David Petherick — August 26, 2008, 2:52 pm

Cyber-Biographer makes it to Russia.

I am a ‘Keeber-biograph‘, meaning Cyber-Biographer. digital-biographer-russian
This is a term I came across when searching through Yandex, the Russian search engine that’s been in the news recently, and which is rightly proud of the fact that, thanks to them, Russia is one of only four countries where Google is not the significantly dominant search engine.

The term was coined in a blog by Maya Kim, in the context of an article by Steve Rubel entitled ‘Three Emerging Digital Careers to Watch‘ and I was interested to see that only one of the three terms Steve had used had been expanded and given further clarification using English terms in the context of a Russian blog.

Steve’s term of Super Cruncher was unchanged, and Chief Customer Experience Officer was simply translated into Russian as ‘Head of the Department of Quality Service for Clients’. But his term ‘Digital Storytellers’ was translated into Russian as ‘Cyber-Biographer’, and also expanded to include the English terms ‘digital storyteller, cyberspace concierge, blog butler, ghost blogger, digital biographer‘.

I recall the terms ‘Cyber Concierge’, ‘Blog Butler’ and ‘Ghost Blogger’ were used when BBC News 24 wrote about my work as a Digital Biographer over a year ago, but I was surprised, and quite delighted, to find this reference being made. (For those of you who may not be aware of the fact, I speak fairly good Russian and am also known as ‘The Digial Biographer‘.)

I like the term Digital Storyteller - it’s a good description of some elements of my work. But I still think that ‘biographer’ is closer to describing things accurately:

biography

noun ( pl. -phies)
an account of someone’s life written by someone else.
• writing of such a type as a branch of literature.
• a human life in its course : although their individual biographies are different, both are motivated by a similar ambition.

David Petherick — April 23, 2008, 12:19 pm

Will Amazon be your digital publisher this year, or next?

I had the pleasure to talk to Amazon’s Vice President Worldwide Architecture, and Chief Technology Officer, Werner Vogels, at The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam earlier this month, and asked him about what’s next for Amazon’s ‘Kindle‘ product… just click on the arrow below to listen to our discussion, or click the image to go to utterz.com for other options.

Dr. Werner Vogel, Chief Technology Officer at Amazon.com, talks about The Kindle. And what’s next, of course…

Mobile post sent by davidpetherick using Utterz Replies.  mp3

David Petherick — March 28, 2008, 4:42 pm

Why it’s taken me 13 years to decide to attend The Next Web in Amsterdam…

I first got involved in online business around 1995, when I first bought a copy of .net magazine, after I got curious about a startup company in the next room of our business centre, who said they were hosting websites.

Back in 1995, most business people I spoke to didn’t know what a website was, let alone what a good one would look like, so I started to learn how to code HTML using a highly sophisticated tool called ‘Notepad‘, and registered some domain names where a committee of actual people decided on whether or not I could own a particular domain name…

By 1998, I was designing and managing sites for companies like The Alba Centre (a Silicon Glen incubator) Scottish Financial Enterprise, The British Blood Transfusion Society, and for dozens of conferences a year.

Of course, the dot com bubble burst around 2000-2001, with so much money following ridiculously optimistic business plans, but many survivors from that period are still strong and active today.

Here comes something new…
But around about 2003, a new type of web site started to appear, as what I considered to be a natural evolution coinciding with the high penetration of broadband internet connections into homes and businesses: sites with features that broadly are known as Web 2.0…
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David Petherick — November 17, 2007, 1:35 pm

5 little-known Gmail features you may not yet know about

Gmail (or Googlemail if you’re in the UK) keeps on improving. And its free. And you never have to delete anything, and it’s pretty good at dealing with sp*am… yes, I like it. But I just came across a blog from Google with 5 great time-saving practical features I did not realise existed…

5. “Archive and next” shortcut
4. Share mail searches with friends
3. Browser navigation and history
2. Bookmark emails
1. “Filter messages like this”

PS: If you don’t have a Gmail account, just ask me to send you an invitation - email david dot petherick at gmail dot com

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David Petherick — August 13, 2007, 9:00 am

Listen to David Petherick on BBC Radio Wales

I was pleased to hear that my interview outlining my work as “The Digital Biographer” with Adam Walton of BBC Radio Wales broadcast on 12th August sounded good, was a good three minutes longer than expected, and was ‘top of the hour’ as the lead story.

BBC%20-%20Wales%20-%20Radio%20Wales%20-%20mousemat:%20Programme%2045

You can listen in online (I take up around the first 8 minutes) by clicking the arrow below.



I’d like to thank Broadcaster and Speaker Jeremy Nicholas for his first class advice on preparing for, and handling this radio interview.

David Petherick — August 9, 2007, 1:20 pm

David Petherick (Digital Biographer) interviewed on BBC Radio Wales

David Petherick is the Founder and CEO of Clarocada - but he’s also “The Digital Biographer” according to the BBC…

“I’ve no idea how the 25 minutes or so I spent talking with Adam Walton of BBC Radio Wales yesterday will sound when it’s edited down to perhaps 5, but we had a good old chat.” said David.

All of this follows on from the BBC article which appeared on 16th July “Meet the Digital Biographer, which detailed how David had been working for some months as the “ghost blogger” for Thomas Power, Chairman of business networking site Ecademy.

BBC%20NEWS%20%7C%20Technology%20%7C%20Meet%20the%20digital%20biographer

“There were of course questions related to online identity and the corporate / personal persona. I had to clarify that I don’t handle email and messages or blog comments for my customers, but do write blog content. It’s a fascinating area, and Adam said he’d like more time to talk about this - one great question was — what do I do if my work for someone results in them being offered a column or guest blog? The answer… well, you’ll have to listen in.”

The programme goes out at 17:03, Sunday 12th August, repeated Wednesday, 15th August, and is online in the archive for a week from Sunday. You can listen in online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/radiowales/sites/mousemat/

David would like to thank several Ecademy Members for demonstrating social networking in action, by providing some great soundbites for him to consider on the morning prior to the interview here in the Blogs Section at Ecademy: Why has social networking become so important?.

Specifically, David’s thanks go to Dan Field, Samantha Cannell, Robert Greig, Mark Lee, Iain Wilson and Philip Calvert.

David Petherick — May 9, 2007, 11:00 am

Leith Win Major Russian Advertising Account

We are delighted to announce that Clarocada customer The Leith Agency, just voted Marketing Services Agency of the Year, has pulled off one of the major coups of the year by beating four Russian advertising agencies to the prestigious SladCo Chocolate account.

The pitch, carried out in Moscow, invited agencies to present their ideas for a television-led campaign to relaunch their flagship boxed chocolate brand – SladCo – in Russia. The campaign, backed by a multi-million pound media budget, will break in August of this year and will run across all major Russian cities.

Marinela Simon, Marketing Manager for SladCo, said:

“We all got an excellent impression of The Leith Agency’s work. It was strategically well-grounded, creatively very good and well thought-through in terms of tone and manner. It also showed a remarkable understanding of Russian culture.”

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David Petherick — May 8, 2007, 2:30 pm

You’re a Nobody unless your name Googles well - Wall Street Journal

It’s official - well, it is if you rate the Wall Street Journal’s front page as authoritative - if your name doesn’t Google well, you can have problems with your credibility - and not just with prospective employers.

You’re a Nobody Unless your Name Googles Well published on the 8th of May 2007, cites the example of  Abigail Garvey, who, when she adopted the married name of Wilson, began to be questioned on publications she listed on her CV (résumé) because they weren’t finding the publications in online searches.

In the age of Google, being special increasingly requires standing out from the crowd online. Many people aspire for themselves — or their offspring — to command prominent placement in the top few links on search engines or social networking sites’ member lookup functions. But, as more people flood the Web, that’s becoming an especially tall order for those with common names. Type “John Smith” into Google’s search engine and it estimates it has 158 million results. (See search results.)

Ask.com estimates about 7% of all searches are for a person’s name, and more than 80% of executive recruiters said they routinely use search engines to learn more about candidates, according to a recent survey by ExecuNet.  ExecuNet published “Growing Number Of Job Searches Disrupted By Digital Dirt” in June of 2006,  which  found that “35% (of executive recruiters) have eliminated a candidate from consideration based on the information uncovered online - up significantly from 26% just one year ago.
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