Scott Allen

Current

Advisory Board Member at StandardAnswer.com, Inc.
Managing Partner at Link to Your World
Community Leader, Sales & Marketing Channel at Work.com

Blogger at Linked Intelligence, a b5media blog
Executive Editor, LinkedIn Series at Happy About
Coauthor, "The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online" at TheVirtualHandshake.com (Self-employed)
About.com Entrepreneurs Guide at About.com

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4 more...

Past

VP of Product Management, VP of Professional Services at Mongoose Technology
Professional Services Practice Manager at Viador
Solution Specialist at Platinum Technology

Senior Data Architect & Database Administrator at Harte-Hanks Response Management
Senior Programmer at Harte-Hanks Response Management

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2 more...

Education

University of Texas
Rice University
St. John's School

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Recommended

62 people have recommended Scott

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Internet

Websites

Scott Allen’s Summary

Five quick facts about Scott Allen:
- Scott Allen is a social media and social networking consultant, author and speaker.
- Scott Allen is uncomfortable writing about himself in the third person,
- But Scott Allen likes coming up at the top of search results for his name,
- And Scott Allen also likes experimenting with LinkedIn and other social networking sites,
- So Scott Allen sometimes does peculiar things with his profile. :-)

Now that I've appeased the search engine...

In a nutshell, I was a social media and social networking guy before they were called that. I taught my first online networking workshop in December 2002!

My great passion is helping people build business relationships online. In that regard, I am:
- Coauthor, "The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online"
- Coauthor, "The Emergence of The Relationship Economy"
- Executive Editor, Happy About LinkedIn Series, including Jason Alba's "I'm on LinkedIn -- Now What??"
- Contributing author, "Blog!: How the Newest Media Revolution Is Changing Politics, Business and Culture"
- Monthly columnist for FastCompany.com.

I also:
- Consult with companies on how to leverage social networking for sales, marketing, and business development
- Teach workshops and teleclasses on the topic
- Deliver keynote addresses or program sessions on the topic

My co-authors and I also provide a wealth of free resources through The Virtual Handshake Blog and our e-newsletter. See TheVirtualHandshake.com for more info.

I also have twenty years of experience as a technology executive, entrepreneur, and consultant and am currently the Entrepreneurs Guide at About.com, a subsidiary of The New York Times Company.

Scott Allen’s Specialties:

Online business networking, entrepreneurship, web publicity, online social networking, social software

Scott Allen’s Experience

Advisory Board Member

StandardAnswer.com, Inc.

(Internet industry)

May 2008 — Present (3 months)

Social networking application launching Fall 2008. Yes, this really is something different and exciting, and I don't say that lightly. Contact me for more information.
Managing Partner

Link to Your World

(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Management Consulting industry)

August 2007 — Present (1 year)

Link to Your World is the foremost collaborative association of professionals specializing in the systemic shifts of the emerging social networking space. Link to Your World Managing Partners are some of the top thinkers in the social media and social networking space. Together we are shaping the future of social media and the medium of social networking.
Community Leader, Sales & Marketing Channel

Work.com

(Privately Held; Online Media industry)

August 2006 — Present (2 years)

Work.com is a community-based site for over 1,800 business how-to articles. A content rating system gives the best content the highest visibility. As a community leader, I help encourage participation in the Sales & Marketing Channel at Work.com, leave comments and ratings on articles in the channel and throughout the network, recruit contributing experts to author how-to guides, and contribute ideas for improving the channel and the site to Work.com editorial staff.
Blogger

Linked Intelligence, a b5media blog

(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Online Media industry)

August 2006 — Present (2 years)

I write the Linked Intelligence blog, "The smart source for all things LinkedIn™", offering tips on using LinkedIn, announcements and analysis of new LinkedIn features, member success stories, links and commentary to news stories about LinkedIn, and LinkedIn educational events.
Executive Editor, LinkedIn Series

Happy About

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Publishing industry)

February 2006 — Present (2 years 6 months)

As Executive Editor at Happy About, I am creating a series of specialty books on the application of LinkedIn to specific business needs. The first book, "LinkedIn for Recruiting", is already in publication and has received rave reviews. Watch soon for Jason Alba's book, "I'm on LinkedIn...Now What???" I am currently seeking authors and interview subjects for the upcoming projects, "LinkedIn for Professional Services Marketing", "LinkedIn for Enterprise Sales" and "LinkedIn for Entrepreneurs".
Coauthor, "The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online"
TheVirtualHandshake.com (Self-employed)

(Self-Employed; Myself Only; Writing and Editing industry)

December 2002 — Present (5 years 8 months)

Since 2002, I have been researching, practicing, and writing extensively about online business networking. I have numerous success stories of my own, plus dozens I have collected from others.

I am co-author of "The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online", the first mass-market book that shows business professionals how to leverage social software and online communities to grow their business and advance their career.

Our weblog, TheVirtualHandshake.com/blog, provides news, tips, and reviews about blogging, social networking sites, and business-oriented online communities.
I teach teleclasses and web seminars, and coach individuals on using sites like LinkedIn, Ryze, and Ecademy most effectively.
About.com Entrepreneurs Guide

About.com

(Public Company; 501-1000 employees; PRM; Internet industry)

November 2002 — Present (5 years 9 months)

I provide original & guest articles, how-to guides, book reviews, news commentary, and annotated links to the very best information on the web to help a weekly readership of over 10,000 current and future entrepreneurs find, follow, and fulfill their vision of business ownership.
VP of Product Management, VP of Professional Services

Mongoose Technology

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry)

November 2000 — August 2002 (1 year 10 months)

I started at Mongoose in charge of a growing professional services group, which covered sales engineers and training, as well. In my last few months, to get our 3.0 product on track and out the door, I shifted into product management/marketing, including the product release plan, development of demos, QA, etc.
Professional Services Practice Manager

Viador

(Public Company; 51-200 employees; Internet industry)

April 1999 — November 2000 (1 year 8 months)

I started at Viador, an enterprise portal software company, as a Senior Sales Engineer. Because of my contributions in training and a couple of very successful consulting engagements, I was promoted to Western U.S. Regional Manager for Professional Services, where I managed a highly distributed team of nearly 20 field consultants. Following some reorganization, I shifted to the position of Knowledge Management Practice Manager, focusing on clients for whom knowledge management was their primary purpose for implementing a portal. My group was also responsible for developing internal KM practices in the company.
Solution Specialist

Platinum Technology

(Public Company; Computer Software industry)

October 1998 — April 1999 (7 months)

I started as a pre-sales Solution Specialist in the application lifecycle product group, focusing on ADvantage and the Process Continuum suite of enterprise project management and process design tools. I ended up working on several post-sales consulting engagements, as well.
Senior Data Architect & Database Administrator

Harte-Hanks Response Management

(Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; HHS; Marketing and Advertising industry)

March 1998 — November 1998 (9 months)

In this role, I worked with the lead developers to design and implement the client-server database architecture and managed the migration of data from our Foxpro 2.0 system to a client-server system using Visual Foxpro as the front end and a variety of databases as back-end -- customers could choose between DB2, Sybase, Oracle and SQL Server. I wrote and implemented data architecture standards, naming conventions and backup and disaster recovery plans. I managed a team of three other DBA/data architects.
Senior Programmer

Harte-Hanks Response Management

(Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; HHS; Marketing and Advertising industry)

March 1997 — March 1998 (1 year 1 month)

As senior developer, I led the team of programmers working on the inbound telemarketing system and lead referral and tracking system for Harte-Hanks' client, IBM. Harte-Hanks developed BPOPS, a web-based application for business partner referrals used by both Harte-Hanks and IBM employees and partners. By improving the existing code architecture and training my team, I was able to reduce the team size from a peak of 10 down to 4 when I changed roles (don't worry -- they all went to work on something else within the company!).

Scott Allen’s Education

University of Texas

B.S., Communications, September 1985 — December 1986
Rice University

Electrical Engineering / Computer Science September 1983 — May 1985

Jones College

Activities and Societies:

Jazz band
St. John's School

High school, 1977 — 1983