Hi. Welcome. I don’t like wasting people’s time, so let’s cut to the quick:
The Blog isn’t for everyone. If you’re looking to participate in a conversation with a 10-year ad industry vet who has things to say about having online and offline conversations be more “real” or more “organic”, among other related topics, then you’ve come to the right place.
If you’re looking for my personal blog, you can get to it here.
If you need to contact me, e-mail me at thejeffreytaylor at gmail dot com
If you’re looking for blogs about celebrity gossip, politics, underwater basketweaving or anything else, the good folks at Technorati have created a great place to find what you’re looking for.
Still with me? Good.
One of my core beliefs is that excessive self-promotion is NOT organic, but a few words about my history are necessary so you know what I bring to the table and what I can provide for you.
So here’s The Bio:
I’m Jeffrey Taylor. I currently live in Paris, France with my partner of 10 years. I’m a tail-end Generation X-er (for lack of a better term), and was 31 at the time I wrote this. I was born in Manhattan…Kansas (USA), a college town about 100 miles west of Kansas City. I lived in “The Little Apple” until I was 12, then my father’s job took our family to Charlotte, North Carolina; Williamsburg, Virginia; Montgomery, Alabama; Hunstville, Alabama and Saint Louis. For a host of reasons, I call Saint Louis my hometown. My parents are good and honorable upper lower middle class stock. The best of the many things they instilled in me is a respect for education, respect for others and a sense of tempered individualism. I am most grateful.
I have a BA (hons) in History from the University of Missouri, specializing in Social History. I find the tools and behaviors people use to display their perceived place in the world endlessly fascinating. My thesis on 19th century Anglo-French bourgeois display in the culinary sphere is not only a mouthful, but is also something that informs a lot of my thinking. I took 7 unconventional years to get my degree, taking time off to travel through Europe and South Africa, and to earn money to pay my own way through school by establishing a career in advertising.
As an adult, I’ve lived in Kansas City, Chicago and Paris. I was privileged to help raise my partner’s daughter from a previous marriage. I’ve rescued a Rhodesian Ridgeback who was part of our family until his death last year. Other miscellaneous ingredients include being a champion swimmer (100 Fly), an All-State choral baritone in high school, a love for books and documentary film, and being a shameless fan of Eastenders, Coronation Street, cricket and rugby. Renaissance man, that’s me.
My professional career has been just as unconventional as my educational career. My first specialty was consumer healthcare advertising at a small agency in Kansas City, pushing everything from smoking cessation products to calcium pills in one of the most conservative of marketing environments. Starting with grunt copy work, I moved on to more heavy branding work as a freelancer in Chicago. I developed relationships that had me doing mainly pharmaceutical brand nomenclature with Interbrand Wood, some PR writing with friends in the publishing industry and more general brand consulting with big agencies whose names you’ve probably heard of. But I hate name dropping. We’ll let all that come out organically.
All the while, I kept a keen eye on the internet space. I watched the dot com boom pass me by, but I knew the story wasn’t over yet. I lightly participated in the initial blog boom, more heavily participated in the dawn of podcasting, and am now a big fan of conversational marketing, videoblogging and social networks. I love this stuff. I can’t pull myself away from it. And I’ve gradually moved my career over to it. I started by doing some free consulting for a couple of author friends putting books on the market, and doing marketing and operational work with an online film funding startup called Kinooga. Now, I’m an at-large conversational marketing and general branding consultant for businesses big and small, all over the US and Europe.
So that’s me. Read the blog to see the proliferation of me, and participate in the conversation if you’re interested. Without you, I’m nothing.