R. Todd Stephens, Ph.D.

Those who have already read books from Eddie Obeng, Thomas Friedman, and James Martin will be familiar with the concepts and possibilities of the NewWorld and will recognize many of it's rapidly growing realities. With their `NewWorld of 2.0' `light switched on', they will be hungry to learn, and receptive to the `what' and `how' ideas that Trademark 2.0 has to offer. They will just get the `why', and get on with the process of learning. Please don't be misled by the title. The `2.0' is not something that only applies to techies. Whilst anyone who works in technology should have heard of '2.0' and will be more familiar with the subjects and capabilities talked about, such as blogs and wiki's, collaboration and knowledge management, it would be wrong, very wrong, to see this book as a book solely for techies. It's highly relevant to everyone. This book should trigger deep and profound thought. If it doesn't, there is probably a book called `In blissful ignorance' or perhaps `doomed' that needs to be written for you. For everyone else, Trademark 2.0 will have been time and money well spent."

Those who have already read books from Eddie Obeng, Thomas Friedman, and James Martin will be familiar with the concepts and possibilities of the NewWorld and will recognize many of it's rapidly growing realities. With their `NewWorld of 2.0' `light switched on', they will be hungry to learn, and receptive to the `what' and `how' ideas that Trademark 2.0 has to offer. They will just get the `why', and get on with the process of learning. Please don't be misled by the title. The `2.0' is not something that only applies to techies. Whilst anyone who works in technology should have heard of '2.0' and will be more familiar with the subjects and capabilities talked about, such as blogs and wiki's, collaboration and knowledge management, it would be wrong, very wrong, to see this book as a book solely for techies. It's highly relevant to everyone. This book should trigger deep and profound thought. If it doesn't, there is probably a book called `In blissful ignorance' or perhaps `doomed' that needs to be written for you. For everyone else, Trademark 2.0 will have been time and money well spent."

R. Todd Stephens is a very interesting man. I've met him and have sat through an incredibly interesting tutorial he gave back in 2006 in London on Enterprise Metadata. What interested me most about his presentation was how he was referring to tools and technologies that I was tinkering with to try and improve communication of key concepts and improve efficiencies in information management in my day job. Indeed, some of the tools were things I was playing with outside of work as a hobbyist blogger. It's a pity I haven't had a chance to implement too much of the vision that he triggered in my mind at that time for improvements in the day job, but who knows what might happen by the end of the year.

He has recently published a book that sets out a recipe for establishing your personal brand (he uses the term trademark for a variety of reasons). Part of his thesis is that the collaborative tools of Web2.0 (the Read/Write Web as it is often called) have altered the rules for creating your personal brand and provide you with opportunities to raise your profile and, importantly, to measure how your profile is doing.

What sets this book apart in my eyes is that Todd adds value in interesting ways. Apart from just presenting bland statements about how "blogs are good" and conferences are great ways to see new places and meet new people, he presents a set of tools to measure and score how well your "trademark" is doing. He also sets out a reasoned argument as to why establishing a personal trademark for yourself may well be the career survival tool for the Read/Write Information Age.

He brings together a variety of references and marries them together in support of his argument - and above all he provides examples of how you can 'speak with data' to track how well you are meeting or exceeding your own expectations of what your "brand" might be. From checking the site stats for your blog to your technorati rankings to having a 'scorecard' of the things you've done to promote your brand, Todd give some keen insights.

The fact that he is a world-class recognized authority on the management of meta-data is evidence of the success of his formula. The book at times reads somewhat autobiographically and it is clear that this is not a book based on a theoretical view of things or an attempt to leap on the airport business bookshelf bandwagon but rather an attempt to share a recipe that has worked.

I'll certainly be taking stock of how I'm doing. This blog is a key part of my personal trademark but after reading Todd's book I think that I might need to balance the scorecard a little bit more. The framework he presents gives me a road map to do this.

I think trademark 2.0 is an excellent guide book for this race of NewWorld'ers who have the expertise but lack the ability to channel that knowledge and experience using new media and all the toys that web2.0 can provide