Once upon a time, when the web was young, I advised firms that the Internet culture was one of sharing. And I told them that if they wanted to connect with customers and potential customers that they should provide something of value on their web sites — some content that was a ‘giving back’ to the Internet community: a whitepaper, tutorial, resources guide (this was way before Google!).

Today, I logged in to Slideshare and saw this featured presentation: The Little Book of Leadership. It’s exactly what I was talking about, 15 years ago! Yes, it’s a marketing act. Yes, the author wants you to buy his book or join his network. But he’s not enticing you with bait-and-switch tactics or with shotgun advertising. If you are at all interested in leadership, you’re his market and this information might be valuable to you.

Of course, today’s Web 2.0 technologies make it a lot easier to be proactive — we’ve moved beyond promotional signature lines in email and non-spam comments on mailing lists (although those methods still work!).

Slideshare makes it easy to promote your presentations: there is one-click (sue me, Amazon!) posting to Facebook (using the MyStuff Application) or Blogger or Typepad (not Digg! or WordPress, though) for any presentation you see on Slideshare.

As an author, you have full control over your copyright (I tend to select Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share Alike) and whether or not anyone can download the original file.

Check it out!