About
My two lifelong passions are storytelling and technology. While they might not seem like they have much in common, I believe they complement one another perfectly.
A good modern product should be part of a larger narrative. You don't just buy a new phone; you incorporate a device into your life that helps you stay connected to the people and issues you most care about. You don't just download video editing software; you learn a new workflow in order to amplify your voice. You don't buy an EV to save money on gas; you make an investment in a better future.
Just as stories unlock the potential of products, technology unlocks the types of stories I like to tell. I don't write near-future thrillers and science fiction to indulge in futurism; I explore science and technology that don’t yet exist in order to put characters in situations in which they can discover things about themselves that would otherwise have been impossible.
Writing
Fiction
This stunning near-future thriller from Cantrell takes some truly breathtaking turns. CIA data analyst Quinn Mitchell is sent in pursuit of the Elite Assassin, an apparently unpredictable and unstoppable killer. Readers, meanwhile, are introduced to the inscrutable murderer Ranveer, whose killings efficiently carry out someone else’s master plan. Quinn’s clever investigation, using neatly extrapolated high-tech gadgets, is fascinating in itself, and, as the CIA receives missives from the future through the time-bending Epoch Index, Quinn’s search collides with some darkly fascinating thought experiments.- Except from Publishers Weekly (starred review)
All this takes place in an only slightly futuristic world that snaps and bristles with technological capabilities that may seem distant or improbable but which are in fact just around the corner. There's snappy dialogue, sharp observation, and compelling characters in Quinn, Ranveer, and Henrietta; the technology sings, the physics is plausibly presented, and the suggestion of time travel fascinates.- Except from Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Scorpion is my newest novel. It started out as a short story called The Epoch Index which bounced around Hollywood for a few years before getting optioned by FOX (now Disney). I expanded The Epoch Index into a full-length novel now called Scorpion and published by Random House.
I have two other TV/film projects in development:
- ‘Brainbox’ Series In Works At Hulu From Christian Cantrell & Fox 21; David Kajganich Tapped As Showrunner
- TriStar, Escape Artists Producing “Crichton-esque” Female Fronted Thriller With Daniel Kunka Scripting
My first three novels (Containment, Equinox, and Kingmaker) are available for the Amazon Kindle.
You can read a short story I wrote for Medium's Human Parts series called Negative Proof.
And finally, here's my IMDB page.
Nonfiction
Between novels and short stories, I write about other things on my mind (usually technology-related). Here are a few of them:
- NFTs solve a very real problem (just not very elegantly) (Medium)
- Building to learn: the role of prototyping in Design (UX Collective)
- The Universal Ecosystem (UX Collective)
- A deep dive into the Surface Duo’s virtual keyboard (UX Collective)
- Twelve things Microsoft should know about Windows 10 (that Windows users won’t tell them) (The Mission)
- When you work for your software instead of your software working for you (UX Collective)
- The Case for Defying Good Advice (The Startup)
- We Get the Monopolies We Deserve: How consumers can help stop anti-competitive corporate behavior (without government intervention) (Medium)
- If you wait for VR to be ready, you will have waited too long (The Mission)
- The Future is Disappearing (Salon)
- Digital Dark Matter (TechCrunch)
- Why Sound Is Digital Design’s Fourth Dimension (Fast Company)
- Why We Love Objects With Moving Parts (Fast Company)
- Why Tomorrow’s Best Digital Experiences Will Feel Analog (Fast Company)
- Everything You Need To Know About AMP (Smashing Magazine)
- Why Cross-platform Literacy Matters (SitePoint)
Employment
Concept (April 2023 - Present)
Founder
Concept's mission is to Accelerate Entertainment through Generative AI. Coming soon...
Stability AI (October 2022 - March 2023)
VP of Product
At Stability, I helped build and run the Product and Engineering teams as well as launch the Stability Platform (including the REST API), DreamStudio 1.0, and Integrations. I also built the Concept Photoshop plugin which I still maintain.
Adobe (April 2005 - August 2022)
Director
Experience Development
Adobe Design
March 2015 - August 2022
The Adobe Design organization is in charge of user experience for all of Adobe’s products — desktop, web, mobile, and immersive. As Director of Experience Development and head of Adobe Design Prototyping, my job was to lead an international, multidisciplinary team through the product discovery and development life cycles. That meant close collaboration with designers, product teams, researchers, engineers, and customers to rapidly iterate on, and ultimately validate, innovative new product directions.
Half of my twenty-six person team was hyper-focused on discrete user interactions like next-generation drawing tools and precise object manipulation in AR. The other half functioned as a full-stack product incubator, designing, prototyping, and researching entirely new opportunities.
To learn more about the team I built and led at Adobe, see Building to learn: the role of prototyping in Design.
Senior Engineering Manager
Web Platform
October 2011 - March 2015
In late 2011, Adobe began working with Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Mozilla to help move the web forward. As Senior Engineering Manager inside Adobe’s Web Platform Group, I led a team of designers and engineers focused on helping to define and showcase the newest web technologies. Working with partners like National Geographic, Food Network, and PBS Kids, we created several extremely engaging experiences to help define and validate new web standards.
- My talk at Google I/O on New Web Tools and Advanced CSS/HTML5
- Making the Web Sweeter with Food Network and Cupcakes
- The Future of Responsive Digital Layout
Product Manager
Platforms
July 2006 - October 2011
As Technical Product Manager for Adobe’s Flash, desktop, and Web Platforms, I was in charge of identifying requirements, defining APIs, and working with the developer community to help encourage platform adoption. The web, desktop, and mobile applications my team built helped validate platform direction, and were open-sourced to showcase new features and capabilities.
Macromedia (December 2002 - April 2005)
Technical Product Manager
I managed a subscription-based product called the Developer Resource Kit. Between releases, I spoke at conferences, contributed to the Java open-source community, and built and maintained Macromedia’s first blog and RSS aggregation platforms.
Amazing Media (July 1999 - December 2002)
Senior Engineering Manager
I started out at Amazing Media as a Java developer. When I left three and a half years later, I was managing the design and implementation of a large-scale digital advertising platform. Because I reported directly to the VP of Product, I also helped define product requirements, prioritize features, and I collaborated with partners such as eBay and Amazon.
Education
I have a degree in both Creative Writing and Literature from George Mason University.
AI/ML
Concept.art
I'm currently building a new tool that sits at the intersection of Entertainment and Generative AI. The Concept.art mission is to Accelerate Entertainment.
The Concept Photoshop Plugin
The Concept.art Photoshop plugin brings the best and most comprehensive collection of generative AI models directly into the most powerful image creation and editing tool in the world. Build your own imaging workflows by mixing and matching models from:
The Concept.art Photoshop plugin works seamlessly alongside Adobe’s Firefly models, giving you the best of all creative worlds.
EasyTune.io
EasyTune.io is the easiest and most secure way to fine-tune OpenAI's large-language completion models.
Patents
In 2022, I became a Distinguished Inventor at Adobe. I am currently listed as an inventor on seventeen patents with six pertaining to the intersection of creativity and generative AI.
- Organizing a graphic design document using semantic layers
- Content linting in graphic design documents
- Automatically generating semantic layers in a graphic design document
- Organizing a graphic design document using semantic layers
- Web-based digital image editing in real time utilizing a latent vector stream renderer and an image modification neural network
- Edit experience for transformation of digital content
- Web page reflowed text
- Synchronized content display across a plurality of devices
- Optimizing application compiling
- Application compiling
- Bundled mobile/desktop application package
- Biometric adjustments for touchscreens
- Application debugging
- Adding functionality with respect to one or more web pages
- System and method for ranking information based on click throughs
- Advertising application services system and method
- System and method for enabling user control of online advertising campaigns
Contact
Social
Feel free to email me at the address below. (Move the slider to decoded my email address.)