Time fly’s. The 90’s does not seem that long ago for me with Windows 95, Netscape, and floppy discs. My first digital camera had a floppy disc. My first cell phone was in a bag. Somewhere along the line I recall people talking about searching on-line for their names and I thought there was no little vanity in that. Now we have an endless parade of social media sites where people bare their souls to the world while bemoaning our lack of privacy, with Twitter IMHO being the epitome of conceit.
And here I am, with my own website. Why? Well, I recently stumbled across a few videos on Personal Branding with regard to the internet, and the notion of not only building a ‘Personal Brand’, but ensuring I had some control over the information that was going to be on the world wide web in any case appealed to me. I had a very unpolished LinkedIn account out there after all, and though I’m 13 years into a great career at an excellent little company (Fire Prevention Services Ltd), I wasn’t going to be there forever, so starting this now would be a good exercise. Besides, as the videos said: making sure that my Personal Brand was professional and authoritative would help my current company as well.
So the gist of it is at some point I will likely move into consulting and to that end I am building another website that will be tied into this one. And eventually all my little Islands out there will be linked together, each one being like a specialised corner store.
This particular website will be a refined version of the old car with the bumper-stickers that tell of the highways traveled, or the well worn suitcase with decals from far flung destinations – reminders of places and times that make a life more rich. I will do that here. This is my website, for me. I will lay it out and compose my passages as if a visitor might be perusing the pages … but it’s still for me. And if that final day comes where I am looking back over my life, maybe by then I can just download my site to my mind….. or maybe the other way around.
Oh. And I’m writing a book…..
David K. Welch 