Awareness is cheap now. Momentum, turning awareness into action, is the hard part. Fourteen quick questions, read against the six drivers of momentum. At the end, a report on where your momentum is strong, where it's leaking, and the first move to make this week.
Your full momentum report is on the next screen, yours to keep. Add your name and email, and Erik will follow up with the clearest next moves.
No spam. Just a follow-up from Erik and the occasional note on momentum. Unsubscribe anytime.
Awareness is a 1990s word. Momentum is what's needed in today's cluttered, competitive, and chaotic market.
Attention used to be enough. Now it's everywhere and worth almost nothing. Momentum is the difference — the compounding force that turns a moment into movement, and movement into measurable action. For more than twenty-five years, across federal government, major studios, statewide civic initiatives, and national live entertainment, the work that broke through wasn't the loudest. It was the work with momentum behind it. That's the practice.
Three disciplines, one through-line — the work of turning awareness into action for brands, governments, studios, and mission-driven institutions.
Integrated communications, brand narrative, and stakeholder mobilization — the campaign architecture that turns attention into a coalition, and a coalition into measurable action.
Launch events, keynotes, and live entertainment at scale — from a 1,700-person launch to leading a marketing team responsible for 1,200 live shows a year. The moments where a story actually lands.
Video, platforms, PR, earned media, and digital storytelling — campaigns for major motion pictures, government leaders, and social impact initiatives. The vehicles that carry an idea past its launch window.
As VP of Marketing at Outback Presents, built and led a 25-person in-house agency for talent including Nate Bargatze, Bert Kreischer, Taylor Tomlinson, and Rauw Alejandro — choreography at local, regional, and national scale.
Co-founder of two marketing and distribution agencies — campaigns for major motion picture studios, labels, and publishers, including Won't You Be My Neighbor? — and executive producer of Last Days in the Desert.
Presidential appointee and Director of Communications at the National Endowment for the Humanities, plus cabinet-level speechwriting and convention remarks — the schoolhouse for high-stakes story.
As Senior Advisor to the Tennessee Governor's Initiative, provided communications and strategy spanning state agencies, faith institutions, nonprofits, and philanthropies — including co-leading an initiative with every pro sports franchise in Tennessee: Titans, Predators, Grizzlies, Nashville SC.
Co-produced a launch event at the Fisher Center featuring Dolly Parton, Thomas Rhett, and The Lone Bellow — brand, earned media, and activation fused into a single high-impact moment — as well as dozens of high-profile moments that generate momentum, monetization, and earned media.
As VP of Strategic Partnerships at AEG/Walden Media, built the audience-development model that turned Amazing Grace into a movement — third-party credibility converted into reach and sustained engagement.
Three ways in — a one-month engagement to get a stalled idea moving, a full day in the room, or an ongoing campaign partner. Each starts from the same question: where is your work turning awareness into action, and where is it stalling?
One month to take a stalled idea or story and get it moving. Erik audits where it's stuck, architects the plan to move it, then stays with you to turn the plan into motion.
One month · Remote
A full day, end to end — we map the whole arc from awareness to action. Where attention is being won and lost, what turns it into a coalition, which moment makes it land, and the sequence that keeps it moving. You leave with momentum, not a proposal.
Remote or in person · Travel billed separately
When you need a partner, not a plan. Erik runs the campaign alongside you — moving the whole arc from awareness to action and staying in it until the momentum is real and self-sustaining.
Project fee or monthly retainer
Author of three books on communications and momentum — plus a weekly Substack and an ongoing working notebook.
Strategy essays on finding, fueling, funding, and finishing the dormant work inside talented people and institutions. Read by executives and entrepreneurs, creative professionals and cultural leaders who believe their someday starts now.
You are not out of ideas. You are surrounded by unfinished ones. A working guide — not a book to be read and set aside — for finding, fueling, funding, and finishing the ideas and stories waiting inside you.
Tell Erik what you're working on — and which way in fits your moment. We'll find where the momentum is, where it's stalling, and the clearest first move toward action.
20 minutes · No pitch · No obligation