A full-stack communications leader, I have a deep background in technology journalism (including leadership roles at WIRED and VentureBeat) and a track record of defining corporate narratives, executing PR and content programs, and driving engagement through strategic PR and content initiatives.
My clients have included Samsung, MailChimp, Trello, HackerOne, Upwork, DemandBase, Korn Ferry, and PWC.
I work with tech startups that want to refine their messaging to reach a national audience, and with later-stage tech companies that are ready to scale their content production.
I also work 1:1 with entrepreneurs who want to find their authentic stories and tell them to the world.
In short: You’ve got a story. I help you find it, define it, and tell it — at scale.
Let’s talk!
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 with 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. I luckily landed a job at a computer magazine after college, 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. 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 ran successful, long-running podcasts for WIRED and VentureBeat. I spent four years as a senior editor at WIRED. For another four years, I led the news team as editor-in-chief at VentureBeat, during which I was lucky to work with and mentor some truly outstanding writers, reporters, and editors.
That work gave me the skills needed to explain complex technological and scientific issues to general audiences. And it taught me how to find and tell stories.
This work also taught me to ship copy the way agile dev teams ship software. I help organizations learn how to produce, edit, and publish copy at high volume, under deadline pressure, day after day. 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 have worked with companies and VCs to develop their stories, create leadership-defining content in a variety of media, and deploy that work in earned, social, and owned channels.
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 an editorial practice. Our small team created hundreds of items of content annually: bylines, press releases, blog posts, LinkedIn articles, and more. I led cross-functional project teams creating high-impact messaging frameworks and research reports. I also worked closely with account leads on building out 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 work history.
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. I write morning pages pretty much every day.
When I’m not working, I’m probably out swimming in the nearest body of water.
Contact Dylan
Publication Highlights
- A delicious mid-life mocktail, Popula, March 2019
- How to Fake an Email From Almost Anyone in Under 5 Minutes, Hacker Noon, October 2017
- Talk loudly and carry a big schtick, Medium, March 2017
- 6 Financial Facts Solo Entrepreneurs Need to Know, NewCo Shift, October 2016
- How to Use Diversity to Increase Business Performance, LinkedIn, November 2015
- This French tech school has no teachers, no books, no tuition — and it could change everything, VentureBeat, June 2014
- How to Make a Clock Run for 10,000 Years, Wired, June 2011
- DIY Freaks Flock to ‘Hacker Spaces’ Worldwide, Wired, March 2009
Media Appearances
- PRovoke Media, “What happens when journalists become PR professionals?” June 2021
- Vox Media, “Why coronavirus scammers can send fake email from the WHO,” a news segment that got 650k views, April 2020
- CNBC, “Who really sent that email?” June 2020
- NBC Bay Area, “Press Here,” March 2015
- Fox Business, segment on CES and upcoming gadgets, January 2015
- PRHacker, “Secrets of my Inbox,” August 2014
- Fox Business with Maria Bartiromo, about the Amazon Fire phone, June 2014
- KRON-4, on our hopes for an Apple watch, September 2013
- KQED Forum, with Michael Krasny, on Facebook’s IPO, February 2012
- WBUR On Point, with Tom Ashbrook, talking about haiku, January 2011
- … more media