Helping your
ideas earn attention.
Research. Storytelling. Production. Distribution.
We help organizations turn complex ideas into content people choose to watch, share, and remember.
Standing Sideways Moving Forward helps organizations turn complex ideas into award-winning films, original series, and public-facing projects.
We work with global nonprofits, universities, technology companies, and media organizations to shape ambitious ideas and help them find an audience.
Our role often begins before production. We help organizations identify the red thread, clarify the strategic approach, and determine how the idea should move across channels.
Films + Original Series
Public Engagement
Audience Strategy
Words should go here
Featured Work
Turning complex bioethics into content people choose to engage with.
Digital strategy and content agency for the iDeas Lab. Leading go-to-market strategy for playing god? Season 2 and the playing god? Presents feed, with tailored marketing for priority projects.
Before we joined, most videos reached around 100 viewers. Today, new releases routinely reach 6,000–12,000 viewers.
Growing the Audience for Forbes 50 Fintech
We built Stronghold's in-house content operation, leading strategy, creative production, and audience growth across YouTube and social media. The work helped grow the company's YouTube channel from fewer than 40,000 subscribers to more than 120,000 while expanding its presence into new international markets.
Helping Microsoft Build an AI-First Content Workflow
Working with RUN Studios and Microsoft, we developed a practical playbook for integrating AI into video post-production. By researching emerging tools and redesigning editing workflows, we helped create a faster, more repeatable system for turning long-form content into high-quality social videos that continues to support Microsoft's content teams.
Building the UN's First Global YouTube Creator Program
We managed a groundbreaking partnership between YouTube and the United Nations, recruiting influential creators from six countries to help tell stories about global development, humanitarian issues, and the Sustainable Development Goals to millions of viewers worldwide.
Content Marketing for Radford Motors
Barry Pousman directed content strategy and video production for Radford Motors, growing branded social media channels by 200% month-over-month and driving community involvement through digital engagement tactics.
Webby Award for Product Marketing
Barry Pousman produced an award-winning series of television and digital ads around a 'Create Your World' campaign for Glowforge. The campaign won a Webby Award for Product Marketing.
Head of Content at Stronghold
Barry Pousman heads up all content creation at Stronghold, a Forbes 50 Fintech. Under Barry’s leadership, Stronghold received the YouTube 100,000 Subscriber Award, and expanded social media globally in Japan and South Korea.
Launch Video and Campaign Assets for Sage AI
Barry Pousman developed and produced an engaging launch video and kit of motion assets for Amazon’s Sage AI, a new AI tool to help companies achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.
Ocean Discovery XPRIZE Launch Campaign
Barry Pousman was the producer for the launch campaign of the $7 million Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE, a global competition challenging teams to advance deep-sea technologies for autonomous, fast, high-resolution ocean exploration. The campaign led to a record-breaking amount of submissions.
Canoo - Heartland Commercial
Produced and edited by Barry Pousman for the electric car company, Canoo.
Content Marketing for Discovery Channel
Barry Pousman, Executive Producer on DNews, managed editorial partnerships with national brands including Intel, Toyota, and Unilever.
Brand Strategy and Content for UNDPPA's Innovation Team
Barry Pousman produced a "Look Back to Look Forward" campaign for the UNDPPA's Innovation Team. The campaign succeeded in raising multi-year funding from multiple international governments.
playing god? A Bioethics Podcast from the iDeas Lab at Johns Hopkins University's Berman Institute
Barry Pousman is the Content Strategist at Johns Hopkins’ iDeas Lab, a creative studio and incubator for world class stories at the intersection of science, ethics, medicine and public health. Barry focuses on developing digital strategies, branding, and content creation to increase audience engagement and expand the Lab’s influence.
Digital Strategy for Johns Hopkins iDeas Lab
Barry Pousman was the founding Digital Strategist for the iDeas Lab at Johns Hopkins, an award-winning creative studio and incubator for stories at the intersection of science, ethics, medicine, and public health.
Radford Motors - Multi-Channel Strategy
Barry Pousman headed up digital strategy for Radford Motors, a premiere automotive brand with content channels across television, social media, and in-person events.
YouTube Change Ambassadors for the United Nations
Barry Pousman pitched and managed a first-of-its-kind partnership between YouTube and the United Nations, driving millions of new viewers to the work of the UN through influential creators on YouTube.
Participants included Ingrid Nilsen and Jackie Aina from the United States, Mexico’s Yuya, Taty Ferreira of Brazil, Hayla Ghazal of the United Arab Emirates, Louise Pentland of the UK, and Japan’s Chika Yoshida.
Know Your Meme – Digital Strategy
Role: Video Series Producer
Know Your Meme is a website and video series which uses wiki software to document various Internet memes and other online phenomena, such as viral videos, image macros, catchphrases, internet celebrities and more. It also investigates new and changing memes through research, as it commercializes on the culture.
Institute for the Future – Futures Thinking on Coursera
Role: Video Course Producer
Ready Yourself for a Changing World. Learn the skills and mindsets of the world’s top futurists, so you can forecast what’s coming, imagine new possibilities, and seize control of your own future.
Discovery Digital Networks
Role: Executive Producer
Discovery Digital Networks was a San Francisco-based multi-channel Internet television and digital cable network that created, produced, and distributed streaming television shows on niche topics. It operated as the provider for six distinct networks: Revision3, TestTube, Animalist, Seeker, the DeFranco Network and Rev3Games.
My Hidden City - A Feature Documentary Film
Directed by Barry Pousman, My Hidden City is an award-winning documentary about the hidden city of Mrauk-U as seen through the eyes of a young local resident. Produced with funding from the Myanmar Department of Archeology for UNESCO and other South Asian partners.
Whose Future? - A Meta Funded Creative Technology Program
Directed by Barry Pousman, and in partnership with Meta and the Boys and Girls Club of Harlem, Whose Future? builds digital equity and inclusion by making creator tools accessible to everyone. Over 5,000 students have embarked on a learning journey through emerging tech classrooms and a new immersive learning platform that hosts all of our creative technology curriculum.
Whose Future? is making the new frontier of technology accessible to everyone.
Accenture AVEnueS - Social Worker Training
Produced by Barry Pousman, and in partnership with Accenture’s Public Service team, AVEnueS is an award-winning series of interactive and cinematic training modules, designed to drive real-world behavior change for case workers.
Choose Your Own Resistance - Immersive Film for Columbia University
Produced by Barry Pousman and funded by a Columbia University Discovery Grant, Choose Your Own Resistance is an immersive, multi-perspective film about choosing to challenge racism. The film inspired a new course at the Columbia School of Social Work, Storytelling for Social Justice, co-taught by professors Barry Pousman and Rob Eschmann.
KEEP THE OIL IN THE GROUND - VIRAL IMPACT CAMPAIGN
In collaboration with Amazon Watch, Barry Pousman directed and produced the viral story of Nina Gualinga, adorned with the traditional paint of her Kichwa heritage, as she returned to her hometown of Sarayaku, deep within Ecuador's Amazon rainforest, to advocate for indigenous rights. The film and campaign resulted in the President of Ecuador apologizing to the people of Sarayaku for turning a blind eye to the oil companies.
The Letter - A documentary about Shaka Senghor
Produced and filmed by Barry Pousman and funded by Van Jones’ Project Empathy, this immersive documentary chronicles the years Shaka Senghor spent in solitary confinement and his journey of loss, punishment, hope and redemption.
PARADISE - An AI-Powered Experience on Intimate Partner Violence
Produced by Barry Pousman, and funded by Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, PARADISE explores the spectrum of intimate partner violence through an AI-powered couples therapy session. The experience premiered at SXSW and is available on the Darkfield Radio app.
AI Post Production Strategy
Barry Pousman worked with Microsoft’s Community Learning channel on YouTube and LinkedIn to research and implement AI post-production solutions for short-form video creation.
Clouds Over Sidra - The UN's First VR Film
Co-Directed and shot by Barry Pousman, Clouds Over Sidra was the United Nation’s first virtual reality film following Sidra, a twelve-year-old Syrian girl, through the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan. The film has been credited with raising over $1.5B dollars at a single 24hr donor event, along with spurring countless VR for Good, VR for Impact, and other major funds for immersive experiences designed for social impact.
Mixed Reality Learning Hub - Interactive Immersive Learning
Produced by Barry Pousman, the Mixed Reality Learning Hub is a first-of-its-kind platform for training medical students and practitioners. Project funding provided by Johns Hopkins University.
Discovery VR - An Industry First
Pitched, developed, launched and managed by Barry Pousman, the award-winning Discovery VR brought Discovery’s best IP (Mythbusters, Shark Week, etc) to audiences like never before. Written about in the NY Times, the standalone Discovery VR app launched, inspiring CNN, the NY Times, The Atlantic, and other major publishers to create their own 360 apps and content pipelines.
Salary Negotiation Simulator - American Association of University Women
Produced by Barry Pousman, the Salary Negotiation Simulator for Women is a virtual simulation with natural language processing designed to empower women in their professional journeys. The training content was commissioned by the American Association of University Women.
