My passion is using modern technology to solve business problems and create business opportunities. I love to see my work make a difference (not necessarily change the world, but make someone's day a little bit easier or more fulfilling).
I thrive on leadership positions in which my skills in hands-on motivation and guidance of technologists, researchers, and developers will produce cutting-edge yet practical results. My technical skills combined with my business experience and focus make me a strong contributor on a management team.
Historically, I have made the people and companies that invested in me a lot of money, and also provided some value to the world at large. I would love to find a way to have a much larger impact on the community (while still being compensated, whether or not I'm making my employer large profits directly). I found Peter Diamandis' Abundance book quite inspiring (although I am skeptical of some of the specifics), and working on education (e.g. the Khan Academy, CivitasLearning, The Learning Company (Great Courses), Lynda.com, etc) or traffic (e.g. Waze, INRIX, etc) or clean water, etc would be very cool. I haven't quite figured out how or where yet, so if you have any ideas, let me know!
On our last trip to Kauai, my wife was chatting with a nice lady at a farmer's market about the state of the environment, and she said we should meet a lady that is working on fixing the reef. Unfortunately, it was our last day and we didn't have a chance to follow up until we returned home. Fortunately, we were able to meet, via email and phone, a wonderful scientist named Katherine Muzik. It turns out she is one of the pre-eminent experts on coral, and her current project, "Mala Moana" ("Ocean Garden"), entails transplanting a special variety of coral that appears to be resistant to the environmental effects that have killed much of the rest of the coral around Kauai.
We love Kauai, and my wife especially loves snorkeling around Kauai, and we've been distressed as we've watched the decline of the reefs over the years. While we've been active in other charitable areas over the year (particular around horse welfare and rescue, including rescuing several ourselves, and donating the use of our property to a horse rescue organization), we've never been more than concerned (and hopefully conscientious) tourists with respect to Kauai. But meeting Katherine inspired us to try to help, so we put together a calendar with pictures of Kauai that Jessica has taken over the years that we've been visiting. The main pictures are all of Honu (Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles), with smaller pictures representative of the many amazing sites on Kauai. We are selling the calendars for $20 each, with all proceeds going to Katherine's non-profit to support her work. Visit HonuCalendar.com for more details and to order.
, published in 2012 by O'Reilly.
My chapter describes an approach to assessing the quality and quirks of a data
set, with several real-world examples that I've encountered in the
past couple of years.
"It just shows what can be done by taking a little trouble," said Eeyore. "Do you see, Pooh? Do you see, Piglet? Brains first and then Hard Work. Look at it! That's the way to build a house."--AA MILNE
"If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right."--Henry Ford
"The Web 2.0 business model is an 18-month job interview for a multi-million dollar signing bonus."--me
"What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?"--Robert Schuller(?)
"I am that stranger who has nothing to give you and who is telling you to look inside."--Eckhart Tolle
"If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room."--unknown
"There are hundreds of paths up the mountain, all leading in the same direction, so it doesn't matter which path you take. The only one wasting time is the one who runs around and around the mountain, telling everyone that his or her path is wrong."--Hindu proverb
"A _______ Darkly"--Philip K. Dick
