Scoble’s Link Blog

http://www.pixelmedius.com/?p=4

Weblog: pixelmedius.com
Source: Hi. Let me introduce myself!
Link: http://www.pixelmedius.com/?p=4

One of the things you keep hearing in blogger-land (blogosphere?) is how you can use blogs to market yourself or your business. Robert Scoble and Hugh McLeod are probably the most well known people to really focus on this, along with many others. The idea is that markets are conversations and if you can figure out a way to tap into the collective audience, you can make them identify with you, thus creating a relationship. With that relationship, you can figure out to serve your customers better, since you will be conversing with them.

Generally speaking, this seems to work rather well. Scoble has almost singlehandedly made Microsoft cool. He’s tireless about promotion, and more importantly, castigates the mistakes that his own company makes. This fosters honesty, on both sides. It inspires loyalty.

I would like to do that. Inspiring loyalty means that you can screw up as many times as you want, and your customers will still love you so long as you love them back, two fold. So this blog, I think, while generally a personal blog, will focus on both my life, but also my thoughts on where I think my business/career should go.

To begin that, I should probably introduce myself.

I’m Jason Powell. My email address is jasonepowell@gmail.com. I live in Northern Virginia, in a lovely little town called Leesburg. Actually, it’s not so little anymore - in fact, the county we’re in (Loudoun County) is the fastest growing county in the US. A lot of its charm has been lost due to the influx of people, but there have been some serious advantages as well, namely that a ton of business opportunities have been created, allowing businesses like mine to have a chance at succeeding.

I grew up in New Jersey, and then moved to Virginia just before high school. I’m 25. I’m married, to the most perfect person in the world for me, a wonderful woman named Laura. I have a dog named Max. He’s a chihuahua/pomeranian mix, which makes him the canine equivalent of a cat. He’s not particularly yappy, but he’s very playful and cuddly, so he pretty much rocks. My wife and I are going to have kids, probably soon, which will mean more playful and cuddly things around the house.

Laura works at a law firm in Leesburg (just down the block from my office, actually). Although I don’t want to go into many details about my company, we’re in the ISP/Networking/IT industry, providing a variety of services to many companies in the area. I am the designated company nerd. Meaning that any job or task our company has to do that no one else knows how to do, I generally end up getting that task. This plays to my strength of being able to learn things very quickly.

I read a lot. A LOT. All kinds of stuff really, although I stay away from pretentious literature (yes, I mean you, Franzen) and other things that make me feel ugly. Among my favorite authors are Stephen King, Malcolm Gladwell, Orson Scott Card, Tom Clancy, Jeff Zeldman, Michael Crichton, Stephen Ambrose, Bill Bryson, and many others.

I harbor a dream of someday writing a book of some sort, which is kind of interesting because I don’t write a lot. Part of the purpose of this blog is to get me into the habit of writing something substantial at least 5 times a week. As Stephen King says, writers write. It’s time to stop aspiring.

Anyway, I think that about brings us up to speed. To recap, I’m a nerd in a nerdy business, who wants to figure out how to make things better. I have a great life at home, and I might, at some point, get up the gumption to write something that might be printed and bound and have a preface and stuff.

Hello.

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