John may be best known for his role in the award-winning 1996 documentary Hype!, which still turns up on high-numbered cable channels from time to time. The film investigates the media prank turned pop culture phenomenon that came to be known as grunge music. It highlights John's role as one of the movement's few unrepentant instigators.

As the grunge music media frenzy crested in the early 90's, John concluded that his unique skill set would be most valuable in the field of advertising. However, John was quickly disappointed by the constricted thinking he encountered.

Taking a long-term view, he became fascinated by the opportunity to develop emerging communications technologies for commercial purposes. Initially, this led to a series of experiments with new media, including sponsored videocassettes and the distribution of interactive brochures on floppy discs.

When the Internet emerged as a commercial medium in the early 90's, John co-founded Brazil Design Group (aptly named for Terry Gilliam's dystopian comedy). In 1995, Brazil Design developed the marketing campaign for the launch of Real Audio 1.0 which became the most successful software introduction to date. Most of Brazil Design Group was then absorbed into RealNetworks.

John remained a digital media consultant until 1998 when he was hired by Microsoft Research to work on the development of Microsoft Reader, Microsoft's e-Book software and a forerunner to Tablet PC. When the group's focus shifted from the development of new features to content security issues, John chose to move on.

Upon leaving Microsoft in 2000, John worked as Internet Director for Maria Cantwell's successful US Senate campaign.

Shortly thereafter, John and a few friends developed the idea for Weed and together they founded Shared Media Licensing. The Weed software was launched in December of 2003.

John's role as President of Shared Media Licensing is the culmination of a career that has consistently promoted innovation in music, marketing and technology.