Get to know us

Hey 👋🏻! I’m Dr. Echo Rivera.

I’ll never forget the time I sat down, excited, to watch a new webinar from a well-respected scholar in my field….

…only to be so bored within the first 5 minutes that I stopped watching.

I wasn’t even mad at the speaker, but in that moment my heart broke 💔 and I decided to do something about it.

Why? Let me give you the backstory…

I got my PhD (Community Psychology, Michigan State University) in 2014 and then worked at a nonprofit research & evaluation center for 3 years.

In all, I spent over 14 years dedicated to research and evaluation.

I did all the standard things like conference talks, defenses, publishing, teaching, and training.

holy smokes, little firstgen me went and got a PhD!

My research focus was on (ending) gender-based violence using intersectional, community-based approaches.

While fulfilling, I realized we had a major problem.

All systems of oppression are fully connected, yet many social justice researchers & practitioners are heavily siloed.

Even worse, literally everyone had the exact same struggle 😩—their presentations were dry, boring, confusing, overwhelming, or underwhelming.

To me, it felt like: of course we’re all screaming into the void and research uptake isn’t working—we’re kinda terrible at communicating to each other (and don’t get me started on how we talk to the public, lol)

I became massively overwhelmed and frustrated that all these brilliant people, doing important work that could literally reduce systemic oppression, were effectively whispering into the void of their own silo.

I grew increasingly anxious that we wouldn’t see major positive social change in my lifetime.

I’m not even kidding when I say it started to keep me up at night.

But it was in those sleepless nights that an idea started to form. 🌜✨

And I didn’t realize it at the time, but years ago my initial fear of public speaking led me down a path that would become relevant for a big pivot in my career right around this time.

As an undergrad, even just a 5 min class presentation used to make me throw up.

I’d have a pit in my stomach for weeks before.

I’d have trouble concentrating in class because I’d be catastrophizing the upcoming disaster known as me speaking in front of a group.

I’d have to go first so I could just get it other with.

My hands would shake and my voice would quiver as I stood in front of my classmates.

whoa, I went from puking before a talk to loving giving presentations?!

I laughed when people suggested Toastmasters.

I’m a level 10 introvert with social anxiety.

As if. lolllll. Read the room!

No. Instead, I poured excessive amounts of energy into my class presentations.

I spent (I swear to god) like 20 hours on one stupid 5 minute class presentation.

I’d write (and rewrite x 100) my script and try to tell stories.

I’d create the most wild, cool, and fun visuals/animations.

I even used my side interest in graphic/web design to create custom visuals.

I honestly just wanted to not embarrass myself (and I didn’t want people to look at me).

But then the weirdest thing happened…

I started to hear things like, “That was the best presentation ever” and “Damn, I wish our professor lectured like that!”

I didn’t believe them at first. I thought they were just being nice because they saw I had anxiety.

But…that continued to happen in grad school and even post-PhD in my position as a research associate.

I continued to hear “That was the best presentation ever” and “You’re the first academic I’ve ever understood, you make this technical stuff sound so easy.”

I finally realized that while I was seeing head nods and captivated audiences, my colleagues were seeing blank eyes staring into space…

…and that maybe this is something I can actually help fix.

I know I can’t make the world a more equitable place all by myself…

But, what if I could help make everyone out there doing social justice work a massively better communicator.

What could be possible then?

What change could I see in my lifetime then?

And that’s about when everything fell into place.

I decided to take the literally thousands of hours I spent dedicated to making visually-engaging, accessible, captivating presentations and teach that to others

I realized that, just maybe, my role in this process is to help make everyone else a powerful speaker. 💪

And so I decided to center my career around one goal: To skyrocket the number of powerful speakers who can make the world a better place with their work. 🚀

omg I can’t believe I get to spend all day thinking about/making presentations! Livin’ the dream (not sarcasm, I swear).

My mission is to make sure no respected scholar bored people to death ever again.

I quit my job and built a company centered around this mission.

I can’t express how happy I am that someone is reading these words, and (I hope) is connecting with them.

That tells me we are perhaps of a similar mindset that visually-engaging, accessible communication is important and necessary if we want to make the world a better place.

If so, I want to help.

I hope that I offer the variety and type of services/products to help you become the type of captivating and convincing speaker you want to be.

Because, for me, it’s my small part in creating a better world through better communication.

I can’t wait to help you become a powerful speaker! 🙌

with joy,
Echo Rivera, PhD

And I don’t run this company totally alone. Introducing… Jason!

Hey, I’m Jason Rivera.

When Echo started building her company, she knew I had an interest in tech and asked if I’d be willing to learn how to edit videos so she could create an online course.

I’ll always remember that initial crunch time of creating her first course. I edited 60 videos in just 6 weeks—and that was my first video editing project!

I enjoyed it because I was essentially fixing “broken” videos. I decided that helping the company was more fulfilling than my initial ideas for working in political science and focused on that instead.

I feel super awkward here..

I’ve edited many more videos since then (I’ve lost count), but if it’s a video we’ve made then I’ve edited it.

I also handle all aspects of the company’s IT/tech, security, and digital production (e.g., videos, audio).

I’m constantly fixing things that break, figuring our tech stack, and adjusting settings that seem to change on their own.

I also help with customer service, so you may be seeing me in your inbox if you reach out!

-Jason Rivera

Like Echo, I went through a pivot with my career.

I’ve always been interested in the technology and mechanics of things. I like knowing how things work and fixing things that are broken.

I started out as an auto and bicycle mechanic. At first, it was rewarding—I enjoyed working with my hands and being active.

Sadly, the working conditions for physical jobs are often exploitative, harsh, and inequitable. I developed an interest in politics and went back to school for a BA in Political Science from Metropolitan State University.

But I also never lost interest in technology and continued to pursue various hobbies for digital arts, design, music, and tech.

Like Echo, back then I didn’t realize that my side interests would eventually lead me down a path that I would pivot to as my career.

Through my experience as a student, especially a non-traditional one, I was annoyed my professors didn’t seem to put more effort into their lectures.

It was particularly difficult having to watch #DeathByPowerpoint lectures as a burned out, tired adult.

Our Company

Here at Creative Research Communications LLC we are a secular company and believe that Black lives matter. We support social justice and social equity for people of color, including people who are Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and Black. We stand for LGBTQIA+ rights and respect pronouns. We are pro-immigrant and support universal health care, reproductive rights, and Justice Democrats. We stand against fascism, social conservatism, and systems of oppression such as racism, sexism, classism, and ableism. 

Mission

The status quo for educational presentations is #DeathByPowerpoint and many presenters find creating presentations to be a boring, unfulfilling, or dreadful task. Our mission at Creative Research Communications is to change the status quo from #DeathByPowerpoint to #AwesomePowerpoint. We believe that by changing this status quo, we will also help presenters feel that presentation design is a creative, joyful, and fulfilling activity.

Values

Positive Social & Environmental Impact. We want to help people create presentations that contribute to the social good. We will only collaborate with other businesses that are not having a negative impact on society or the environment. Equity, social justice, diversity, and inclusion are more than buzz words here. They are an integral part of our hiring process, work environment, pay structures, how we interact with clients, and our training materials/resources. Working for us should positively impact the employee’s life (good pay, working environment, and company policies).

Providing Value. People over profit. Our primary mission is to educate and provide value, while earning a decent living doing so. We do not prioritize maximizing profit at all costs. We must always strive to positively impact clients through our training and design services. We will only collaborate with other businesses that provide value. 

Transparency & Honesty. We provide services and trainings for a specific audience and with demonstrated outcomes. We are clear about who we serve, and do not serve, and prioritize having the right fit between client and product, over profit. We are upfront and honest about the potential impact of our services and training and do not promise unrealistic outcomes. 

Excellent Service. The importance of high quality customer service cannot be understated. All customers and potential customers must be treated with respect, dignity, and compassion. Positivity and empowerment will always come first. We don’t want to make people feel bad about their current presentations. We want to make people feel excited, empowered, and inspired to create presentations. 

High Quality. Our training materials and design products are all of excellent quality. We provide a positive user experience for those who use our services and take our training. We can, and should, take our time and plan ahead. Frequent mistakes that irritate our customers or put business revenue at risk is not okay. We expect excellent attention to detail from employees, and accurate is better than fast.

Deep Work. We are not a fast-paced business and rarely do we need to do things in an emergency. We believe deep work is essential to creating quality content, and therefore create a working environment that promotes deep work for all employees. No one is expected to be constantly checking our business email or social media accounts. We do not work evenings and weekends (unless someone wants to, because we have flexible schedules).

Responsible and Sustainable Company Growth. As business revenue grows, we will prioritize increasing business savings (for paycheck security), as well as employee pay, perks, and benefits. Expanding services or training offerings, client load, and number of employees will not happen at the expense of our service quality and work environment. 

Quality of Life. Work-life balance is a must. Work is not all-consuming and there must be clear boundaries between our work and personal lives. We believe everyone should be able to have hobbies, activities, or interests that have nothing to do with our careers.

Autonomy. We should have control over our own schedules as much as possible. This is an online business. All work can be completed remotely. When we aren’t absolutely needed to be present at a certain time (e.g., like for a training webinar), and as long as all the daily/weekly/etc tasks are getting completed (e.g., checking email)…then it doesn’t matter when we work. Whenever possible, employees should have full control over their working schedule and be free of micromanagement. We will work with clients and collaborate with others who respect our autonomy as presentation design and training experts. 

Improvement. We are always looking for new ways to improve our services and systems. “That’s just how it’s always been done.” is not a legitimate reason to do things in a certain way. We hunger for new ideas, suggestions, and ways to make our systems more efficient, effective, mistake-proof, and stress-free. All employees have the freedom and support to solve problems, be creative, experiment with new tech, grow their skills, develop better systems/workflows, and share new ideas for the company.