About

Hi there, and welcome to the core of my “online brand” aka “my blog.” By way of introduction, I am a marketer and dad living in the Pacific Northwest with family and friends, and harboring a nagging obsession with Oregon Duck sports. On a professional level I have a passion for and unique skills around community marketing - that conflux of old-school grassroots, traditional public relations, and newfangled online social media.

Currently I am focused on developing my client list and portfolio on the freelance marketing side, while pursuing my own small ventures through my consultancy, Social Mallard Media.

<experience>

• 12+ years in total driving marketing, sales, and communications programs for small and large companies, both non-profit and corporate.
• 7+ years at Microsoft in roles ranging from technical product management to student outreach and blogger relations for the Live brands.
• Smaller company experience at WebJunction, Edifecs, Valence Research, and elsewhere.

<core competencies>

• Influencer outreach and relations - creating buzz by developing lasting and positive relationships with bloggers, user groups, forum leaders, and more.
• Blending online and offline community initiatives - are you making the most of your event presence by tying it to online social tactics?
• Marketing communications - online and offline, from copy and collateral to demand generation.
• Online marketing - PPC advertising and SEO, both fundamental precepts and specifics related to Wordpress and copywriting.
• Wordpress - setup, proper configuration, and great uses of that Cadillac of open source content management systems.
• Blog and social media strategy and execution - abused phrases, to be sure, but critical nevertheless. Crafting strategies for turning your blog into an awareness and lead generating machine, and generally for making effective use of social media channels to drive concrete business goals.
• Marketing programs management - large and small, complex and sweet/simple.

<technical skills>

• Fluency: Microsoft Office Suite, Windows and OSX, Adobe InDesign, Wordpress, Coda, social media tools (analysis, monitoring, participation), and various online applications and marketing tools.
• Reasonable Competency: CSS, CSSEdit, HTML, Adobe PhotoShop, TextWrangler.
• Vague Familiarity: PHP, MySQL, Adobe Illustrator, Windows Server technologies.

<education>

• MBA, University of Washington
• BS, University of Oregon

<interests>

• Wordpress theming, development, and the community at large
• Social media tools, practices, and players
• Photography, politics, writing, and history (Civil War, military history, Middle Ages, obscure civilizations, and the role of technology in development)
• Online massively multiplayer gaming on the rare occasions when I have time
• My Mac, iPhone, and all they help me do
• Skiing, SCUBA, hiking - in short anything that gives me an excuse to claim “I need more gear from REI!”

<random facts>

I grew up in Sunnyvale, CA as an Apple loyalist (Steve Jobs and Woz both graduated from my high school, so loving the now-quaint rainbow logo was seemingly required by city ordnance). I owned nearly every version of the Apple II (God love Lode Runner!) and Mac from 1983 until 1998 - when I got a job working on the Windows team and figured it would be appropriate to own a computer that actually ran it. However since leaving Microsoft in 2007 I’ve got the Apple religion back. iPhone, MacBook Pro, and even an original AppleTV. I still diligently use Windows on my own semi-monster gaming tower.

I am not this guy. He plays guitar and sells lots of music. I have no musical talent. Unfortunately he got the better domain before I did.

<about this blog>

kevinbriody.net is built using Wordpress and now I’m giving the Thesis theme a try. The last two iterations of this site ran my own heavily modified variaton on the default “Kubrick” theme, which I coined “Wheaton Scores”, and a styling of K2 called “Mallard Red”. My tools and toys of choice include Mac OSX, Coda, ImageWell, and Photoshop CS3. I’m currently obsessing a bit on integrating Twitter within my blog. Visit this page for a list of all active plugins used on this site.