Angelo Fernando describes himself as a hybrid - a writer trapped in the body of a marketing communications manager.   A native of  Sri Lanka, Fernando worked in several advertising agencies there including Ogilvy & Mather and JWT, as a creative director, strategic planner and writer, and wrote a tech column for the first business magazine in Sri Lanka, LMD, for whom he still does special assignments.
 
Nowadays, he works at Arizona State University's Decision Theater, which is a technology space within the Global Institute of Sustainability, the first program to combine architecture, engineering and urban planning. The Decision Theater is a laboratory on visualization, modeling and using collaborative tools for decision making.

“In the US, I've mainly worked on corporate communications side, and just when I began to get tired of the corporate speak, in 2004, stumbled onto this thing called web logs,” he says.  “I reached out to a blogger named John Cass whom I never knew and asked him for advice. He was writing about trends and topics that I was probing, but in this fascinating format. He was encouraging so I started in April '04.”

Eight months later, a tsunami devastated much of Fernando's homeland and he decided to turn HoiPolloi into a tsunami relief blog.

“Everyone somewhat connected to the tragedy was using the internet - web sites, Yahoo groups, email - to reach people and relief agencies, engage in some fund raising etc.,” he says.  “A blog made it so much easier. I was suddenly being contacted by people in other cities and countries asking how go to Sri Lanka and work in affected areas. I was not sure what I could and should do. Should my blog act like a clearinghouse? A bulletin board for lists of supplies needed? A space for citizen journalists? Some people from my former ad agency in Sri Lanka were filing ‘reports' to me because they wanted to get the word out of how dire the situation was, and I promptly posted them. It was all a blur!”

Fernando's garage quickly turned into a drop off point for water purifiers, canned food, medical supplies, children's toys, clothing.  He says the whole experience wiped out his initial skepticism that this blog thing was some vanity exercise. “I was hooked on the power of this new medium,” he says.

Soon he was writing about social media, networking and collaboration for several magazines as well as his blog because he knew other communicators would be wrestling with the same questions and skepticism, and he thought he might be able to put things in perspective.   As a columnist for CW (Communication World), the magazine of IABC, he was one of the first to write about wikis, blogs, social networking, podcasting, mobile marketing, and citizen journalism to that audience.  

“Social media is not a new platform but a new attitude,” he says.   “The tools - like podcasts, and Twitter and RSS - are not as important as the connections they enable. Groundswell authors Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff put it best: it's not about the technology but the relationships.”