great to catch up.

p.p.s. Check out past years in review: 2016