The History of Lanier Interactive begins with its CEO Daneal Lanier. Daneal was raised on the east side of Cleveland Ohio. After graduating from high school he enlisted in the US Coast Guard. It was here, where he began to find himself and explore life’s possibilities. While in the Coast Guard he excelled and received numerous awards for teamwork, self-initiative, and high work ethic. He won his districts sailor of the year and was nominated twice for the Coast Guard sailor of the year. Daneal received one of the highest Coast Guard honors when he was presented with the Coast Guard Achievement medal for; superior performance, leadership, and revitalizing his units mandatory training and qualification programs. It was during this time as the units training officer that he fell in love with producing and developing media. Daneal utilized media as a means to enhance and compliment training delivery. His love of media development led to his departure from the Coast Guard after 13 years of service. Daneal sharpened his skills by teaching computer applications while pursuing a degree in digital art and technology. While still in school Daneal secured a job with a media training company. The company’s focus was interactive training for the web and CD-ROM. This was a great environment for Daneal and he absorbed as much knowledge as he could. He would later become the art director for the company and manage multiple projects for fortune 500 clients. After completing degrees in Interactive media and Digital Art and Technology Daneal decided to branch out on his own.

            Daneal drew on the management, leadership and planning skills to develop a media production company called Stickman Design. The company became a full service production house developing everything from graphics to video. Daneal used his knowledge of interactive concepts to find niche markets where he could introduce new media concepts. While on a special chemical response team within the US Coast Guard (The Atlantic Strike Team), Daneal learned and taught the Incident Command System (ICS). ICS is used to manage emergencies that require multiple resources and logistics. Daneal applied the system to manage multiple media projects with one production company. This would lead to Stickman’s first major client Meadowbrook Golf, the third largest golf management company in the US. Stickman would soon land more major clients to include; the National Forensics Technology Center, the premier forensics trainer in the US. Stickman would also land government contracts with; the Department of Justice, FBI, the Hillsborough County Department of Health and the National Institute of Justice. As Daneal continued to develop and improve the company’s media production, he started to consider developing original media content. Production began on a relationship podcast and website called Them-Us. Stickman developed Them-Us as if it were one of its clients and used its marketing expertise to promote Them-Us. A strong viral buzz lead to newspaper interviews in the St Petersburg Times, TBT, the Tampa Tribune and several internet news sites. Viewers ranged from 10,000 to 50,000 hits per day, with high spikes during new content uploads. With the knowledge gained from Them-Us, Daneal went into planning mode and the concept of Lanier Interactive was born.

            Lanier Interactive will adapt this knowledge, expertise and unique management style of Stickman Design, to create its own original content. The goal is to produce a global portfolio of entertainment and information based content, based on our principles of innovation, “Teach Entertain Socialize Share”. The content will be produced and distributed to all areas of media such as, web, publishing, television, movies, and mobile. Lanier Interactive will become a hub of information and interactive content.