Lynne d Johnson is currently the Director, Social Media for Fastcompany.com where she oversees both content and community functionality, and writes the Digital Media Diva blog. Also a consultant, Lynne works with Web and media properties on content, brand, and social media development and strategy. She's also a sought after speaker, and has presented keynotes and moderated panels around the world about the future of media, web 2.0, women in tech, African-Americans in tech, hip-hop, and the intersection of music and technology.
Most recently, Lynne served as the General Manager, New Media for VIBE, SPIN, and VIBE Vixen where she managed marketing, editorial, production, business development, and sales operations for the magazine's Web sites and mobile properties.
As both a professional journalist and blogger, Lynne has written for various online and offline properties. She guest blogs for techPresident and Black Web 2.0, is a member of The Daily Voice blog network, and contributes to RushmoreDrive. Other media properties she's written for include Popgadget, VIBE, VIBE Vixen, PAPER, SPIN, Popmatters, The Source, New York Press, URB, XLR8R, and many others, including the now defunct Silicon Alley Daily, Digital Music Weekly, Artbyte, One World, and (ai) magazine.
Since 2001 Lynne has published Lynne d Johnson || Diary, the winner of the 2006 Black Weblog Awards Black Blogger Achievement Award, and maintains another website, BlackThoughtware.org, that was inspired by a column she wrote for Popmatters.
A published poet and essayist, Lynne has been published in Bum Rush The Page: A Def Poetry Jam, edited by Tony Medina and Louis Reyes Rivera (Three Rivers Press: 2001), Da Capo Best Music Writing 2004: The Year's Finest Writing On Rock, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Pop, Country, & More (Da Capo Press: 2004), and Etiquette: Reflections on Contemporary Comportment, edited by Ron Scapp and Brian Seitz (SUNY Press: 2006). A new essay entitled, "My'Pod Peeps: Why The iPod And Other Gadgets Are Fashion Staples In The 'Hood," will be published in Fashion Statements, also edited by Seitz and Scapp. Lynne also recently wrote the foreward for Tactical Transparency: How Leaders Can Leverage Social Media to Maximize Value and Build their Brand, by Shel Holtz and John C. Havens (Wiley, 2008).
When not working on Web and writing projects, Lynne is an adjunct professor in the Audrey Cohen School for Human Services at the Metropolitan College of New York, where she most recently taught Self-Assessment Through Writing and Technology in the Bachelor of Arts in American Urban Studies program. Previous courses taught included, The Sociology of Group Behavior, Systems for Learning and Communication, and Promoting Empowerment Through Teaching and Communication in the Bachelor of Professional Studies program.
She formerly taught at the College of Mount Saint Vincent, in the instructional technology tract of its MS program in Urban and Multicultural Education, where she also developed the curriculum for a special projects course called "Technology, Culture and Communication." She also taught basic media production in the school's BA program in Communication. In addition, Lynne taught computer skills in community-based organizations and assisted in the creation and publishing of web-based literacy education projects for both students and teachers on the Web.
Some of her past gigs include, technology reporter and editor at BlackPlanet.com, the leading African-American community-based Web site; associate editor of Digital New York, an online and offline publication for creatives working in print and Web design, digital photography and digital video; and managing editor of Beat Down, a hip-hop publication. Lynne was also the Editor-At-Large for Mosaic Literary Magazine for many years.
Lynne earned a BA in Journalism from SUNY New Paltz, with two-and-a-half years of her coursework concentrated in information systems. She also holds an advanced certificate in Multicultural Studies from the College of Mount Saint Vincent, and an MBA in Media Management from the Metropolitan College of New York.
She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Literary Freedom Project, a nonprofit arts organization, which seeks to empower communities of color through literature, creative thinking, and new media, and was on the Advisory Board for BlogHer Business '08.
