David E. Bowman - Squidoo Lens Returns

I gave a speech earlier this week to the Dayton LinkedIn Group.  In the speech, I spoke about some easy ways that individuals can use the web to build their personal brand.  One tool I referenced was Squidoo - one of the most useful sites (or grouping of sites) on the web.

Squidoo is a powerful tool for sharing ideas, finding information, and building your personal brand. It is the brainchild of Seth Godin, one of the foremost thinkers in the areas of technology, business, and marketing.  The idea is that everyone is an expert at something, and thus should be able to use the web to help others by sharing that expertise.  Squidoo enables users to easily create a one page web site, called a lens, full of rich content, links, video, notes, polls, rss feeds, and other interesting items.  The beauty of Squidoo is that you don’t have to know anything about writing code to use it, and Google loves it.  It is easy to use, and provides in-depth information on hundreds of thousands of topics, and continues to evolve into a powerful research tool.

Well, many moons ago I built a Squidoo lens about me.  After all, I fugured that if everyone is supposed to be an expert at something, I should be the foremost expert on the subject of me.  It was up on the web for a while, but then I became dissatisfied with it.  As a result I took the site down for a makeover. Then, as happens, I got side tracked with other things, and the lens sat dormant.

Well, after giving my speech, there was a huge interest amongst those who attended in Squidoo.  Most had never heard of it, and many curious people have since emailed me for more information.  All of this reminded me that I still need to bring back the lens about me - and so I did.   View it here or by visiting http://www.squidoo.com/davidebowman.  The lens was very easy to put together, and offers the world a different look at me and some of my work.

They recently rebranded the “people” section of Squidoo - giving it the clever moniker of SquidWho.  Check it out, and let me know what you think.  Then, start building your own lenses.  Share your expertise with the world.

Some other lenses I have built include:

Dayton Marketing Community

Dayton Weblogs - which I need to update

The Epilepsy Foundation of Western Ohio - a work in progress

David E. Bowman

Welcome to the Future

As I start my 3rd week of employment as Marketing Manager at LUCRUM, I am happy to report that things are going extremely well. The drive from Dayton to Cincinnati is actually enjoyable. I hit the road pretty early, so it’s just me, my coffee, my thoughts, my music and the news for 45 minutes. When I arrive at work, things are quiet and I have a few hours of uninterrupted time to be productive. Not a bad way to start the day.

That is all good and well, but not the reason for this post. The real reason for the post is that I want to let people know the LUCRUM weblog is up and running. It can be found at http://TheFutureValueofBusiness.com. The url was inspired by one of the many mantras found on the back of our business cards at LUCRUM. A couple bucks and the url was ours. The site is built in Wordpress, so that it is easy to update, easy to manage and easy to use. We have not rolled out the site “officially” within the confines of LUCRUM, but people are already asking when they will be able to post. I am working on setting up a little training on blogging and wordpress so that we can get everyone here contributing content. Even I am surprised at the level of enthusiasm that people here have regarding the project. It will be fun to watch the site grow and the web stats follow.

I was asked today “what are we supposed to write about on the blog?” I said “whatever you want to write about.” I then stopped and made the following list of forbidden topics:

• No profanity
• No private information (other people’s personal business or Client info)
• No pornography
• No politics (plenty of that to go around)

Beyond that, I am instructing people to post away. Basically, just use common sense and good judgment. I will also be giving a lecture on the 4 way Test for ethics as they apply to blogging as well, as I feel it has a lot of merit.

The site also has a list of links, an events calendar, a contact form, and more. The list of features will continue to grow as the site evolves and will likely include forums, wikis, and private discussion areas soon too.

Suffice it to say that I am having way too much fun. Please visit the site and let me know what you think.

The Future Value of Business

Meatball Sundae: Mmm Good

Seth Godin is an amazing author, marketing thought leader and agent of change. His brilliance was proven to me yet again, as I read through the pages of his latest book, Meatball Sundae. The book is about the alignment of an organization’s marketing with its cultural mindset and makeup. Read more