About

Hi. I'm David Williams and I'm a writer and consultant based in Philadelphia who likes to explore the blurred lines between fact and fiction.

I help organizations bring narrative depth to their go-to-market process as a fractional Product Marketing consultant and by helping them create content products specializing in newsletters and new forms of micro-media.

I also write a newsletter called A Short Distance Ahead which is a week-by-week journey through the history of AI and humanity's evolving relationship with artificial minds. It is told through seventy-five weekly essays starting with the year 1950 when Alan Turing first posed the question, "Can machines think?" Each week's essay focuses on a singular year and how the historic milestones of that year influenced the scientists, researchers, dreamers, skeptics, and accidental prophets who shaped our digital destiny.

I occasionally write for The Philadelphia Citizen, an independent civic media organization in Philadelphia.
Long ago I studied creative writing at the New School in New York City and playwriting at HB Studios. I've written tv and film scripts, developed ghost-writing projects, and finally, I'm currently at work on my first collection of short stories.

​

••••••••​

 

In 2024 I workshopped my fiction with the extraordinary, Amy Hempel at The New York State Writer's Institute and took part in Futurescapes Writers Workshop, a competitive program for speculative and sci-fi writers with faculty who have represented and worked with renowned authors like Neil Gaiman, N.K. Jemisin, Patrick Rothfuss, and William Gibson. 

​

I was a fellowship candidate invited to join the final cohort of the Write of Passage five-week online writing bootcamp intensive in the Fall of 2024 with access to a community of 2000+ writers spanning across 72 countries.

​

​

In the past, I was Managing Director at a local civic media nonprofit, where I helped build a modern, full-stack media organization. Specifically, I formulated a sustainable business model while managing all aspects of operations, programming, and both editorial and operational growth. Prior to that, I led product marketing and the go-to-market strategy for the corporate learning and talent development software of the global, publicly-traded, education technology company, Instructure.

​

As a marketing leader, I have combined a creative, narrative-centric thinking with a very data-driven, specialized, and technical approach to building out successful GTM strategy and marketing functions for driving growth in both startups and larger, publicly-traded companies. 

 

I have also supported SaaS fundraising rounds, successfully launched two user-conferences, managed large-scale corporate content strategies from the agency side, managed CPG field sales and marketing teams, launched two successful industry leading newsletters, created long-form interactive content, and written (unproduced) scripts for television and film.  Finally, I was a part of three different startups (one CPG and two SaaS) that all ended in successful acquisitions. 

​

At the start of 2023, I immersed in the world of artificial intelligence. I completed a DeepLearning.ai specialization in machine learning to develop best practices for deploying and managing generative AI, as well as a Parsons School of Design specialization for learning how to design and develop projects utilizing creative AI. 

​

My newsletter explores the current intersection we are at with the wave of GenAI tools. I am forcing myself to engage with these tools, but I worry deeply about inability to reflect on our relationship with these tools and technologies. This challenge is what I explore most deeply in my (forthcoming) fiction writing, and the primary mreason that I believe "we need fiction like we need water."

​​

​