Who I am / What I do

Good glorious morning! (I really do talk like that. But not in the morning, strangely enough.)

My name is Sarah. It’s so nice to meet you.

I am a writer, designer, and a manifestor of digital things. I am Leader of the Free World over at A Small Nation (where we build digital nations around meaningful work), and I build whatever I’m most curious about right here. I build things for entrepreneurs, for independent thinkers, for designers, for people who love beautiful, thoughtful, useful work. I write. I design. And I make things. Most recently, I’ve been exploring what it means to find digital bliss — a workflow, a marketing style, a line of work that moves you. And in turn, moves others.

For six years, I owned S.Joy Studios, a strategic web studio where we designed and built socially-tuned websites (for folks like Martha Beck, SpanglishBaby, Delish Magazine, Inspired Everyday Living, Knot A Registry, Served Up Fresh, Katrina Kenison, Bikram Yoga Park Slope, Copylicious, and over a hundred more). Recently, I shut our doors in order to start building digital nations instead. Why? Because I’m a control freak. Well, no. But I was finding that at the end of working with us, a lot of our clients had a great, strategically-designed website, but many still had problems that kept them from building a thriving, self-perpetuating community around their work.

Sometimes there were foundational problems at the business development level; sometimes there were implementation problems at the marketing level. But in every situation where the company wasn’t thriving (even after we launched that beautiful, strategic website), there was a depth of work needed that we just weren’t able to provide as a web design studio.

So we don’t do that anymore. Now, we work deeply with a handful of companies and organizations every year to re-imagine their meaningful contributions at a cellular level. And then we build thriving, financially and emotionally sustainable digital nations around that.

That’s my version of digital bliss.

Questions I get asked a lot

Where are you located?

In the grand city of Virginia Beach, Virginia. Where the dolphins roam and King Neptune watches over us all. (Seriously, we have a giant statue of King Neptune on the boardwalk. My friend and fellow nation-builder Julianne thinks he’s kind of hot.)

Can I work for you?

Maybe! First, check out what we’re doing at A Small Nation. Then, get to know me. I mean seriously…I’m all over the internet. I only work with people I really like, because the projects we’re working on are huge and deep (we only do 12 a year), and we end up being our own little family.

What’s with the toast thing?

I don’t know. I just really like toast. I like knowing that as long as there’s bread and a toaster around, I can be experiencing one of life’s greatest pleasures within 3 minutes.

I have an idea for a new project. Want to work with me on it?

Maybe! I only work with people I really like on projects that I’m personally invested in (and even then, only when I can still keep my copious amounts of creative time…my creative juice is a demanding little brat!). But within those parameters, I love talking possibility.

I need a website. Can I hire you to design it?

Except as a part of building digital nations, we don’t do just web design and development anymore — digital nation-building involves a lot more than that (which is why we only take on 8-12 projects a year). Of course, if you’re curious about nation-building, shoot an email to Cali. She’ll fill you in on the types of projects we work on at A Small Nation.

I need strategy. Can I rent your brain?

I’ve discovered that although I can give a certain amount of advice and direction during your typical consultation/strategy session, to really make the kind of impact that brings me satisfaction, I have to know a project inside and out. I have to dream about it. Sleep on it. Whirl around with it in the backyard. And then ideally, build a nation around it. Not that consulting and strategy isn’t valuable…it totally is. I just like to do one huge, all-encompassing, deeply meaningful project at a time, rather than cut my brain up into tiny pieces for a bunch of smaller projects.

Other random facts

I love to read. And read and read and read.

I have three kids, a husband, a not-so-miniature schnauzer, and two fish.

I used to be the most anxious person in the world. And now I’m not.

I get shy in big groups of people I don’t know. So if you see me at a conference or something and I seem quieter in real life, that’s why. But my family will tell you…the real me is 100%…this. Whatever this is.

I’m nerdy enough to love Lord of the Rings and Monty Python, but not nerdy enough to know who Wil Wheaton is. (Except now I actually do know who Wil Wheaton is, after I publicly humiliated myself in his general direction on the internet.)

I love Disney World. There, I said it.

I sort of like coffee and I sort of like wine, but I would crawl across the flaming dessert for some blood orange soda.

I once had dinner with a group of local designers and Liz Danzico (!), and all I remember is that I nervously monopolized the whole conversation. Why I am writing this here, I do not know. Maybe as a confession. Liz, if you’re reading this, I’m telling you…I am really a normal-ish person.

I used to want to be a female Walt Disney until I found out he was a chain-smoking workaholic. I used to be a workaholic, and even with the success, it was terrible. Now I just want to be myself.

I love God and Jesus and you and everything.

My favorite color is green. Except for forest green. I went through a forest green phase in my pre-adolescent years, and I am eternally over it.

I do not know how to end lists like this. So I’ll just say, flag me down if you’d like to know more. And if you’re a really cool, interesting person, please share your cool, interesting things with me. I don’t post and promote things because people ask me to, but I do post things that I am incredibly inspired by.