Hello. I’m David Williams.
I’m a Writer, Product Marketing Leader, and Editorial Consultant with deep AI fluency and over a decade of experience in media and narrative-driven marketing.
I help organizations define the narratives behind complex products, business models, and partnerships that drive their launches, positioning, and brand evolution.
I publish A Short Distance Ahead, a Substack tracing the history of artificial intelligence one year at a time, from 1950 to the present, and I write for The Philadelphia Citizen.
Areas of Expertise
Writing, Editorial & Creative Direction
From longform journalism and newsletter publishing to brand narrative and product launch creative, I develop the core idea and shape how it comes to life across formats including essays, newsletters, podcasts, short films, and live events.
GTM & Product Marketing Leadership
Go-to-market strategy, value proposition creation, positioning, and campaign execution for all-stage companies and organizations navigating complex technological change.
AI Fluency
Deep working knowledge of AI history, tools, and positioning, built through years of building, learning, and applied consulting.
Context Architecture
The problems that lead to most creative and strategic failures are not execution problems. They arise long before execution begins. They are context problems. Often caused by a poorly defined value proposition. The right story, told without the right foundation, framed without the right context, doesn’t land.
My approach starts with mapping the narrative landscape that is influencing market dynamics. I look at how a technology or product was actually developed, where it came from, what it displaced, and why it matters now. I chart the key narratives that are shaping how decisions get made across existing mental models, trusted voices, and emerging media frameworks.
That grounding, what I call Context Architecture, is what separates narratives that resonate from messaging that simply fills space.
Content without context is just that: content. And these days, no one is looking for more content.
It’s an approach shaped by years of product marketing, media strategy, and studying and writing fiction—three disciplines that share one demand: know your subject well enough to find the thing worth saying, and know how to say it simply and clear enough that it actually lands.
My Approach
To narrative, strategy, and partnerships.
A Few Notables
My Substack newsletter A Short Distance Ahead has been named to Substack’s Top 50 Rising in Technology and featured on ABC News Philadelphia.
My writing for The Philadelphia Citizen includes featured profiles and editorials reaching an audience of over 1.5 million.
At O3’s 1682 Conference — a full-day AI business innovation conference at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia — I served as featured speaker and historical curator, presenting five sessions tracing AI history for an audience of over 140 corporate and tech leaders from Google, Coca-Cola, Hershey’s, and J.P. Morgan.
I produced and managed the 2nd annual Ideas We Should Steal Festival, at the Comcast Technology Center — a 400 person public ideas conference featuring John Oliver, Ali Velshi, Michael Rubin, Josh Kopelman, NY Attorney General Letitia James and future Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.
Foundations & Fluencies
Creativity & AI Specialization - Parsons School of Design, 2023
Lead with AI - Microsoft and Masterclass Executive, enrolled 2026
AI Fluency: Framework and Foundations, Anthropic Academy, 2026
Generative AI for Everyone - DeepLearning.AI, 2022
AI for Everyone - DeepLearning.AI, 2022
Machine Learning Specialization, DeepLearning.AI & Stanford Online, 2022
Business Foundations, Marketing - Wharton Online, UPenn, 2018
Front-End Web Development, General Assembly, Opening Cohort, 2012
Write of Passage, Online Writing Fellowship Finalist, Final Cohort, 2024
The New York State Writer’s Institute, Fiction, Summer 2024
Playwriting, Dramatics & Theatre Arts, HB Studios, 2001
Liberal Arts & Sciences, The New School, Creative Writing Concentration | Social & Historical Inquiry, 2002
My work sits at the intersection of narrative, technology, and go-to-market strategy, where I partner with organizations to shape how complex ideas are understood and brought to market.
Over my career I've worked at agencies, media organizations, and both CPG and B2B SaaS startups — three of which ended in successful acquisitions, including an early role at glaceau vitaminwater where I received a masterclass in branding and influencer strategy. I've led marketing teams and GTM strategy for organizations at the intersection of education, workforce development, and experiential learning, and as Managing Director of The Philadelphia Citizen, I helped design a sustainable business model for a growing independent news organization.
I publish A Short Distance Ahead, a Rising Technology Substack series tracing the history of artificial intelligence through 75 essays, one year at a time, from 1950 to the present. The aim is not to predict the future of AI, but to understand how we got here, and how the future we live with so often emerges sideways from the one we set out to build.
I also write for the newly formed Citizen Media Group, a growing independent media organization that recently acquired Philadelphia Magazine, and is building a new model for local journalism at a moment when most local news is in retreat.
I'm a lifelong learner. I completed formal study in artificial creativity at Parsons School of Design, and was an early adopter of DeepLearning.AI — Andrew Ng's platform widely considered the gold standard for applied AI education — completing multiple courses before generative AI became a mainstream conversation. I’m currently enrolled in Microsoft and Masterclass Executive’s Lead with AI certificate program, and continuing to actively study through Anthropic Academy and DeepLearning.AI.
I'm also at work on my first collection of short fiction. My work garnered acceptance into New York State Writer’s Institute, Napa Valley Writer’s Conference, and Futurescapes, a competitive program for speculative and sci-fi writers to work and learn from faculty who have represented and worked with renowned authors like N.K. Jemisin, Patrick Rothfuss, and William Gibson.