Becoming a "Creative Technologist"
"Great collaborations start with mutual understanding. Get to know me a bit, by reading how my roots,
education and career have shaped me as a professional, a creative, and a leader. Here you’ll also find
some clips of early work that may not reflect my current portfolio standards but were essential in
shaping me as a creator."
P.S. This labor of love is still a work in progress, hoping to have it finished by Jan. 1 2025.
Origins
All eight of my great-grandparents hailed from Ireland, landing in New York just before the Statue of Liberty lost it's copper shine. My grandfathers both faught in WWII and returned home to raise their families in the housing projects of The Bronx.
This 9th century poem compares a writer's quest for truth to a cat's hunt for mice. It was a favorite of Patrick Mullaney, my Maternal Grandfather, with whome I was very close. He worked as a ghost writer, among other jobs, and a copy of the poem sat near his desk throughout much of his life. He died when I was 9 and after his death his copy was passed on to me.
For the poetically inclinded: listen to the full poem and/or check out a parrellel work, one of my favorite contemporary pieces of poetry "Narrative Theology #1" by conflict mediator and modern Irish theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama.
My mom, Kathy, a Beatles fan and math major grew up in Parkchester and earned a master's in teaching from Columbia. Mom took a 12 year leave from her career to ensure I had: the opportunity to a world of extra curriculars, help with homework, familiarity with world class museums and theaters and a warm, loving imagination filled childhood. Thanks to her I grew up understanding that stories are humanity's filetype for crafting meaning and storing wisdom. The most compelling stories I saw were on stage, and it wasn't long before I was performing at school, at home and even in regional theatres.
My dad, John, served as an MP in the Vietnam war, drove a cab while earning his degree from Fordham and loved to cook.
Dad, a people person who got exposed to computer mainframes early, made a career managing technology teams for publishers. Dad ensured I had acess to technology. Thanks to him we had a Macintosh II at home, and in the early 90s I could dial up the internet on Prodigy while watching Saturday morning cartoons. Later, he'd help enroll me in a robotics summer camp, and introduce me to the writings of 90s AI hypeman Ray Kurzweil. technology also featured significantly in Ben's childhood.
A Foundation in Storytelling or AND Technology
These two interests, came to head when at age 14, Ben faced a momentous choice. He was admitted to both his school district's engineering magnet and its arts magnet programs at two different schools.
After considerable turmoil, sweating the false dichotomy of arts vs engineering (This was pre STEM let alone STEAM education), he eventually leaned into a feeling of kinship with theater kids and enrolled in the Dr. Phillips Visual and Performing Arts program. At the program he studied playwriting, acting, directing, dramaturgy and the history of theater. In the process he gained an early foundation in the humanities. Many of the theoritical frameworks, he learned like Campbell's “Hero’s Journey” and Stanislavski's empathetic “Magic If” still inform his approach to UX design today.
But, undercurrents run strong, and while Ben spent time onstage, he also worked in the wings at the school's prodigous scene shop, where he built set pieces and props, sewed costumes, learned lighting and sound design and most imporantly, became a go-to "tech-guy" for his peers, digitally designing posters, editing videos, creating interactive projections as set pieces, and eventually making websites.
As fate would have it, a forward-thinking history teacher also recruited Ben for a new elective course on the nascent World Wide Web. By showing Ben and other students how to “view-source” and reverse engineer the contents of different webpages, that teacher sparked a passion for self-taught software development that laid the foundation for Ben's future proficiency in JS, CSS, PHP, Python, C# and more.
September 11th, 2001
by Judy Lee (now Judy Lee Fort).
September 11th, 2001
Unlike their siblings, my parents left New York, chasing Dad's career to Santa Monica and back. Like many in his generation, Ben was profoundly impacted by the events of September 11th, 2001. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, his community was confronted with fear and prejudice directed towards Muslim and Arab citizens and students. The student council asked for his help to create a public service announcement for the County's SAFE "Student Assistance and Family Empowerment" program, which was working to counter hate crimes.
The PSA promoted activities and displays of peace and solidarity and it aired regionally as part of a campaign to urge "Domestic Peace amid National Disaster." The experience was revelatory, it was Ben's first real experience using the power of storytelling to combat injustice and foster empathy. It gave him a sense of purpose that he continues to seek throughout his career.
Backpack Journalism: Lessons and Limits
In immediate response to 9-11 Ben felt fear, anger and confusion but the lasting emotions were curiosity and radical empathy, as he tried to comprehend how people could commit such heinous and deprate acts. Driven by his expanding world view, a desire to understand geopolitical affairs, and the aspiration to hone his storytelling skills, Ben moved to Washington DC to pursue a double major in Film & Media Arts and an independent course of study at American University. He immersed himself in philosophy, anthropology, and international relations, seeking a broader understanding of human experience and the forces shaping our world. He also participated in and documented the anti-Iraq War movement, worked on documentaries about soldiers and Marines returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and produced his first mini-doc on a story of gentrification in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of DC.
Prior to college Ben had flirted with reporting. He got his first clippings and paychecks while writing and shooting for "Rave," a weekly publication for and by high school students, that was distributed as a section of the Orlando Sentinel. However, it wasn't till American Universtiy that Ben began to view journalism as a calling.
Two communications professors, Sarah Menke Fish and Bill Gentile, became mentors, guiding him toward a career that blended a strategic understanding of media theory with the tactical skillset to publish independently in any medium. Ben came to see Journalism's potential for impact, and under Gentile's tutelage, he learned the art of photojournalism and "backpack journalism," mastering the diverse skills needed to capture and produce compelling non-fiction video independently. By the summer of his sophmore year he was testing his mettle with a prestigous internship at the WashingtonPost.com.
And the following year, he was sponsored to spend three months in North Eastern Nigeria, shooting and producing a documentary for 'Leadership Initiatives', a not-for-profit organization teaching grassroots leadership skills in developing countries. He also developed and maintained a blog on the experience, and taught basic web-design to some of the Nigerian students. This was Ben's first trip to the developing world, and the experience was transformative. It exposed him to the complexities of representing different cultures and the need for deep empathy and understanding when telling their stories.
Excerpt from Antoine's Journey:
a Leadership Initiatives promotional documentary.
In stark contrast, within days of his return to the US, he was flown to Los Angeles, to meet the Muppets and be an on-set-guest for the production of a PSA he had written about teen stress. The sureal culture shock produced by this juxtapostion changed Ben, breaking the romance of “parachute-journalism,” a common practice of western journalists reporting on communities where they haven’t gained trust or understood context.
International News
Ben graduated with honors and thanks in no small part to Bill Gentile's network, he began his career at Al Jazeera English, where he quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a senior video editor. From the Washington Bureau Newsroom he would spend years practicing what Gentile described as “storytelling calisthenics,” cutting 2-to-4 short packages a day on the latest nest, from: the Global Financial Crisis, the 2008 Presidential Campaign, the Chavez Regime, H1N1 Influenza, the deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, and much more. In addition to the work-a-day news, he was tapped to edit documentaries and current events, produce motion graphics, engineer the edit systems for the 2008 DNC and RNC, and travel on special assignment to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.
On quiet news days, he'd worked on a passion project: B-TheChange an interactive multi-media site about global challenges and related local-actions, which he made content for and developed, teaching himself in PHP, MySQL and Apache in the process. Then one day his career would take a turn when his old friend colleage Eric Miller pulled him into discussions about a new talk show, giving him the opportunity to put his UX and development hobbies to work within his career.
From Legacy Media to Emerging Technologies: A Leader in the Digital Frontier
Eric and Ben recognized the transformative potential of social media, and together with their colleagues they reimagined the traditional talk show format. Ben was promoted to the development team for show, and started creating a platform for global conversations and real-time engagement. "THE STREAM, a social network, with it's own daily talk show on Al Jazeera" was greenlit. For the first time Ben had the opportunity to simultaneously leverage his self-taught development skills, knowledge of media theory, instincts on UX design, and visual storytelling skills all on one project. As a result "The Stream" became a groundbreaking success, its innovative use of social media setting a new standard for broadcast news.
Excerpt WIRED's Storyboard Podcast
Launching the Stream was an enormously rewarding experience that pulled Ben deeper into the world of product design and development, giving him the confidence to continuing pursuing a career at the intersection of engineering and narrative. As the first full-time staffer based in the U.S. Ben also did a lot of welcoming, onboarding and tone setting. He even trained his first intern and eventual successor. He didn't know it then, but he was learning about the kind of manager he'd strive to become.
Hooked by the product bug, and seeking new challenges, Ben left Al Jazeera to help launch "PostTV" at the Washington Post. While there Ben led the production of "The Fold," PostTV's flagship daily news program, and started to hone his style of management. Working with a small team of multi-skilled VJs to turn around a daily show, he'd learn how to think about team dynamics, entreprenuership, and balance striving and joy.
Soon Ben and his spouse decided to leave Washington and head west. She'd been admitted to a policy program at Stanford, and he was eager to embrace the entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley. They relocated to Palo Alto, where he audited classes at Stanford's celebrated D.School and immersed himself in the world of startups and cutting-edge technology, sitting in on Sam Altman's how to start a startip, working on mobile apps, interactive documentary, building analytics systems and launching his own engagement platform. When he needed a break from a screen, he'd enjoy biking on the pacific coast and using his Android phone to shoot 360 photospheres, (a medium he'd discovered and published in as an intern some 10 years earlier).
By the time NYT had shipped out Google's VR 'cardboard' devices and Johnny Lee had started demoing Project Tango, Ben was keenly aware of the storytelling potential of spatial media. In the years that followed he became an early adopter, leading the production of the first 360° video stories for both The Washington Post and Al Jazeera English. establishing himself as a pioneer in the field.
Building Teams and Shaping the Future of Media
His expertise in emerging visual formats led him to McClatchy News, where he headed their "Sandbox Team," a group dedicated to research and development in next-gen media. While there he’d lead the creation of the award-winning augmented reality app "Actual Reality" and secure a grant from Google to prototype voice assistant products. He navigated the challenges of rapid team expansion and learned to anticipate technological trends, maximizing impact and return on investment, leading to the launch of an internal incubator "the McClatchy New Ventures Lab", for which he managed the technical staff.
A Legacy of Mentorship and a Passion for Education
Ben's commitment to empowering others extends beyond his professional work. He has guest lectured at universities, presented at conferences, taught workshops, and mentored countless aspiring journalists and technologists. His leadership style emphasizes collaboration, creativity, and a dedication to fostering a positive and supportive work environment.
Following his time at McClatchy, Ben has continued to work at the intersection of technology and storytelling. Lately he has:
Held an endowed chair leading a twenty person media lab at a think-tank; partnered with the Smithsonian and Meta to create an immersive exhibit on the future of learning; served as advisor and director of product for a startup using XR to revolutionize hostile environment training for journalists and humanitarians; and consulted for a leading AI firm on the development of a new product.
He is currently open to collaborations, consulting work, and full-time positions that allow him to leverage his expertise to create meaningful impact.
Ben remains eager to use technology for good and work with others who understand the power of storytelling to shape a more just and equitable world.
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Written by Ben (With the help of NoteBookLM)