About

Hi, I’m Shaun, the managing partner here at Groundswell Publishing. That really just means that I get all of the work, but none of the glory. Rounding out our team are Jared Conley and Cristina Claxton, but I’m the most “visible” member of the crew.

As a team, we produce high-quality information products, software, and web services, and we also partner with several other authors to bring great ideas to the marketplace.

We also are actively involved in creating passive income (that wasn’t meant to sound quite so paradoxical) through niche blogging, affiliate marketing, blog flipping, and what I like to refer to as “stealth blogging.”

I graduated with a BSBA in Finance too long ago to admit! Within two years, I transitioned into IT within a large financial services firm, designing financial planning software. It was then that I earned my Certified Financial Planner (CFP) and Certified Web Programmer (CWP) certifications.

By 1997 I was offering freelance web programming services, while working full time as the “tools team” lead engineer for a large, multi-national consulting firm. During this time I earned my Certified Lotus Application Developer (CLP), Certified ColdFusion Professional (MMCP), and Sun Certified Java Programmer (SCJP) certifications.

During the next five years, I wore many hats, writing numerous technical manuals, designing enterprise software, building mobile phone software, extending blogging and content management systems, and more. I started blogging proper in 1999, but didn’t involve myself seriously until 2003, when I began maintaining the corporate blog.

Due to my technical background and prior experience with the web, I found blogging to be a very natural transition, and I used what I learned on the job to begin blogging for profit personally. Before long I was programming custom themes, plugins, and widgets, both for blogs and other platforms like mobile phones.

Also during this time I transitioned into product and project management, while beginning coursework towards my Masters in Information Technology degree, and earning the Project Management Professional (PMP), Sun Certified Web Component Developer (SCWCD) and Sun Certified Mobile Application Developer (SCMAD) certifications. Glutton for punishment, what can I say?!

My latest software project is a location-based social network for mobile phones (Swirl Connect), and I’ve been working from the comfort of my home office since November 2001, partly as a full-time consultant, partly as a blogging strategist, and partly as an internet marketer. Over the past 2.5 years, I’ve transitioned to earning 80 percent of my income from passive sources.