Curriculum Vitae
CV
To communicate well, and bring perspective to ideas.
I am a communicator and strategist who’s helped organisations tell their stories for more than 13 years. My job titles have included community manager, technology evangelist, editor, and “head of content.”
I’ve worked for web startups and software companies, and in academic publishing and higher education. I studied words and how people use them at university. Now I help large, higher-education institutions communicate well through content strategy.
Work
Assistant director, content strategy at Cornell University
September 2018 – Now, Ithaca, New York
I work with leaders and stakeholders across Cornell University’s ILR School to understand and craft their messages. I help build strategies for creating and managing content that’s designed for our audiences and on purpose.
Head of content and communities at Zengenti
September 2014 – September 2018 (4 years), Shropshire, United Kingdom
Zengenti is a web software house that happens to have two digital agencies in its wings. It’s flagship – Contensis – is an enterprise-level content management system (CMS). It’s used by many leading organisations, and is popular with UK-based universities and local authorities. My job description is quite broad – I work with most teams within the company to build our message and keep our prose well-crafted. I also work with clients on content strategy through workshops and consultation.
“Zach’s rich experience in our industry, and his passion for getting things right, has brought tremendous value to Zengenti and our clients.
When Zach stands up in front of an audience, it’s like he’s always been there. He gets people engaged in ideas he is passionate about and he brings us along with him.
I have learnt a lot from Zach, particularly around language – I now feel even more uncomfortable around jargon.
He’s a deep thinker, and I value his input on many areas including sales, marketing, and community development.”
Jon Lewis
Chief Commercial Officer, Zengenti
Content strategist for Fluent
June 2013 – September 2014 (1 year, 4 months) Cambridge, United Kingdom
I was Fluent’s in-house content strategist. Fluent designs and builds websites for SMEs and institutions such as the University of Cambridge. My job is to craft the message of websites – working closely with clients to understand their perspective, and make sure they have a clear and consistent voice. The work includes all aspects of content strategy from microcopy (details matter) to taxonomies and writing.
“Zach and I worked together at Fluent on web projects for about a year. He’s friendly, willing to get stuck in and thoughtful in the way he approaches everything he does. A great addition to any team – and he’ll make you a spoon with an axe!?
Andrew Parker
Design Director, Fluent
Community manager for ScraperWiki
February 2013 – June 2013 (5 months) Liverpool, United Kingdom
Scraperwiki hired me to manage their community of journalists and developers. In my time there, I launched newsletters, spoke at events and bullied our developers into getting analytics coming in from our various tools. A lot of the work was in creating ways Scraperwiki could hear from their users and connect them through rapidly evolving plans from the company itself.
“Zach is a skilled communicator who has a deep understanding of data and how it is used in the world. He can handle all aspects of managing a community in the Internet Age – from social media and newsletters through to supporting customers individually. He’s particularly interested in learning general conclusions from behaviour of the community, and making sure this feedback improves the product. And in coffee!”
Francis Irving
CEO, Scraperwiki
Digital community manager for Emerald Group Publishing
June 2012 – February 2013 (9 months) Yorkshire, United Kingdom
I helped Emerald prepare for its first digital community offerings, looked after interns, and built up a working group within the company to support their online efforts. This involved pitching the very idea of a digital community to sceptical directors, and liaising with academics to support Emerald’s first community project, which has since been launched at networkedscholar.com. I worked like a kind of internal consultant on many projects across divisions as part of the Digital team.
Community manager for Kasabi
January 2011 – June 2012 (18 months) Birmingham, United Kingdom
Kasabi was a data marketplace startup project at Talis, and I had the privilege of helping to plan and launch the beta as their community manager. The role was a mixture of strategy and groundwork, which included organising (and speaking at) events, writing marketing materials, conducting surveys, and setting up analytics.
“Zach is really passionate about connecting with the community, he successfully built up a network of connections first as the editor of Nodalities magazine and later as community manager for Kasabi. He is enthusiastic and keen to learn new skills.”
Leigh Dodds
CTO, Kasabi
Editor of Nodalities Magazine and platform evangelist at Talis
April 2008 – December 2010 (2 years, 10 months) Birmingham, United Kingdom
Talis built a software platform for semantic web technologies. My job was to tell Talis’ story and that of the Semantic Web to interested people — and to help people who might become interested to pay attention.
As editor of the Magazine of the Semantic Web, Nodalities, I helped people to tell their own stories to promote the industry, and put the content together. Sometimes, the stories were best told in person, so I recorded and edited podcasts alongside the magazine. I also spoke at industry events, met hundreds of interesting people, and did some writing for ReadWriteWeb and other web publications.
“I worked closely with Zach throughout his career at Talis. He has a valuable talent to turn abstract ideas and processes into understandable information. He possesses a curious mind and a fascinating combination of cultural insight and an interest in new technologies. Zach is always willing to share his knowledge and his energy and positive attitude makes it great to work with him for partners and colleagues alike. I would thoroughly recommend Zach and would be more than pleased to work with him again in the future.”
Ian Davis
CTO, Talis
Education
BA (hons): English Language and Communication
King’s College London Sep 2003 – Jul 2006
Covering a wide range of perspectives on human communication, the degree focused on applied linguistics. We covered psycho- socio- and un-prefixed linguistics, and spent time on language development, acquisition, and cognitive communication. My dissertation was on semantics, with a particular interest in metaphor and propositional communication.
Other Experience
Co-founder at Shropgeek
Shropgeek started in 2008 on Twitter with a handful of web-based specialists trying to find anything to do in the ‘Shire. Two friends and I decided to meet up regularly to chat about the web. This spiralled into a full-day web conference with gifted speakers from around the world sharing their experience and expertise with geeks in the UK’s west midlands. I hosted the conferences, acting as compere. Although I no longer live in Shropshire, I keep in touch. And, geeks still get together monthly after the better part of a decade to talk about the web in the ‘Shire.
Group administrator for the largest green-woodworking community
I’m one of a handful of admins for the Facebook group Spoon Carving, Green Woodworking, and Sloyd. With more than 20,000 members, we’re fairly sure this is the biggest digital gathering of people interested in green woodworking.
Interests
A quick tag-cloud of my blog would probably show that my interests centre around forestry and woodworking, coffee, and language. I like sharing ideas, and getting others to do so too, so a friend and I started the Shropgeek gathering, which has become an annual conference.
Apart from the interests I often write about, I’m also captivated with the countryside, and love little more than taking my dog for a long walk with an audiobook. I carve spoons out of green wood, and attempt to make furniture that doesn’t fall apart. I also enjoy photography, and have an active photostream on flickr.com/beauvais.