Overview

As you might have gathered by now, my name is Tommy Young and this is my little slice of digital landscape. Since 1995 weBranding has been the primary place where I collected, commented on, and organized my thoughts about stuff that’s interesting and useful to me, and I hope from time-to-time to other folks as well.

Recently I’ve been reworking it into a site for my consulting business, as well as a “digital lab” where I develop and test projects under development for myself and clients.

Personal Stuff

I am 38 years young. I live just outside St. Louis, Missouri, but lived in a number of places. I was born in southern Illinois, but then lived in Louisiana, Texas, Kansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia, Washington, DC, and now Illinois again (in that order).

I’ve had a fun and varied life that just seems to get better and better each year. I played Division I golf, worked for and studied with the man who hired Walter Cronkite and fired Edward R. Murrow, walked large sections of the Appalachian Trial, ran a suicide hotline, and my parents swear I am the most photographed child in the world standing beside a cannon (my father’s PhD is in Civil War history).

I spend my non-work hours playing golf, taking bad photos, mountain biking, reading, playing PS2/N64/Sega Genesis, and obeying the demands of my four cats.

Professional Background

I have close to 20 years experience in the high-tech b2b market space with experience in account service, strategic planning, research and account planning, and public relations.

Prior to setting off on a freelance career I was the Vice President of Marketing for a virtual, web-based Application Service Provider (ASP) that sold high-end interactive marketing products and services (electronic newsletters, email marketing, and web meeting software).

During the dot com bubble I was an Account Supervisor for KSK Communications (now a part of Earle Palmer Brown); a specialized ad agency focused on b2b high-tech clients. I was responsible for crafting marketing and strategic planning for high-profile new and existing clients, including Lucent Technologies, HP, PeopleSoft, Octel, and Unisys.

Before that I worked at E. James White, one of Northern Virginia’s largest agencies, where I built the Account Planning department from scratch into a profitable and productive business unit. Before that role I was a Senior Account Executive that managed three of the agency’s largest clients for the $80M shop.

Prior to joining E. James White, I worked as a market research analyst at INPUT and as an Account Executive at award-winning Elliott Van Deutsch (then MHI Communications, now Blattner Brunner), where I cut my teeth working on accounts such as AOL, EDS, Nortel, Unisys, and the National Parks and Conservation Association.

I have a Masters of Arts in Communications from Louisiana State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Industrial and Organizational Psychology and Communications from Western Illinois University.

Colophon

The site requires Internet Explorer 7+ (Firefox strongly recommended) with all the usual plug-ins. Human brain 1.0 strongly suggested.

• Publishing Tools: Content is produced in Ecto (or NoteTab) and published and managed for your enjoyment using WordPress (2.5).
• Hardware: 15.4 inch Sony Vaio FE Series running Windows XP Media Center and a 14″ G4 Apple iBook.
• Software: Photoshop CS, Dreamweaver, FileZilla, Audacity, Microsoft OneNote, and Camtasia Studio.
• Services: Backpack, Freshbooks, FeedBurner, Flickr, Campaign Monitor, Google Analytics, and Twitter.
• Hosting/Domain Management: The always up and always stellar GoDaddy.