You’ve got a story. I can help you find it, refine it, and tell it to the world.
A writer, editor, communications strategist, and writing coach, I have a deep background in technology journalism (including leadership roles at WIRED and VentureBeat) and a long track record of uncovering, defining, and telling stories for individuals and brands.
After leading comms for a fast-growing email security startup and then building out the editorial practice for a top-tier tech PR firm, I've returned to full-time focus on my leadership communications agency, Tweney Media. My clients have included Samsung, MailChimp, Trello, HackerOne, Upwork, DemandBase, Korn Ferry, and PWC.
At Tweney Media, I work with companies that are ready to be seen as leaders – not just vendors or marketers – and help them develop and deploy their messaging and communication strategies.
I also work as a coach/mentor/editor with entrepreneurs and others who want to learn how to find their authentic stories and tell them to the world. If that's you, please get in touch.
"Dylan is one of the people who taught me how to write. He is a brilliant editor who knows how to make prose compelling but also keep an author's voice honest and authentic. I benefited so much from his support, both while working as a journalist, and later while writing my first book." – Christina Farr, author and investor
My story
I discovered the thrill of publishing early, when Cricket magazine published one of my cartoons and awarded it first prize among 9- to 12-year-olds. Other kids got sugar highs from too much ice cream. I got a publishing high from Cricket that has lasted a lifetime.
I followed that up by writing annoyingly precocious letters to the editor of my hometown paper, writing and editing for my high school newspaper, and, later, contributing to college newspapers and lit magazines. After a very impractical liberal arts degree, I was lucky to land a job at a computer magazine, and I was off to the races.
Twenty-plus years as a journalist covering technology gave me a front-row seat to the PC, Internet, mobile, and social media revolutions. It also instilled a deep appreciation for the transformative power of tech. I contributed to a wide variety of national publications, online and in print, wrote regular weekly columns for VentureBeat, Business 2.0, and InfoWorld, and created successful, long-running podcasts in both audio and video. I spent four years as a senior editor at WIRED, leading two of its most successful blogs, then led the news team as editor-in-chief at VentureBeat for another four years. I was lucky to work with and mentor some truly outstanding writers, reporters, and editors at both publications.
Some of what I've published: WIRED - VentureBeat - Other Publications
That work gave me the skills to explain complex technological and scientific issues to general audiences, and it sparked my passion for telling stories about technology.
This work also taught me to mentor writers, manage teams, and ship copy like Agile dev teams ship software. When I was running it, VentureBeat regularly published 30-50 stories every weekday.
What I do
Since 2015, I’ve been applying my journalistic skills to define and refine corporate messages, establish thought leadership, and help executives tell their stories.
My work covers a broad range of tech companies, with a particular focus on B2B SaaS, cybersecurity, and health tech.
At Tweney Media, I work with companies and entrepreneurs to develop their stories, create leadership-defining content in a variety of media, craft winning pitches, and deploy those stories in earned, owned, and social channels.
I also help organizations learn how to produce, edit, and publish copy at high volume, under deadline pressure, day after day.
Previously, as Valimail’s VP of communications, I defined the communications and content strategy and led the PR, analyst relations, research, and content initiatives. I built an agile content development process, using JIRA, for marketing content, created the company’s blog (and published over 200 posts to it), and established a respected research program that generated hundreds of items of media coverage, from outlets including Vox Media, Fox News, CNBC, the Washington Post, Axios, and Politico.
At Highwire PR, I built a small but mighty editorial team that delivered hundreds of items of content annually: bylines, blog posts, LinkedIn articles, press releases, and more. I led cross-functional project teams creating high-impact messaging frameworks and research reports. I also helped build PR/storytelling strategies for top-tier enterprise tech, cybersecurity, and health-tech clients. The work we did created tens of millions of dollars in sales pipeline and led to hundreds of items of news coverage.
See LinkedIn for more of my work history.
What else I do
I'm a meditation and mindfulness practitioner in the Vietnamese Zen (Thien) tradition of Thích Nhất Hạnh and an active participant in the global Plum Village community he founded. I manage the Norcal Sangha website for this community in Northern California. On Earth Day 2023, I was ordained by Sister Chân Không as a lay member of the Order of Interbeing.
I’m also the founder of tinywords, a daily journal of haiku and micropoetry, which I’ve been publishing since 2000. With over 3,000 subscribers, it’s the world’s largest English-language publication devoted to haiku.
I’ve been blogging since the last millennium (my first post, on Blogger, was in November 1999), mostly about tech and media but more recently about mindfulness, swimming, running, and writing. And I write morning pages pretty much every day.
When I’m not working, I’m probably out swimming in the nearest body of water.
