Dean Meyers began using technology to improve his capabilities as the in-house marketer for the “Caribbean Business” newspaper in the early 1980’s in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He quickly saw the potential for using microcomputers in both business and education, and became the first sales and technical representative for the Caribbean region for Apple Computer, Inc. when the Macintosh was launched in 1984.

When the desktop publishing revolution made a leap in typesetting and design in the advertising industry, Dean saw the opportunity to use his early training in art and design in a new way, managing the graphics division for Nelson Communications, a pharmaceutical communications conglomerate based in New York, serving 29 affiliated companies. There he established a networked environment for designers and graphic artists to move from digital layout through finished art. While the capacities of the company grew, the internal resources were able to stay lean and productive. Very quickly the company moved from print advertising and collateral production to creating animatics in-house; then the Internet arose, and Dean was there with this first wave of web sites oriented to consumers and business.

1995 marked his first foray into extending branding and marketing via the web, developing sites to the consumer audience for prescription pharmaceuticals (Caverject, Kellogg’s Nutrition University), and internet and intranet sites for medical professionals; Ortho-MacNeil and Johnson and Johnson were among the first large corporate clients. This lead to expanding further into consumer web sites working at other advertising and marketing agencies, creating advertising banner campaigns and early interactive sites for clients including Verizon, Citibank, Avon, Marvel Comics, Sony, Olympus, Liberty Mutual and others in B2B and B2C marketing.

With the explosion of blogs, wikis and content management systems by 2004, Dean saw the opportunity to work in education to bring these new capabilities to school communities and into the educational process at large. He worked in an independent school, implementing a Web 2.0-based site, teaching students and faculty about blogging and podcasting, and building wikis and working with students developing web sites that replaced or augmented traditional student reports.

Finding his role as an evangelist for using technology to fulfill real-world marketing goals and seeing the rise of social media’s role in marketing and business communication, Dean began to work independently as a digital strategist, web developer and trainer.

He currently works with non-profit agencies, marketing groups and corporate divisions, C-level professionals and others in finding ways to use the web for everything from implementing social media into marketing programs to making the collaborative process simpler through real-time web tools. His current focus is on transmedia, content sharing, improved communication through social media tools and digital presence development.

Coming full circle back to his first lessons in using art as a communication tool, he is an active member of the VizThink community. He is one of the community leaders of the VizThink New York City  group, which meets regularly to share visual tools and methods for better communication.

Among the programs he has developed to improve visual communication skills, he presented “Visual Problem-Solving: 5 diagrams in 15 minutes” at the SxSW Music+Film+Interactive Festival in Austin, TX in March 2010.

Other recent speaking engagements include the #14o Characters Conference in London, UK (November 2009), where he spoke about Digital Presence, and the upcoming CES in Las Vegas, NV (January, 2010), where he will speak at the Social Media Jungle about Transmedia and Convergence.

Please feel free to contact Dean about digital strategy or visual problem-solving for yourself or your company.