What do I do?
April 2, 2008 //
I read and hear that question being asked all the time, most recently via a comment on a TechCrunch post.
For those who don’t know the answer, here it is
- Segala, Founder / CEO
- Jaipur Restaurants, Partner
- Newspepper.com, Non-executive Director
- 3 Dynamics, Mentor to the CEO
- British Interactive Media Association (BIMA), Chair
- New startup which you’ll read about very soon
- Consult multinational brands in how to be more innovative with their marketing
- Chair and speak at conferences around the world
- Have fun doing it
Do people have a problem understanding what I do because I have so much fun doing it? Or could it be because I manage to squeeze in so much?
Business should be fun! 
Cuan Mulligan says 
I think perhaps people ask that question because you have become very good at marketing yourself online. Your online presence is highly visible, much more so than ‘what you do’.
It’s true of quite a few people I come across using blogs & social media, and I’m not criticising here, merely observing
But surely you must be aware of it yourself – after all, you did consciously make the decision to separate your blog out into paulfwalsh.com instead of blogging on your business blogs… I was also curious about your April Fools on social networks, until I thought to myself ‘what’s the first thing you do when you hear a big name has bought a smaller company?’ - you go and check out the smaller company of course. I’d be very interested to know what kind of spike the Segala site experienced on April1st… 
Was this raising of the profile of what you do intentional, or did your April fools have bigger (or lesser) aspirations…? So, anyway, if you are hearing this question a lot, do you see that as an issue or a good thing? Do you think ‘what you do’ should be more intrinsically tied up with ‘who you are’ or are you happy to be highly visible and let the chips fall where they may? After all, you are a serial opportunist… 
April 2nd, 2008
@Frank - some good questions in there.
1) I decoupled my personal thoughts from the Segala blog because people were getting confused about ‘Segala’. Between here and the Segala and BIMA blogs, I commentate on the Semantic Web on one end and Marketing using the art of conversation on the other - very diverse.
2) I did the April fools day joke for a number of reasons - to see how much attention I could get via my Facebook status update (or rather, to demonstrate how much attention I can get as I already know how influential it can be), for a laugh, to draw attention to Segala, to highlight that a sale is on the cards in the future…
I advise multinational brands in how to be more innovative with their marketing and product development. One way to do that is to listen to what people have to say about you, your brand and your products. For me, it’s all the same thing.
Does that answer your question?
April 4th, 2008