Not Books

Selected Work

These are some of my favorite pieces from 30 years of writing.

• Winning the Zero Moment of Truth. I helped Google VP Jim Lecinski write this popular 2011 ebook, reviewed by The New York Times and saluted by Forbes and AdAge.
• Wide Open Spaces. A celebration of new office space for Ooyala, the online video startup I wrote for from 2009-14.
• Same Driver, Different Vehicle. 2018 blog post for Waymo about bringing the company’s self-driving technology to trucks.
• The Lycos 50. Way back in 1999, I created the first weekly ranking of the web’s most-searched terms. For archived samples, see You Had to Have Faith, How the Amish Rate, and Top Joke Searches.

Today I write a weekly news quiz for the nonprofit news site The Conversation. It’s fun, fast, and helps delight the 300,000+ readers of this terrific fact-based news org.

Paul Hehn and I created Who2.com in 1998 to offer easy biographical facts for students and others. We’ve since created 4800+ thumbnail bios and hundreds of research posts. A few favorites:

• Comanche Was (Not) The Sole Survivor of Custer’s Last Stand. A closer look at the horse who lived through the Battle of Little Big Horn.
• Bios of Abraham Lincoln, Coco Chanel, and Philip Marlowe.
• What in the World Happened to Lawrence Kasdan? A vexed analysis of the career arc of the Oscar-winning writer and director.

Over the years I’ve also written for the Dictionary of American History (here’s my entry on the Boy Scouts) and did the text for the beloved 20th Century Video Almanac.

Early in my career I worked in film and animation. I crewed projects like the indie drama Shadow Play and the HBO feature The Last Innocent Man, and was production manager for the CBS hit Meet the Raisins. Finally I ended up writing for Will Vinton Productions, the Oscar-winning pioneers of Claymation. Jobs and awards there:

• Story supervisor for the CBS Saturday-morning series The California Raisin Show (1989-90)
• Emmy-nominated as co-writer of Claymation Comedy of Horrors (1991)
• Emmy-winner as co-writer of A Claymation Easter (1992)

In the end, I decided I was a text and fun facts guy, not a visual story man. And then the digital world came along.

• Thanksgiving for Grandmothers. Pie-baking and the love of grandmas.
• “Single… and Available.” A look back at what happens when you say you’re single on national TV.
• Fritz Chats with Ken Jennings. I hosted a Google talk with Jeopardy! super-champ Ken Jennings in 2009. Here’s the video.

Workshops

Does your whole team need help making their words clear and strong? Want a fun speaker for an offsite? Try an 8 Letters or Less workshop. In 90 minutes, I’ll show your team how to write to win every day.