Clear product decisions for content organizations facing platform and AI change.
I help publishers, content organizations, and product teams simplify editorial workflows, modernize content platforms, and make practical decisions about AI.
I'm Bill Thornton. I led product teams at Dow Jones and Gannett/USA TODAY. Through Bite Size Elephant, I offer focused assessments, platform strategy, and interim product leadership.
Introducing GrafStack
Introducing GrafStackYour journalism, structured for AI search, licensing, and agents.
GrafStack is a methodology and reference architecture for newsrooms. I help you organize stories into paragraph-level units with sentence-level precision, so AI systems cite, license, and correct your work.
How I can help
Start with an assessment, plan the work, or bring in leadership to deliver it.
Assess
GrafStack AI Editorial Workflow Audit
- For
- Newsrooms and publishers
- You receive
- Gap map across seven layers and a prioritized roadmap with effort estimates. Four weeks, fixed fee.
Plan
Editorial workflow and platform strategy
- For
- Publishers, content organizations
- You receive
- Workflow and platform decisions, vendor evaluation, 90-day roadmap
Product strategy and AI planning
- For
- Product teams in any industry
- You receive
- Prioritized opportunities, evaluation criteria, dependencies, product roadmap
Lead
Interim product leadership
- For
- Any organization in transition
- You receive
- Agreed responsibilities, priorities, delivery cadence
Selected experience
Products I've led reach millions of readers. This work comes from my leadership roles before Bite Size Elephant. They are not current client engagements.
- Dow Jones
Built an AI evaluation tool that let editors compare model and prompt outputs against human-written work; adopted for headlines, alt text, and summaries.
- Dow Jones
Retired a costly custom-analytics build for a stronger off-the-shelf tool; approved by engineering leadership and adopted across WSJ, Barron's, and MarketWatch.
- Gannett / USA TODAY
Led UX and design for a shared publishing platform that scaled from a seven-person newsroom to USA TODAY and 140+ local news sites.
- Gannett
Built multidisciplinary product pods and coached an engineer into a director role whose platform proposal anchored the USA TODAY redesign.
Leading a startup or nonprofit? See how I work withstartups andmission-driven organizations.
Products I build
Alongside consulting, I build and support my own products. The work keeps me close to discovery, development, and delivery.
MemoryWeaver
BetaA product for capturing and sharing family stories. Now in beta.
Explore MemoryWeaver
WhereToAdvisor
Scored reports comparing countries and cities for people planning an international move.
Explore WhereToAdvisorWeekly Insights.Notes on product strategy, content platforms, and practical AI decisions.
SubscribeTell me what your team is working on.
Share your priorities and what stands in the way. We'll talk through whether a focused engagement or ongoing support makes sense.
Discuss your priorities