About
Hi, I’m Ian McKendrick , and welcome to my blog!
What do you do?
Apart from being a Keynote Speaker, Social Networking Strategist and Broadcaster, I provide an easy to use blog hosting service that helps people promote themselves, their businesses, products and services through their Social Networking activities that gets them listed on the front pages of the Internet’s top search engines.
Why blogs ?
Your blog should be the core of any social networking activity. It’s where you shine, where you demonstrate your expertise to the world as the guru in your area of specialisation. Your blog is like the water-cooler where people gather and chat with you about who you are, what you do and what you have to offer. A blog is a wonderful tool and helps you build long lasting relationships with thousands of potential clients at once.
What’s in your service?
As little or as much as you like. For example, to get you Started I can just set up your blog for you with all the bits you need to be found easily on Google. Additionally we can set you up with The BIG 10 which signs you up to Social Networking and blog promotion sites or even combine these. If you are busy, we can update your blog and Tweet for you and if you’re really busy we can also write your blog content for you and Tweet for you. All of this for a low monthy price to bring clients to your door. You can read about all of our offers HERE>>>
But I’ve already got a website…
Most websites are nothing more than a brochure. Just imagine a market place where you set out your stall amongst all your competitors. Customers come along and may stop at your stall or may not. This is the state of most modern marketplaces, or websites – The Internet is crowded with businesses offering similar products at similar prices with nothing much to distinguish them.
How does a blog help me?
As I said, a blog is a wonderful tool that helps you build long lasting relationships. Now imagine a customer strolling through that marketplace and coming upon a name and a picture that they recognise and have a warm feeling about. They are more likely to stop at that stall and more likely to buy. Big brands have known this for years and spend millions of pounds creating the right ‘feeling’ in potential customers. Now, you can do the same for almost nothing – just by running a blog of your own.
Isn’t this expensive?
Not at all! The internet has opened up opportunities for you to market your business to millions of people at very little cost. My SuperBlogs provide the ideal market stall and because they are linked to as many as ten carefully chosen social networks they give you access to a huge number of potential buyers who can get to know and like you personally, making it much more likely that they will buy from you.
So it’s all about building relationships?
Absolutely! It’s always been recognised that people buy from people but until now we have all been restricted by budgets or geography on how many people we can reach. Those restrictions simply don’t exist any more if you use the networks that are available to you. An orchestrated Social Networking marketing campaign can bring customers flooding to you for very little cost so please talk to me if you’d like to know more about setting up a SuperBlog, or click here to fnd out more>>>
So what else do you do?
Apart from being a SuperBlog hosting provider I’m also a Keynote Speaker, a Social Networking Evangelist, PowerPoint guru, graphic artist, Flash animation designer, trainer, a presenter and computer nerd with 30 years experience managing IT. I’m also the owner/manager of two businesses:
How did you get involved in graphics?
I started work as a paste-up artist at a printing company in Cambridge where I learned the secrets of effective layout. It was in the days before computers, and everything had to be typeset and drawn by hand. It was a great grounding for designing presentations because at this early stage I became fully aware of what worked to get messages across to people in the most engaging and interesting way.
How did you get drawn into IT?
Because there were so many art students in Cambridge, artists were two-a-penny and I was paid pretty poorly for the work I was doing. When home computers started to become affordable it wasn’t long before I bought one of the first ZX81’s and BBC Micro’s sold in Cambridge, and very soon after that I developed a huge passion for IT. When I discovered that “computer people” earned huge amounts of money I found myself a job in IT and went on to build an IT career that lasted for a further 28 years, working mainly in biotech and manufacturing. The last 7 years of my IT career I was the Global Director of IT for a hugely successful biotech company in Cambridge.
Why did you start creating presentations?
Because of my artistic background I had panache for creating engaging PowerPoint presentations. Eventually I designed, built and presented almost all of the corporate presentations of the companies I worked for. I always seemed to have an uncanny knack for selecting or creating exactly the right images and words to get the points across, that also gained the buy-in and commitment of their intended audiences.
How did you get involved in public speaking?
We were always doing pretty clever stuff with our corporate IT and some of these things were streets ahead of what anyone else was doing. It started in 1994 when I was a Director of IT for a Cambridge biotech company and I had an interview published in The Times newspaper about how we were exploiting the Internet to advance drug discovery. Not long after that I was approached by an organisation that wanted me to talk about our achievements at their seminar. Since then things have grown from strength to strength to the point where I am now regularly invited to give presentations on Information Technology and Information Security all over the world.
What tools do you use?
- Digital art: Flash CS4, Photoshop CS4, Fireworks CS4, Autodesk Maya and SnagIt.
- Layout: Adobe Illustrator CS4 and Adobe In Design CS4
- Web design: Dreamweaver CS4
- Presentations: Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe Captivate CS4 and Camtasia Studio
- Music: Cakewalk Sonar Home Studio, FL Studio, Adobe Soundbooth CS4
- Digital drawing: Wacom Bamboo tablet
- Hand drawings: Rexel Cumberland Derwent Graphic (mainly 2B) pencils.
- Watercolours: Windsor & Newton artist quality tubes and pans.
- Brushes: Windsor & Newton Kolinsky sables and the Terry Harrison brush collection.
How many presentations have you created?
Literally hundreds!
What do you get up to in your spare time?
I must admit that I’m a workaholic, but when I do get some time to myself I like spending it with my partner and my two children. I also love to:
- Draw from life
- Create cartoons
- Paint in watercolour
- Paint my Warhammer model collection.
- Play World of Warcraft as a Dwarven Hunter
- Play with 3D puzzles and board games
- Read Terry Pratchett and Dan Abnett
- I have played lead guitar, bass guitar and keyboards in various bands.
Can I contact you?
Please feel free to contact me HERE>>>