Brian D. Johnson
Internet Guide Services Since 1990.

Beginning in 1990, Brian began working with private clients to help them better understand and possibly leverage emerging commuincations channels appearing on the internet.  In the very early days, this direction took him into some interesting places such as...

• Working with Morgan Stanley and Wasserstein Perrella to help them leverage the newly opened Edgar database of SEC filings.  This work led to each of these firms savings millions of dollars in research costs.
   
• Helping Time Inc. initially register the domains for their magazine properties (Time, Life, People, SI, etc.).
   
• Working with journalists to give them access to the internet and teach them how to use it as a research tool.  

As it became clear that the internet was an important communication tool, his work took a different turn.  After working with CBS News for a year teaching producers and research staff how to use the internet, Brian was selected to appear on a weekly segment of the CBS News program Up To The Minute.  He worked on this program for two years and during that time built a website for the show, the first CBS News website to go online.  Here's a link to an archive of the site.  

Brian also worked for Esther Dyson's newsletter, Release 1.0.  In 1994, he designed, built and staffed an "Internet Rumpus Room" at her annual conference, PC Forum.  It was during this time that Brian's work came to the attention of Esquire, Fortune and industry trade magazines such as PC Week. 

It was at PC Forum that Brian met Pam Alexander, the founder of Alexander Communications, a public relations firm based in Atlanta and San Francisco that specialized in High Tech.  One thing led to another and Brian eventually joined Alexander and relocated to the Bay Area from his home in New York.   For Alexander he built the first public relations agency website.  Here's a link to the archive of the site.  

In 2001, a new development caught Brian's eye, blogging which appeared to be the fullfillment of promises made at the beginning of the internet for a people's web.  He began experiementing with the medium and found an opportunity to put it to work when he joined CenterBeam in 2002.  Soon, he had started three different corporate blogs that leveraged content created for other purposes.  CenterBeam may not have been the first business to use blogs as part of its marketing initiative, but it was certainly on the very front edge. 

Today, Brian is focused on implementing adjuncts to blogging that also leverage existing content, specifically photography and audio.  His recent work includes a two-year project with moblogged photography that's been reviewed and he was interviewed in a recent book and "revolutionaries" in digital photography.

One of the wisest things I ever heard was from the mouth of a fellow public relations guy when he lost it in front of a client we shared. The client had just asked us, in the most ponderous possible way, "Don't you think the medium is the message?"

The prompted my colleague to stand, bang his fist on the table and say, "No! The medium is the medium! The message is the message!"

The internet is a medium, something that is neither well-down nor rare. The internet isn't an end unto itself but a means to an end.