Brian Fling

Current

President at pinch/zoom

Past

El Presidente at Fling Media
Director of Strategy, Principal & Co-Founder at Blue Flavor
President at Fling Media

Design Director at Dwango Wireless
Producer at Classmates.com
Producer at Childrens Hospital and Regional Medical Center
Producer at 3DEF
Barista at Starbucks Coffee Company

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4 people have recommended Brian

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500+ connections

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Brian Fling’s Summary

Brian Fling has been a leader in creating interactive experiences for both the web and mobile mediums. He has worked with hundreds of businesses from early stage start-ups to Fortune 50 companies like Boeing and Best Buy to leverage new media around the needs of real people.

Brian is a frequent speaker and author on the issues on mobile design, the mobile web and mobile user experience. He was the primary author of the free dotMobi Mobile Web Developer's guide, downloaded thousands of times over. He is currently writing O'Reilly Media's first "animal" book on mobile, Mobile Design and Development due out later this year.

Currently Brian is the founder and president of pinch/zoom.

Brian Fling’s Specialties:

user experience, web design, print design, mobile design, mobile web, mobile apps, iPhone, iPhone sites, iPhone Web Apps, iPhone Native Apps, graphic design, information architecture, layout, web standards, web development, usability, Web 2.0, Mobile 2.0

Brian Fling’s Experience

President

pinch/zoom

(Privately Held; Internet industry)

April 2009 — Present (8 months)

pinch/zoom is a interactive collective focused on building the next generation of mobile and web applications. We are seasoned experts with a passion for creating something new and cool. We believe in transparency, honesty and putting every ounce of energy we have into whatever we touch.
El Presidente

Fling Media

(Internet industry)

April 2008 — April 2009 (1 year 1 month)

At Fling Media we help people with their websites—whether it is a corporate website, a community site, a mobile site, a web application—basically anything that fits into a web browser. We provide end to end services for both desktop and mobile sites, including helping you figure out how to get the most from your site, how to create an intuitive and compelling design, and create HTML & CSS templates using nothing but Web Standards.
Director of Strategy, Principal & Co-Founder

Blue Flavor

(Partnership; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)

July 2005 — April 2008 (2 years 10 months)

One of the four founders of this Seattle-based interactive agency. The initial idea behind Blue Flavor was to create an "anti-agency agency," providing the transparency of an in-house with the agility of an outside agency. We provided mostly web and mobile design and development services.

During my time as a Principal and managing partner we grew from the original founders to a complement of ten, and increased our revenue by 300%.
President

Fling Media

(Design industry)

1998 — November 2005 (7 years )

The business name I worked under as I moonlit on various web and mobile projects, while I waited for the rest of the business world to "get" mobile.
Design Director

Dwango Wireless

(Public Company; Wireless industry)

March 2004 — April 2005 (1 year 2 months)

Built up the design team for the mobile content startup. Worked with brands like ESPN, Rolling Stone, Napster and others to build branded web and mobile content portals.
Producer

Classmates.com

(Public Company; UNTD; Internet industry)

March 2004 — March 2004 (1 month)

(It was actually more like 3 weeks.)

At Classmates I was on the team to completely reinvent Classmates into a social networking platform. While my stay at Classmates was brief, the work I did for them is actually still seen in the site today.

I left to work in mobile again.
Producer

Childrens Hospital and Regional Medical Center

(Non-Profit; Hospital & Health Care industry)

March 2002 — February 2004 (2 years )

For two years, I worked at the Producer at Children's Hospital (now Seattle Children's). Hands down the hardest job I've ever had, helping a very large organization understand and ultimately convert their processes and systems digital.
Producer

3DEF

(Wireless industry)

1999 — 2000 (1 year )

Initially hired to design a web and mobile web (early WAP) based email, calendar and contacts tool. The company later became one of the first MVNO-E's in North America. Designed a variety of branded mobile content portals featuring monophonic ringtones and carrier logos.
Barista

Starbucks Coffee Company

(Public Company; SBUX; Retail industry)

1994 — 1997 (3 years )

I love making coffee. I would be doing it today if it paid a damn.

I worked for Starbucks for three years at various locations in Portland, Chicago and Seattle. I was certified learning coach and mentor, taking several hours of training into how people learn and absorb information which I still use today.

I took a lot of pride in teaching baristas the italian method of coffee and being passionate about their work. So much so, that I wrote a 20 page manifesto on how to transform Starbucks into a more profitable business.

In my boldest professional move I've ever taken, I interoffice-mailed my manifesto to ever senior-level person in the organization, then quit a few months later.