www.dpingram.com

Welcome to my blog. I created this because I wanted a place to post relevant news about social media, user generated content, and social networking in traditional and new media.

Today

Since May 2006 I’ve been involved in an exciting startup in the social media (social networking, user generated content) space: Sharenow (previously Izimi) is a peer to browser social media platform and community, and launched in September 2007. Right now its going great guns, we have some decent funding from some smart investors and product development is going well.

My Career

I started my career in sales, selling software development tools and web application servers in the early 90’s. I went on to found Internet UK Ltd with a chap called Curtis Nash. Internet UK was a 12 man company developing e-commerce solutions and database driven websites for some pretty big UK companies.

In 1998 I left Internet UK to go to Scoot (Freepages) to design and launch a range of e-commerce products for SMEs.

After Scoot, in 1999, I joined B2B e-commerce company Infobank to become Head of Professional Services. I went on to become the Group Product Manager as the company expanded from 50 UK people to 300 in 7 countries.

I took a few years consulting for a couple of big clients including Sony and BT, then I got interested in developing a business plan in a totally unrelated sector. I took some time out to develop that business and got some seed capital from a media company whom I went and worked for for a year to develop the plan further. In 2005 I also attempted to buy a watersports centre (I love wakeboarding in my spare time!!!), but the purchase fell through - but thats another story!!!.

In May 2006 I joined some old colleagues to form izimi (now Sharenow), and thats where I am right now.

My Primary Industries

Computer Software, Internet, New Media, Social Media, UGC, Social Networking

My Primary Skills

New media, social media, business and product strategy, social media marketing, change agent, investor relations.

In My Spare Time

I read a lot (see On My Bookshelf). I also wakeboard in the summer (I placed 4th in the Masters division in 2006 Cable Wakeboard World Championships, and 3rd in the 2005 World Championships - does this mean I am getting worse?), and I snowboard in the winter.

You can reach me at…

Sharenow (eSeekers Ltd)
Rochester House
Eynsham Road
Oxford, OX2 9NH, UK

Email: david [AT] sharenow [DOT] com
Web: www.sharenow.com
Office: +44 (0)1865 864022
Mobile: +44 (0) 7919 020 323

MSN: dave [DOT] ingram [AT] zen [DOT] co [DOT] uk
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/davidingram
Skype: izidave

(or “how I have funded Amazon”)

Ok, so its quite revealing to go back overt your Amazon account and see what you bought, here it is…

2008 (so far…)
The 4-Hour Work Week - Timothy Ferris
iWoz - Steve Wozniak (w/ Gine Smith)
Mavericks At Work - William C Taylor & Polly LaBarre

2007
The World is Flat - Thomas Friedman
We Are Smarter Than Me - Barry Libert & Jon Spector
Small Is the New Big: And 183 Other Riffs,… - Seth Godin
Smart Start-ups - David Silver
The Slight Edge - Audio Book - Jeff Olson (recommended by my friend Amit Neman)
Wikinomics - How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything - Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams
The Innovator’s Solution - Clayton M. Christensen, Michael Raynor
The Harvard Business Review on Innovation - The Harvard Business Review
Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution - Geoffrey Moore
The Cluetrain Manifesto - Chris Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, Rick Levine (how did I miss this book for so long)

2006
Why Most Things Fail - Paul Ormerod
The Future of Advertising - Joe Cappo
Naked Conversations (How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers) - Robert Scoble, Shel Israel
Branding Unbound: The Future Of Advertising, Sales, and the Brand Experience In the Wireless Age - Rick Mathieson
Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
UML for Dummies - Michael J. Chonoles, James A. Schardt
UML Toolkit - Hans-Erik Eriksson, et al
Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
The Long Tail - Chris Anderson
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference - Malcolm Gladwell
Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word of Mouth
Revolution - Justin Kirby
All the Right Moves: A Guide to Crafting Breakthrough
Strategy - Constantinos Markides
The Google Story - David A. Vise
Search Me: The Surprising Success of Google - Neil Taylor

2005
Blue Ocean Strategy - W. Chan Kim, Renée Mauborgne
Project Management for Dummies - Stanley Portney
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Words That Change Minds: Mastering the Language of
Influence - Shelle Rose Charvet
Get Clients Now!: 28-day Marketing Program for Professionals and Consultants - C.J. Hayden
Coaching: Evoking Excellence in Others - James Flaherty
Coaching For Performance: Growing People, Performance and
Purpose - Sir John Whitmore

2004
Performance Coaching: The Handbook for Managers, HR Professionals and Coaches - Angus McLeod
Accounts Demystified: How to understand financial accounting and analysis - Anthony Rice
Rich Dad, Poor Dad 2: Cash Flow Quadrant - Robert T. Kiyosaki
I’d Like the World to Buy a Coke - David Greising
Sam Walton: Made in America - Sam Walton, John Huey
What They Still Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School - Mark H. McCormick

2003
Pour Your Heart into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time - Howard Schulz
It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life - Lance Armstrong
Rasputin: The Last Word - Edvard Radzinsky
Hawk: Occupation Skateboarder - Tony Hawk, Sean Mortimer
Maverick!: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual
Workplace - Ricardo Semler
The Clash of Civilizations: And the Remaking of World
Order - Samuel P. Huntington
The End of History and the Last Man - Francis Fukuyama
The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory - Brian Greene

2002
The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the
Universe - Stephen W. Hawking
It’s Not About Size - Dickinson, Richard Branson
Do Something Different - Jurgen Wolff, Sir Richard Branson
The Beermat Entrepreneur - Mike Southon, Chris West
The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork - John C. Maxwell
The Performance Factor : Unlocking the Secrets of
Teamwork - Pat MacMillan
Buddhism Plain and Simple - Steve Hagen
The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living - Dalai Lama, Howard Cutler

2001
Purchasing and Supply Chain Management - Arjan Van Weele
The Power of Now - Ekhart Tolle
Your Erroneous Zones - Wayne W. Dyer
Collaborative Advantage : Winning Through Extended Enterprise Supplier Networks - Jeffrey H. Dyer
The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s English Rendering) - W.Y. Evans-Wentz

2000
The Ecology of Eden - Evan Eisenberg
Rules For Revolutionaries - Guy Kawasaki, Michele Moreno
The Metabolic Typing Diet - Wolcott William L.
Functional Training: Everyone’s Guide to the New Fitness Revolution - Chek Paul
Profitable Product Management - Richard A. Collier

Product Director, Izimi (eSeekers Ltd)

May 2006 – Present (6 months)(Privately Held; Online Media industry)

• Corporate and product strategy.
• Product management and product marketing.
• Investor relations.

Founder, Now Coaching

September 2005 – May 2006 (9 months)(Partnership; Professional Training & Coaching industry)

• Established Now Coaching with Roshi Fakouhi.
• Roshi now runs Now full time while I work on Izimi.

Product Marketing Consultant

May 2003 – September 2005 (2 years 5 months)(Self-Employed; Internet industry)

• Product marketing consultancy with corporate clients included BT Directories (BT.com) and Sony (Sony Business, Digital Asset Management).
• Projects included investigating new revenue streams from websites, and finding and implementing new sales strategies.

Group Product Manager, Infobank / Izodia

June 1999 – November 2002 (3 years 6 months)(Public Company; Computer Software industry)

• Global Group Product Manager, defining product strategy and coordinating development of product roadmap and specifications.
• Product evangelist and global product management liaison.

e-Commerce Product Manager, Scoot / Freepages

March 1998 – June 1999 (1 year 4 months) (Public Company; Internet industry)

• Defined and managed the development and sales of a range of e-commerce products for SMEs, sold through Scoot’s classified advertising sales force.

Sales Director, Internet UK

November 1996 – March 1998 (1 year 5 months)(Privately Held; Internet industry)

• Business development director and co-founder of this boutique e-commerce solutions development company.
• Clients included retailers like Allders, and brands like Rainforest Cafe.

Account Manager, Intelligent Environments

March 1996 - March 1998 (2 years)(Privately Held; Development tools)

• Business development selling development tools and web application servers to UK blue chips.
• Accounts won included Tesco, Honda, AEI.

In My Leisure Time…

• Wakeboarding (World Masters #4 Cable Wakeboard Championships 2006, #3 2005)
• Whitewater kayaking
• Snowboarding

I read a lot, I read books, news websites, other peoples’ blogs and I have my RSS reader which pumps a lot of context-based info my way. This site is my aggregation of mostly other peoples news items and blog posts into one space where I know I can always come to find stuff that I’ve read which has struck a chord with me. Read it if you will, bookmark it if you like, or get the Atom XML Feed if you want to be updated each time I make a post.