Smarter Learning

Tom consults through Smarter Learning LLC, established in 2011 to provide traditional publishing services such as content strategy, business development, and contract negotiation. The company now works primarily as an advisor to STM publishers and startups.

For a time Smarter Learning built mobile apps for Apple devices (iOS), with a focus on the educational and consumer markets. Descriptions of some prominent app projects are below.

Educational apps

Some of Smarter Learning's earliest projects were apps created in partnership with Scientific Publishing Ltd, a US-based publisher of anatomy and physiology resources.

SPL licensed its text and artwork to Smarter Learning to create a suite of iOS applications. For Understanding the Digestive System (below), we combined SPL's content with interactive drag-and-drop exercises and features like bookmarking and full-text search (hardly earth-shattering now, but fun to demo in the early 2010s).

Consumer apps

Smarter Learning partnered with author Janet Zappala to turn her cookbook, My Italian Kitchen, into an app. Recipes and photos from the book were repurposed, and we introduced interactive features such bookmarking, text searching, and note-taking.