About

(Editor’s note: I recently laid my main blog MyTropicalEscape to rest and this will be my new space.)

Mark Hayward is a small business owner, entrepreneur and humanitarian.

He is an advocate of using blogging, social media and web innovation for supporting small business growth and non-profit success.

Mark is interested in assisting businesses use the web for cost effective marketing, brand/organization awareness raising, and for building meaningful collaborative partnerships.

Most recently he created, launched and co-founded the non-profit organization, Train for Humanity, which relies solely on social media (Web, blogging, Twitter, etc) to help raise awareness and funds for those who have been affected by genocide or civil war.

Mark lives in the Caribbean on Culebra Island (off the east coast of Puerto Rico) where he owns the Palmetto Guesthouse.

More About Mark Hayward

In 1995 after working in a number of dead end jobs, and feeling trapped, Mark made the conscious decision to pursue a life based on quality and happiness; rather than, a cube, a paycheck, or a financial bottom line.

Although chasing a dream outside of the typical 9-5 career routine was frightening, and not knowing exactly how to proceed, he began to undertake the necessary steps, which would eventually allow him to live in the Caribbean, be his own boss, and create innovative humanitarian projects.

After working and living in the rainforests of Papua New Guinea from 1997-1999 as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer, Mark completed his Masters Degree in International Development and Geographic Information Systems at Clark University.

Prior to owning his small business Mark spent 10 years assisting various governments around the world with participatory technology integration. That’s just a fancy way of saying that he did technical consulting.

But, instead of imposing his own “outsider” views, Mark would spend a great deal of time listening to the government’s needs to ensure stakeholder participation. He then worked with them to achieve the identified goals and milestones, which typically included, improving existing network and computer infrastructure, enterprise-wide data access, and the creation of a web presence.