OK. I've just spent the past hour or so updating my profile on Linked In summarizing the past 8 years of my professional career. It was over 2000 characters, which is the limit, so I cut and paste it into this post as well. I know I've probably got to clean it up a bit to polish, but please bare with me, as I dust off the cobwebs of my 8+ year tenure in the enterprise software space.
*****below is pasted from linked in profile *
8 year veteran in the enterprise software space with experience in pre-sales (Systems Engineer), Product Management, Standards & Evangelism (Standards & Technology Liaison).
Current role: Senior Systems Engineer, Business Process Management & Composite Applications. I'm one of 4 navy seal like SEs that make up the "Solution Center" team at Software AG. We are a "swat team" that can be deployed across the globe (virtually) to support pre- and post- sales activities. We support regional sales reps and SEs with the delivery of customized VMware-based demonstrations that showcase the breadth and depth of the Software AG Product Suite. My area of focus and expertise is in Business Process Management, Human Workflow, and Composite Applications. I'm fluent in most BPMS lingo, can crank out JSF-based webapps, and know enough Java to be dangerous. When I'm not building custom solutions, I'm supporting colleagues in the field and across the organization with a wide range of support duties that range from leading training sessions, generating content (whitepapers, tutorials, webexes), traveling on site to conduct on site demos / proof of concepts, online training & mentoring, remote web conferencing (webex). I also own and manage the 5 core business processes that govern what we do as a team (Solution Center).
Senior Product Manager - for about 5 years I was the product manager for an enteprise portal technology suite, first called DataChannel Server, later renamed Netegrity Interaction Server, then changed to webMethods Portal, then webMethods Access, then My webMethods Server, then webMethods Composite Application Framework. Whew. Lots of names, 3 major re-architectures, 4 major releases, countless minor releases, and god knows how many service packs, hot fixes, and feature roll-ups I've been through. I acted as PM for the Portal technology from roughly 2001-2006. In 2006, I transitioned out of Product Management into the Sales Organization where I currently serve as a Senior Systems Engineer.
Standards & Technology Liaison - I was originally hired by DataChannel, Inc in May of 2000 to serve in this exciting new role. I reported directly to DataChannel's CTO Norbert Mikula, where my primary responsibilities were to participate and sit on relevant standards bodies, seek out speaking opportunities at industry conferences, and generally oversee DataChannel's strategy with respect to leveraging emerging Web standards in our products and services. I was DataChannel's Advisory Committee Representative to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), sat on the OASIS XML.org Advisory Committee, was co-chair and co-editor of the ebXML Technical Architecture Standard, and particiapted in some capacity to the following standards efforts: SOAP, WSDL, UDDI, SAML, webDAV, XML Schema, SSTC, RosettaNet, ebXML, BPML, BPMI, and a few others that escape me now. When DataChannel was about to be acquired by Netegrity, I realized that my role as standards guy were probably targets for elimination, so I started building demos that showcased what our portal technology could do. I did that for about 6 months and then moved into my role as product manager for Netegrity's Portal technology initiatives, which were done under the brand "Netegrity Interaction Server" and later "PortalMinder".
This effectively sums up the past 8 years of job experience for me. I've only been hired once, back on May 8, 2000, but I've now officially worked for four different official business entities. I'm thankful to be working (albeit indirectly now) with the same core team of Java devs for 8+ years and that is the only thing that keeps me going during challenging times.
Today happens to be the nicest day of the summer thus far here in Seattle. It's roughly 80 and sunny with a light breeze blowing in from the Puget Sound. Pretty much woke up did some light work, cleaned up my place a bit (it's still bordering on out of control) and then headed down to Elliott Bay Books for the Gary Vaynerchuk book signing event @ 2:00 pacific.
Got there a bit early so had nice iced american and half turkey sandwich in the Espresso and sandwich bar. They set up a nice room for Gary with about 50 or so seats. I went and grabbed my seat in the back right corner and setup my gear - Ultra Mobile PC with Logitech Quickcam Fusion as I was planning to stream the event live (and record it) on UStream. Elliott Bay Book actually has free wifi, so initially I was psyched to be able to stream it over wifi as its a bit better than using my Cradlepoint 802.11 > Verizon 3G EVDO USB card. Unfortunately the room the signing was in was pretty much in the basement of a brick building and I lost conection to their wifi and was unable to get a signal with my Verizon card.
No worries. I setup both my Logitech and my Panasonic AVCHD HDC-SD1 video camera to record the event *offline*. I was able to get about an hour of HD content that I need to import and also the recording from my logitech, which was at much lower quality.
I'll do my best to get it posted soon. I'll let you watch the whole thing as soon as I can get the videos posted, but let's just say that Gary killed it yet again. He is so much fun to watch/interact with. I'm looking forward to tonight, where I'll be heading to Gary's drink up event at Purple, a wine bar in downtown Seattle. I've never been there so will see what its all about. Looking forward to a great evening.
Oh I almost forgot - Debbie (tenant) stopped by to drop off her check. Her boyfriend works at Hales Ales in Fremont. They offered to "sponsor" a free keg of tasty Hales Ales for our 2nd Annual Eastlake Associates Tenant Appreciation BBQ! I LOVE MY TENANTS!
If you're in Seattle and you want to come watch the fireworks over Lake Union from our prime Eastlake, stay tuned. I'll be sending out more details in the coming days and will post the event to Upcoming. Parking sucks, but all are invited. The whole neighborhood basically turns into a 6+ block neighborhood party. It's really quite fun. 
Awesome day, trending on awesomer.
As I tweeted here, "I love it when a plan comes together!"
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