About me

Who is David Alston?

In many ways this “About me” page is rather unnecessary. When I look at what I would write here compared to the hundreds of publicly available links on where I’ve been, what I’ve done, what I like, who I know and what I’ve said it hardly seems to make any sense to put this page together. And a Google Search on my name will also always be more up to date and certainly more reflective of how the community views my personal brand. Much of my life is captured online and available for all to see. So what would you generally find on me if you looked? Well, let’s see:

I work with a great bunch of people at Radian6
I live in Canada (and everyone loves to talk about how I say the word “about”)
I travel a lot to attend and speak at conferences if you follow me on TripIt
My work life and life-life are pretty much the same thing (sigh, I know)
I am a reality TV junkie (yes, I will admit it) mostly for the interesting social aspect that evolves
I love to shoot with my Nikon D80 whenever I get a chance
I do have a cowboy hat (thanks to #allhat at SXSW ‘09) and that comes in handy since I enjoy singing a Johnny Cash tune on occasion.
And I love the outdoors, when I get to go on the occasional hike and remember that I love the outdoors.

Now for the formal bio stuff:

David is VP Marketing and Community at Radian6, social media monitoring, measurement and engagement solution for PR, marketing and customer support professionals. David’s focus at Radian6 is building the firm’s brand internationally through the use of social media monitoring, outreach and engagement. David has also become a featured speaker and panelist at a number of new marketing, online community and social media events as a guide to how brands should be answering the “social phone”. As one of Twitter’s most followed CMO’s, David takes his interactive style of marketing to every speaking engagement – listening, learning and engaging with the audience. He is a senior-level, marketing strategist with a background in marketing and technology and was previously a partner and VP of Marketing Strategy and Insight with PR firm, Revolution Strategy.

You can follow David on Twitter at @davidalston. David co-hosts The Engaged Brand Twebinar/Radio show weekly with Amber Naslund where they interview leaders in the fields of social media, PR and marketing. David blogs about shift to community-centric business thinking at CommunityInstinct.com.

For more background on David please see his LinkedIn profile.

Book mentions:

I’ve been fortunate to meet many great authors in the social media, PR and marketing space. And I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t get a kick out of being mentioned by a few of them in some of their latest books. Thanks guys, its definitely a thrill to be included.