Stephanie Gerson

Current

Social Media Strategist at Shower in the Dark

Past

Product Marketing and Experience Manager at Thames & Kosmos
Social Media Strategist at Piqqem Corporation
Social Media & Environmental Strategist at Clear Ink

Social Media/Marketing at TCHO Ventures
Digital Curatorial Intern at UC Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive
Media Production and Curriculum Development at Rheingold Associates
Producer at KALX
Researcher at Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars
Graduate Student Instructor at University of California, Berkeley
Experience Designer at Thames & Kosmos, LLC
Associate Producer at Leapfrog, Inc.

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Education

University of California, Berkeley
Stanford University

Recommended

5 people have recommended Stephanie

Connections

139 connections

Industry

Online Media

Websites

Stephanie Gerson’s Summary

I was born in the year of the monkey, and raised in the gorgeous San Francisco bay area. I hold a B.A. from Stanford in Science, Technology, and Society with a self-designed concentration in Experience Design, and an M.S. from Berkeley in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, with a thesis proposing the emergence of technology-enabled collectively intelligent consumer behavior. (Clearly, it's the most verbose degrees that attract me.) I've worked in interactive art and education, environmental advocacy, and social media strategizing, and am now hanging out somewhere in between: doing social media strategizing for an interactive educational toy company with a strong environmental line. But I aspire to be a new media experience designer, and to be able to explain what that means without words.

.....Some taste tests of my work.....
so close yet so far away - an experiment in social tele-intimacy
>>showerinthedark.blogspot.com/2008/02/so-close-yet-so-far-away.html
>>blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/02/lonely-heart-he.html

Second Life Eco Tour - machinima on environment and governance-oriented activities in the virtual world of Second Life
>>www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.item&news_id=393493

The Graduates - radio show dedicated to graduate student research at Berkeley
>>garageband.com/user/sgerson/podcast/main

Stephanie Gerson’s Specialties:

>>Audio/Visual: Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Final Cut Pro, Pro Tools, 3D building in Second Life
>>Programming: HTML, Linden Script Language (LSL)
>>Social Media: multimedia sharing sites, social network sites, wikis, blogs/vlogs/microblogs, podcasts, RSS, etc.
>>Languages: Fluent in spoken and written Spanish, French, and Portuguese; working knowledge in Hebrew and Yucatec Maya

Stephanie Gerson’s Experience

Social Media Strategist

Shower in the Dark

(Online Media industry)

October 2008 — Present (1 year 3 months)

My practice involves developing and implementing social media strategies for start-ups, non-profits, and other organizations, and more broadly, online community building with the capacity to migrate activity offline. Current engagements include a 2010 gubernatorial campaign (the candidate has not yet officially announced) and a fundraising campaign for AS220 (non-profit community art space in Providence); previous engagements include Blue Rock Vineyards (Northern California-based wine label), Snibbe Interactive (developer of personalized interactive experiences), Mighty Play (developer of interactive educational experiences), CookEatShare (social network site dedicated to foodies), and TCHO (obsessively good chocolate, see below). Shower in the Dark is how I refer to my practice, besides being good advice.
Product Marketing and Experience Manager

Thames & Kosmos

(Privately Held; Consumer Goods industry)

January 2009 — September 2009 (9 months)

Managing product marketing and experience design for Thames & Kosmos, publisher of interactive educational science kits. Responsibilies include developing and executing product marketing strategy, especially social media and online components (Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, etc.), writing press releases, managing public relations, producing how-to videos for the web, designing/refining user experience, especially social media and online components (e.g. kit-specific online activities), and editing/writing science kit manuals.
Social Media Strategist

Piqqem Corporation

(Internet industry)

October 2008 — January 2009 (4 months)

Developing the social media strategy for Piqqem, a start-up applying the wisdom of crowds to stock market predictions. Responsibilities include: unleashing Piqqem in all corners of the financial blogosphere, launching Piqqem's own blog, developing a social network site strategy, creating digital marketing collateral, and editing website copy.
Social Media & Environmental Strategist

Clear Ink

(Privately Held; Marketing and Advertising industry)

October 2008 — January 2009 (4 months)

Developing the 1) social media and 2) environmental strategies for Clear Ink, a digital advertising agency. The former involves developing, articulating, and pricing Clear Ink's social media offerings, i.e. the incorporation of social media into the way clients communicate with their consumers; the latter involves developing how Clear Ink can help clients communicate their environmental behavior, e.g. for purposes of advertising sustainable products.
Social Media/Marketing

TCHO Ventures

(Food Production industry)

August 2008 — October 2008 (3 months)

My short-lived Love affair with this adorable vertically-integrated hi-tech chocolate company involved: trolling the blogosphere for mentions of TCHO; elaborating ideas for member perks and events; writing copy for TCHO's website, e.g. the stories of their factory, their illustrious beta program, and cacao nibs; and writing for TCHO's blog; among other miscellaneous social media-ish things.
Digital Curatorial Intern

UC Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive

(Educational Institution; 10,001 or more employees; Higher Education industry)

February 2008 — June 2008 (5 months)

Assisting to organize the Berkeley Big Bang 2008, a new media arts festival in Berkeley in June of 2008; launching the DMAX blog, a blog for BAM/PFA’s Digital Media Art Access and Exhibitions program (DMAX); working with BAM/PFA Digital Art Curator Richard Rinehart on the digital art curatorial program, including research, contact with artists, event planning, logistics coordination, and technical research.
Media Production and Curriculum Development

Rheingold Associates

(Online Media industry)

December 2007 — June 2008 (7 months)

Filming and editing video for Howard Rheingold’s Vlog; assistant teaching and developing curricula for his Stanford and UC Berkeley courses on Virtual Communities/Social Media and Participatory Media for Collective Action; developing curricula for his social media classroom. (Note: this position is currently in hibernation, but may resuscitate without warning...)
Producer

KALX

(Media Production industry)

December 2007 — June 2008 (7 months)

Conceiving of and producing “The Graduates,” a radio show dedicated to graduate student research at UC Berkeley, which consists of finding interviewees, interviewing them, recording & editing interviews, uploading podscasts, and maintaining online community on Facebook.
Researcher

Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars

(Partnership; Public Policy industry)

May 2007 — December 2007 (8 months)

Researching and producing a report on possibilities for environmental governance via the virtual world of Second Life, and co-producing a machinima on environmental and governance-oriented activities in Second Life. If you wander those parts, come find me. My name is Sequoia Hax.
Graduate Student Instructor

University of California, Berkeley

(Educational Institution; Research industry)

September 2005 — December 2007 (2 years 4 months)

Serving as a Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) for Louise Fortmann's course on Political Ecology in the Fall of 2006, Dara O'Rourke's course on Environmental Justice in the Fall of 2007, and Howard Rheingold's course on Virtual Communities & Social Media in the Spring of 2008. Oh and I received an Outstanding GSI Award for my instruction in Fall of 2006.
Experience Designer

Thames & Kosmos, LLC

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Entertainment industry)

March 2005 — August 2005 (6 months)

Designing the user experience for an educational science kit about navigation and exploration, sponsored by National Geographic.
Associate Producer

Leapfrog, Inc.

(Public Company; Entertainment industry)

March 2004 — March 2005 (1 year 1 month)

Assisting with all aspects of application development for the FLY Pentop Computer from initiation to completion, including: schedules, budgets, content & gameplay design, production, editing, approvals, testing, and documentation.

Stephanie Gerson’s Education

University of California, Berkeley

MS , Environmental Science, Policy, and Management , 2005 — 2008

My research proposes the emergence of social media-enabled collectively intelligent consumer behavior. Lemme make that more palatable: collective action on behalf of consumers, as enabled by social media. And now lemme make it downright tasty: what I refer to as “peer consumption.” I look at emerging examples of peer consumption, such as Carrotmobs (Carrotmob.org) and the work of UC Berkeley’s Consumer Information Lab (GoodGuide.com). Essentially, this is about consumers using social media to coordinate their consumer behavior for purposes of governing the environmental, health, and social implications of global production systems. Which is where Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (look up) comes in. And which is where the distinction between producer and consumer begins to dissolve, leaving instead consumers who participate in the production of what they consumer; more easily referred to as prosumers.

Activities and Societies:

Berkeley Center for Science, Technology, and Society, Berkeley Center for New Media, KALX
Stanford University

BA , Science, Technology, and Society (STS) , 1998 — 2002

Self-designed specialization in Experience Design, an experiential approach to design combining interactive/digital art, computer science, psychology, and STS studies. In brief, I was interested in the co-evolution between humans and their real/virtual experiences, i.e. integrating cybernetics into design methodology.

Activities and Societies:

Stanford Film Society, Stanford Alliance for Service through the Arts, Students for Environmental Action at Stanford, Capoeira Club (co-founder)