G’day readers. It’s time to get a little more serious with my blog.

Please allow me to introduce myself….

I am a Canadian expatriate based in Groningen in the northern Netherlands where I ‘work’ – mainly remotely – with a number of startups and clients globally, utilizing social media and community to add Web 2.0 to their projects and businesses.

My background is in the print media and I have worked in far flung locales from the Arctic to the Caribbean as a reporter, editor and publisher of ‘old school’ paper products before making the jump to digital in 1997, when I formed my first community online in the Dutch West Indies.

Though I have worn a few different hats in my days…

I now operate a very small company and consultancy here in Holland with my wife and we do quite a few different things, many pro bono and personal and others for pay.

PRO BONO – We are active politically as progressives – and like to think we are part of facilitating change and disseminating new ideas with a group of sites at the Free Press Group – which has over 300 progressive and like-minded writers from around the world (20% hold PhD’s) who contribute in an Open Source Journalism format. We swap coverage on Google News (we are three of 4000 official Google News sources in English) for copy. They get fresh eyeballs and we get material – it’s a great barter. And I get the chance to write myself as well as create political Photoshops for the sites. We also host several of them at www.safehost.nl.

And despite losing money (hosting bills etc.) over the years, the connections I have made with many brilliant writers has brought an immense amount of satisfaction personally – as well as added professionally to my personal brand – at Linkedin for instance – where I have had several writers offer their recommendation.

More recently, I have been involved in a couple of web campaigns that rocked the boat for two corporate entities…

I think one of the most interesting areas to cover in terms of social media, and I know that so much of the money and interest in this field is generated and emanates from the relationship between corporate PR and what’s going on in Web 2.0 – is my history in both lauding a corporation to the point of gathering thousands of comments, hits and positive coverage, both on the web and in the mainstream with www.thankyouqwest.org. My phone was ringing off the hook here in Holland with calls in from CNN, NYT, USA TODAY, Denver Post and many more as the Mainstream wanted to get the Web response in this saga of Government muscle and corporate ethos.

That was good. That probably made their PR department all warm and fuzzy. And the Mainstream Media response to the ad hoc project that Chris Floyd I put together in a day was totally unexpected.

On the other hand, when I started up www.unassociatedpress.net to lobby thousands of political bloggers from all points of the ideological spectrum to boycott Associated Press, use banners to announce their boycott, and basically send AP into maximum damage control – it was a corporate nightmare. And the sad, silly decision of some guy in a suit, in an office, all puffy chested and with an ax to grind…. to test the blogging community was a silly one. He was – no doubt – a lawyer and not a hired social media strategist or even in PR. It was hell for AP as they buckled and retracted, covered their balls, and ran for cover in a media blitz which did ten years of brand damage in a week.

Whether or not the boycott affected their bottom line is not the point. The point is that AP got smacked in the ass by the citizen media and learnt a lesson or two in terms of how to… or rather, not to deal with the press. And there are still anti-AP badges floating around the net today.

Anyway, here’s my ‘official’ spiel:

Expathos is a professional web development and design network based in the Netherlands run by Social Media Strategist and Architect Richard Kastelein. Currently he is a Social Media strategist for Moho Holding B.V. in Groningen, Netherlands as well as several other consulting roles with other companies. Chief Networking Officer and Social Media Developer for Sparkling Media in London, UK and on the Advisory Board of Tel Aviv-based Zephyr Financial Technologies heading up their Social Media and Publishing development… Richard began developing online communities (forums at first) in 1998 in the Caribbean with Such is Life and was later head of his own web development company – Caribbean Web Wizards – based in St. Maarten, Dutch West Indies. He has also sailed, on small sailing vessels, over 25,000 miles offshore (2x transatlantic, transpacific, Indian Ocean and Red Sea), and lived aboard various boats he owned in the Caribbean for over a decade.

He is currently the Managing Director of V.O.F. Expathos, a social media and web development company and network based in the Netherlands. His roots and education lie in the media and he has held positions as a reporter, investigative journalist, editor, photographer, designer, and publisher of numerous print publications ranging from the Canadian Arctic to the Caribbean and Europe. He has done work for the CBC, the BBC, Pacific Yachting, Yachting Monthly, TNT Travel, and various other international magazines. He is the publisher and founder of the Free Press Group (Atlantic Free Press, Pacific Free Press, Empire Burlesque et al.) – a leading progressive political online Media Group with over 300 academics, journalists, and writers and was formerly employed as a marketing director for two multinational marine industry powerhouses.

Kastelein is an Open Source software evangelist, advocate of Freemium Business models, and is active in the Network Economy. He has skills as a coder, designer, frontend CMS developer, copywriter, viral and guerrilla marketeer, photographer and general it skills.

Cheers

Richard