I'm Michelle Swan. I founded Swancomm as a way to help brands create narratives and customer and employee experiences that stand out and stand for something bigger than themselves. 

​

Swancomm is currently not taking any new clients, while I focus on my newest endeavor as a partner at Tercera. Tercera is a new investment and advisory firm focused on empowering the people and services businesses that make technology work. Products might be sexy, but people matter more. While I miss the day-to-day of Swancomm, Tercera is an opportunity to build something big and different in the venture space and to help a new generation of entrepreneurs. Find out more about what we're doing here. 

 

Most importantly, I am also a mom of three amazing kids who teach me something new every day, a wife to a very patient man, and daughter to parents who taught me a lot about the power of words.

 

My story

 

I've known what I wanted to do since I was 7 years old. While some girls were playing school or trying out makeup, I was reading Harriet the Spy, rounding up the girls in the neighborhood to play advertising, or creating some kind of business to raise money for who knows what (friendship bracelets were very lucrative). I loved books, business and creating. 

 

After graduating from college with a degree in journalism, I joined a local PR and recruitment advertising agency where I quickly realized that what they teach you in school has little to do with the real world. I spent about 8 years in the agency world, emboldened with the experience of learning a new industry every month, traveling to tradeshows (remember those?), and trying to make even the most mundane topic newsworthy. If I could make an identity federation framework interesting enough for the Wall Street Journal, imagine what else I could do!

 

Eventually I decided I wanted to go deep instead of broad, to understand the ins and outs of a business and how it works. What makes some companies more successful than others? How do mergers and acquisitions work? What PR and marketing tactics work better at different stages? How do you create a customer experience that really stands out and inspires loyalty? 

 

Actually let's be honest, I didn't set out with these questions. I was just tired of timesheets. But I was fortunate to learn the answers along the way after a decade working inside and alongside start-ups, mid-sized companies and global enterprises. 

 

Swancomm's story

 

Then priorities changed. Kids have a habit of doing that. After six years at Appirio, a cloud services firm that I joined in its early days and where I got to try out nearly every function in marketing (including creating the company's Customer Experience function), I knew it was time for change. I loved managing teams, but I missed doing the work. I loved being part of a leadership team, but I missed taking my kids to school and picking them up. 

 

So Swancomm was founded -- a boutique agency that partners with other talented women who are great at what they do but who also want a little more balance in their lives.

 

We have a core set of values that shape how we work and with whom we work.

 

Start with why. Start by asking the right questions, the most important of which is why you are doing what you're doing. If you don't know, don't do it.

 

Love what you do. If you don't like what you're doing, it shows and no one wins. Be passionate, and if you can't get excited about something, find someone who does and work with them.

 

Don't do things half-assed. Don't just check a box. If you're going to do something, do it really well or don't bother. Be creative, be thorough and see it through.

 

Simplify the complex. It's always easier to add than to subtract, but complexity can destroy a story, an experience and the passion people have for a brand. Don't let that happen.

 

Know what matters. Stay true to yourself, your customers and your values. End stop.