Bio
About Holden
Bio
About Holden
Bio
I’m a determined ball of energy who would be a value-add to any trivia team. Above all else, I love learning. I will always make time to explore & research any topics unfamiliar to me. This desire is what led me to anthropology. The discipline has allowed me to study people and their relationships to, well, just about anything. We are the world’s most fascinating creature, after all.
In order to grow up and quit playing Indiana Jones in the wilds of West Texas, I headed off to Texas Christian University. There I majored in Anthropology and Geography and minored in Business. After graduating I started working for an online retail business and moved to paradise—Crested Butte, Colorado. It was there that I began to feel that same anthropological itch that has plagued me come back with a vengeance. So began months of research that led me to my next step.
The next fall I enrolled in the MSc Digital Anthropology course at University College London. This involved looking at all things "digital" and the way in which these technologies have affected us, and how we've affected them. My main areas of interest were user-experience, big data, social media, and smart devices. Most importantly, this degree provided me with a unique skillset which includes ethnography, social listening, and data analysis. These skills were used for optimizing product development, marketing, and user-experience design.
My dissertation was not just a convenient excuse to live in a National Park for two months. It was an opportunity to combine two of my passions: wilderness and anthropology. My goal was to examine the impact that smart devices & social media have had on the visitors’ experience of US National Parks. I conducted my study in conjunction with the National Park Service in Big Bend. You can read more about it below.
My professional career has been much like my academic. I’ve worked in a variety of industries and roles. These include retail, hospitality, aerospace, and the outdoors. The common theme found among theme is my roles therein. I love working in a fast paced environment where I can thrive cross-functionally. This has involved:
Delivering tactical and strategic insights about consumers and markets to stakeholders using a variety of methods
Creatively learning from people and communicating those findings in an easy-to-digest way
Driving the design and implementation of qualitative and quantitative studies
Managing a brand’s digital presence across multiple channels which includes visual merchandising, copywriting, social media, and more
Launching and managing email marketing
Building out systematic and scalable processes for customer feedback collection, analysis, and implementation
Focusing on user experience to identify pain points in the customer journey then crafting solutions to those issues
My passions include the outdoors and the elation that found when I am mountaineering, running, rock climbing, hiking, skiing, or road tripping.
Selected Works
Selected Works
Selected Works
Robinhood's impact on the market
This paper examined the trading platform Robinhood Markets to examine the impact its design and infrastructure have had on users' perceptions and interactions with the 'market'
The 'new' wilderness experience: social media and US national parks
This dissertation was undertaken in cooperation with the National Park Service. It involved a six-week ethnography in Big Bend National Park performed in tandem with a six month analysis of their social media accounts. The goal was to determine the impact that social media platforms and smartphones have had on the experience of National Parks.
I was honored to be interviewed by a dear friend, David Smart, on his podcast. As the title card says we discussed logic, nature, and technology amongst a suite of other topics. Give it a listen below.