About Will Marlow
Here are some highlights:
- I co-founded AlumniFidelity, which is the first peer-to-peer fundraising platform designed specifically to help schools execute social media-based fundraising campaigns.
- I was the Press Secretary for Congressman Doc Hastings.
- I was the Director of Online Communications for Congressman Frank Wolf.
- I was the Director of Communications for LogiXML.
- I want to become a better photographer.
Here's a nice article that was written about me in the National Journal when I left Capitol Hill to co-found AlumniFidelity. Click the image below to read the article.
You can also get my attention on Twitter, where I'm @willmarlow. My Twitter stream is where you'll find links to my new blog posts, updates about some of the companies and organizations I work with, occasional updates about my personal life, and some of my photography.
A little more about me
Capitol Hill was where I first learned the fundamentals of PR and digital communications. My first job after college was for Congressman Frank Wolf. Despite knowing basically nothing at the time about online communications, I was put in charge of designing a new website for my boss, setting up an E-Newsletter and building up the subscriber base for it, as well as integrating social media into his communications strategy.
Later, I co-founded AlumniFidelity based largely on what I learned about online fundraising and digital communications in the political space. The concept of "friend-to-friend" fundraising goes back a long time, well before the invention of the Internet, but online friend-to-friend fundraising was pioneered in the political world by people who later worked for Barack Obama. I saw how awesome it was in 2006, and I wanted to build a system that could help schools, athletic teams, and charities.
We founded AlumniFidelity in 2007, and today AlumniFidelity has over 50 clients, including the University of Virginia, the University of Oklahoma, Bowling Green State University, Georgetown's Capital Breast Care Center, Towson University, and my alma mater, William and Mary.
In Q4 of 2010, I joined LogiXML, which is an early-stage software startup in the business intelligence (BI) industry. LogiXML provides software that helps organizations do interesting and useful things with data. Ever since co-founding AlumniFidelity (a SaaS-based company that itself pushes off lots and lots of data), I have been fascinated by the business intelligence industry, because I believe that the most interesting things that are happening right now are happening due to innovations in the way we visualize and represent data. Joining LogiXML was an opportunity that I couldn't resist, because it put me in a position to get to know the BI industry firsthand. I helped LogiXML get covered in over 30 major publications like InformationWeek, Information Management, Dr. Dobb's Journal, the Financial Times of London, and others.
About this blog
Just so you know, I am doing my best to keep this blog optimized for two things: (1) delivering content and (2) engaging with my readers. To this end, there are only two levels of navigation. Everything is organized chronologically or from the "anchor navigation" along the right side of every page. For those of you who like to "search" a website, you have that option too. I let people connect with me on Twitter and you can also subscribe by email or RSS. In the "anchor navigation," I include four crucial sections: "About me," "About this blog," "My most popular posts," and "My reading list." These four sections should give you everything you need to know about me and this blog. I also do my best to make it easy to contact me.
Some photographic highlights...
Here is me with my boss Congressman Doc Hastings in a radio studio back in 2007:
And here I am with my first boss, Congressman Frank Wolf, who I served as Deputy Press Secretary for two and a half great years from 2005 to mid-2007. The image below was scanned from a photograph that he signed as I was leaving the office, which you can read in the top right hand corner.
Here is me with my hero Buzz Aldrin back in 2005.
