Exclusive: Guhmshoo is unmasked!

First, a big thanks to all those who have been following Guhmshoo for the last several months. I have honestly not been concealing my true identity for any nefarious reasons.

Much to my surprise, what began as an innocent experiment in social media last July has turned into something far more popular than I had ever imagined. Little did I know that a simple, single-panel cartoon would be of interest to people other than me.

It also underscores the reason for my "coming out" party here. There's no reason that I need to remain anonymous any longer, so here you go: Guhmshoo is Andrew Fowler and Andrew Fowler is Guhmshoo.

So why did I create cartoons under a pseudonym? It was the best way for me to freely flirt with social media without much risk. Was this wrong? Some of you may think so but, at the end of the day, I learned more about social media as Guhmshoo than I ever could have as Andrew. You see, Guhmshoo allowed me to experiment in ways I probably wouldn't have tried otherwise, and we all know that's the quickest way to learn.

Should you try something like this at home? Absolutely. But like anything, it's hard work even when you have a passion and supposed talent for it (cartoons in my case). These cartoons didn't just get circulated on their own. I had to push them out (often shamelessly) to the powers that be via Twitter, email, blogs, comments and other social networks. But none of this would have succeeded if my cartoons (my content) didn't entertain the end customer i.e., you. A fact too often forgotten in the world of PR and marketing.

How do I measure success? Well I haven't made a cent (yet). But I did learn a lot about building a community of supporters through various technologies. And that community, my friends, is the most valuable thing of all.

So what's next? I will continue to create cartoons (a true joy, I have discovered). They will be featured here on this site and will be archived at the Guhmshoo blog. You can still follow me at the following Twitter accounts: @Newsvetter and @Guhmshoo although I will be more active on the latter.

I will also be further experimenting with cartoons as a PR strategy. Cartoons/humor, if done right, convey a simple message (which is esp. important these days) that gets noticed and, more importantly, gets shared. Please contact me if you're interested: andrew [at] newsvetter [dot] com

So with that, I hope you'll continue to follow me, inspire me and laugh with me.

--Andrew Fowler (aka Guhmshoo)

Special thanks to the following folks. Peter Shankman: With one tweet he put me on the map and is the sole possessor of a framed and signed Guhmshoo cartoon; Brian Solis: Author of "macro" blog posts and the world's first "social media anthropologist" (hmm, there must be a toon in there somewhere);  Allen Stern: Web 2.0 critical thinker and explainer of complicated things;  Jennifer Leggio: PR/SM critical thinker;  Bill Sledzik: Crotchety PR/SM pedagogue and wise man; Michael Arrington and the folks at Techcrunch: Providers of such good Guhmshoo fodder; Evan Williams and the gang at Twitter: Check out my cartoon tag cloud. Twitter is huge; Jason Falls: PR/SM critical thinker who pretends not to laugh at my cartoons; Kevin Dugan: PR/SM critical thinker and good source of toon ideas via the insightful and hilarious BadPitchBlog; Chris Brogan: SM/Marketing critical thinker; Todd Defren: PR/SM critical thinker;  Mark Drapeau for introducing Guhmshoo to the world of Gov't 2.0; and last but not least, the creators of Bitstrips.com: Without them Guhmshoo would not exist.