Technology, Taste and Travel is a place where I get to jot down stories and thoughts about my life after working for Microsoft Advertising for seven years, and share other experiences gleaned from time away from the hustle and bustle of the internet advertising industry.

My professional biography is below, so you can see what my day-today experience has been, but this site will mix in a bit of that, coupled with insight I’ve picked up from Microsoft, the advertising industry and technology-land, all washed down with a healthy dose of restaurant, hotel, city and gadget reviews.

Enjoy. Oh and you can order my book here: Pioneers of Digital

Biography:

Digital Marketing Evangelist & Raconteur, Social Media Expert, Industry Speaker, Video Producer, Presenter, Event MC, Blogger & Published Author

A veteran of 12 years in the digital marketing industry, Mel is founder of Seattle-based Delightful Communications, a social media, digital PR and personal branding consultancy.

Before starting the company in 2012, Mel worked for 7 years as Digital Marketing Evangelist at Microsoft Advertising building relationships within the online advertising community by supporting and educating through the Microsoft Advertising Blog, evangelizing through social media, writing and by speaking about internet marketing and digital at conferences, trade shows & other events.

He began his digital advertising career as an editor at the search engine LookSmart in 2000, spending time at 24/7 Search as an Account Director before moving to Microsoft in 2005. He was part of the team that planned & executed the UK roll-out of Microsoft adCenter in August 2006, and it didn’t take much persuasion for Mel to help set up Microsoft Advertising’s Community Team that same year, when it became apparent that Social Media Marketing was going to be huge.

Mel has spoken about Digital Marketing, Search, Social Media and adCenter at conferences and events in the UK, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Reykjavik, Dublin, Barcelona & Tenerife. He has also lectured on MBA, MSc and online marketing courses, advising syllabus decision makers at Cranfield School of Management and Birkbeck College – part of London University.

More recently, Mel has built up a reputation for incisively interviewing industry heavy-weights on camera like Biz Stone, Sir Martin Sorrell, David Sable and Carolyn Everson (and less incisively, people like Hugh Grant!)

With his first book – Pioneers of Digital – now published on Amazon and elsewhere, he is now based with his family in Seattle and regularly writes for Media Week, Brand Republic, Econsultancy and other 3^rd party publications.

Before getting into digital marketing, Mel was an eternally-resting-actor and got an ignominious break in a Joe Cocker Video alongside Catherine Deneuve, way back in 1997!

Do follow him on Twitter and Facebook!

Below are a couple of videos/interviews Mel’s done with industry celebs and the odd Hollywood actor!

Lots more here too….