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About

Mark Houston Smith

 

I am the VP of Content Marketing at Harper Collins Christian Publishing. This is my personal blog. My mission is to leverage technology for publishing success.

I write on publishing technology, xCommerce (mobile & web),  platform, and social impact. On occasion, I write about stuff that doesn’t fit neatly into one of these categories.  Quite frankly, I’m still trying to find my unique niche.  In the meantime, I use this blog as my experimental site to try out a lot of technologies including  WordPress plugins, social media, affiliate programs, etc.

In addition to Thomas Nelson, I also participates in these initiatives.

  • U3Advisers – This is my consulting company where I provide advice on the best usage for mobile money and mobile health in Humanitarian development/fundraising. In 2010-2011, I did a significant amount of work in Haiti.  Formerly, I consulted through other companies, including Kinnovation and Univicity.
  • MerchantPro - This is electronic voucher system developed by Transversal, a Haitian IT company that Mark advises. Current MerchantPro customers include Digicel, UNDP, CARE & CRS.
  • Aslan’s Army – This is the non-profit I run that focuses on bible schools in India, Africa, and Mexico
  • The New Lion – Is a book written mostly by my daughter, Malori Aslan Smith. You can download a copy of the eBook (PDF format) on this site.
  • Van Angels - This is a educational website I setup to talk about the dangers of 15-passenger vans.  My 17-year old daughter, Malori, was killed in a 15-passenger van.

Previous Experience

  • 15+ years of publishing (print, events, and online) reaching millions of IT professionals in 160 countries, 13 languages.
  • 10+ years of business development including online publishing, fundraising, mobile commerce, eCommerce, humanitarian software and marketing platforms
  • 10+ years of IT management and software development (tactical, strategic, commercial product development, internal application management, web development, mobile commerce platform development)

Values

These values were largely borrowed from my mentor, Bob Buford, who wrote them into his My Next Book e-newsletter (v5.4):

  1. Build on the islands of health and strength.
  2. Work only with the receptive and only on what’s trying to happen.
  3. Go big or go home. Focus, don’t do dribs and drabs.
  4. Giving is not a result – changed lives are.
  5. The fruit of my work grows up on other people’s trees.
  6. The entrepreneurial-style leader is where the leverage begins.
  7. Bet on a great leader with a big idea.
  8. The essential ingredient for success is a steady stream of innovation.
  9. “It’s your job to release and direct energy, not to supply it.”
  10. Structure follows strategy, and strategy begins with clear desired outcomes. To What End?

And I added an 11th value:

11. We serve people in what they need, not what advances our agenda; it builds trust, credibility, and motivation all at once.