Portfolio · Miami, FL
Kieron Williams
Storytelling is the original pedagogy — and the original marketing. For ten years I've designed experiences that make people show up, stay, and care, and I've become convinced that's one craft, not two.
The Through-line
How I got here, and where I'm going.
I grew up watching The Magic School Bus wishing my actual school was more like that — every lesson packaged inside an adventure I actually wanted to follow. As I got older I found tabletop roleplaying games, which scratched the same itch from the other direction: a group of people, a story they're inventing together, real stakes inside a made-up world. Technically these are toys. But they're also, if you pay attention, two of the most efficient engagement engines ever designed.
I've spent the last ten years working in higher education — three in HR, seven as an instructional designer at FIU Online. Somewhere in the middle of all that I realized my two obsessions — storytelling and learning — were actually the same obsession from different angles. So I built a framework that treats them that way: Narrative-Driven Immersive Constructivism, or NDIC. The short version is that narrative isn't decoration on top of an experience. It's the engine.
The longer I've spoken about NDIC at conferences, the more obvious it's become that the principles aren't really about school. They're about how humans engage with anything they didn't already care about — which, when you squint, is the exact problem content strategy and marketing have been trying to solve for the last fifty years. That's the direction I'm headed, and these seven years are the reason I'll be good at it.
The Framework
Narrative-Driven Immersive Constructivism (NDIC)
A design philosophy for experiences that make people show up, stay, and care. Built in education, applicable anywhere people need to engage with something they didn't already care about — which is most of marketing.
Narrative transportation
Give the audience a story compelling enough to inhabit. The goal they chase is the narrative goal — the outcome you need is the path to get there.
Constructivist learning
People learn by doing and discovering — not by being told. Every activity should feel like progress toward the story, not a detour from it.
Immersive design
Build an environment that earns and sustains attention. Consistency of world, tone, and stakes keeps the audience in the story.
Selected Work
Case studies
Every project is real instructional-design work. Each one also taught me something that maps directly onto content strategy — noted on each card.
Northstar Creative
A course about marketing yourself, redesigned so students don't sell a product — they become one.
→ Content strategy, deployed in a classroom
Read case study →
The Storykeepers
An entire children's-literature course rebuilt as a children's book — gold foil, talking panther, and all.
→ Immersive brand-world building
Read case study →
Lost in the Pantherverse
How replacing a syllabus quiz with an AI-driven scavenger hunt revealed what really drives engagement.
→ Audience motivation
Read case study →
Operation Mango Quake
What a fake seismologist taught me about how people actually engage — and what it means for marketing.
→ Experiential campaign design
Read case study →
The Mid-Semester Survey
A feedback system I scaled across 20+ sections — and the honest lesson that more data isn't more feedback.
→ Audience research & content measurement
Read case study →
Mission: Zorbitron
A tabletop role-playing game built in two weeks for 200 first-time players at once — dice, character sheets, the works.
→ Mass-participation experience design
Read case study →
The Preceptor's Choice
A branching-video experience teaching nursing preceptors to treat students with dignity — where one choice quietly decides whether a student speaks up.
→ Interactive, decision-based content
Read case study →
NDIC, On Stage
Turning conference talks into experiences — a room-wide QR game, and a live futurist-vs-humanist debate on AI in education.
→ Brand POV & audience engagement
Read case study →
Speaking
Where I've talked about this stuff.
I've presented on NDIC, narrative pedagogy, and using AI and ed tech in creative, human-centered ways at conferences across the country.
Currently sharpening
Adding the analytics side of the toolkit to pair with the experience side: Google Analytics certification (in progress), with Meltwater next. The instinct for what engages people is the hard part — I've spent a decade on it. The measurement layer is the part you can learn on a deadline, and I'm doing exactly that.
Get in touch
Let's talk.
If any of this resonates — if you're building something where storytelling, learning, or engagement is part of the puzzle — I'd love to hear from you. I'm currently focused on content strategy: the craft of building things audiences genuinely want to be part of.