Emily Davidow
Emily’s love of technology — and desire to share it — emerged early. In middle school she was teaching computer classes to kindergartners at summer camp. In 1995, Emily launched BeHOME, a pioneering ecommerce website for home furnishings, and designed and developed innovative online visualization and shopping tools and systems. As an owner and creative director of BeHOME’s parent company, Benchmark Industries, Inc., a top 50 home furnishings retailer, she designed delightful customer experiences across many media: online, interactive, video, print and in store.
Emily founded Digital Elements to provide strategic design and consulting for digital media and the Internet, producing Web sites and interactive experiences for clients that include Robert Thurman, Esther Dyson’s EDventure Holdings (Release 1.0 and PC Forum) and the Mitchell Gold Company. She published Furnishing the Digital Era, an influential newsletter for the home furnishings industry. Digital Elements offers extensive experience in designing multimedia experience, identity and branding, digital community and commerce.
At present Emily Davidow is creative director on “Journeys with Robert Thurman,” a documentary film and multimedia series that takes viewers on the road with the dynamic professor and author, exploring Tibetan Buddhism in lands and cultures shaped by it: Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia. Additionally, Emily serves as contributing editor of The Panelist website and magazine, where she explores issues of socially conscious culture, business and investing. Her photography has appeared in New York Magazine and O Magazine.
Tracking the trends of electronic convergence in the home, she developed a Home Theater store in Kansas City, and then Home Theater University, where she taught other retailers and manufacturers how to duplicate its success. She co-invented and patented a universal cabinet for projection TV and founded Home Cinema Designs, Inc. to manufacture and market it. Today, Home Cinema Designs licenses dozens of furniture manufacturers to produce furniture under its patent, and Emily consults on design for the ever-changing ways we use technology at home.
Emily has written and spoken extensively on technology trends, ecommerce, and design at conferences and events. She serves as international region co-chair of Wellesley Business Leadership Council, and as an advisor to Arts Engine Inc., Green Links, and The Panelist Media as well as an active member of Tibet House, Creative Time‘s Creative Council, O2 for sustainable design, and the Rubin Museum of Art. Previously, she has served on the advisory board for Web Design and Development conferences, CNET’s Web Builder conference, WWWAC (World Wide Web Artists Consortium), and for many years hosted the I+D (Interface and Design) Salon.
Emily graduated from Wellesley College in 1993 with a BA in Chinese Studies, speaks Mandarin, and received a Wellesley fellowship to work at the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan, where she also wrote for the China Daily News.
Emily keeps a weblog at emilydavidow.com and a photo journal at flickr.com/photos/emilyd.