About Me

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PROFILE

Age: 29
Nationality: British
Current Residence: UK
Tools of the trade: Photoshop, UI & UIX, E2.0, WebCenter, JDeveloper, ECM, UCM – IDOCScript, URM, IBR, Stellent, Clustering & Server Architecture, Consulting, Rich Internet Applications, Javascript, AJAX, XHTML, HTML 5, Cross Browser Support (IE6+, FF, Opera, Safari, Chrome), WebSockets, CSS, Flash, Adobe AIR, Node.js, NoSQL – MongoDB, MS SQL, MySQL, IIS, Apache, Prototype JS, jQuery, Extjs – Sencha, VMWare, Redhat, Ubuntu, MS Server, XML, XSLT, XSL-FO, JSON
Favourite Movies: Pulp Fiction, ScarFace, American Psycho
Favourite Games: Quake 3, CoD, Monkey Island
Favourite Sports: Ice Hockey & Snow boarding (And golf when I get the time..)

WORK.

I have worked within the IT & Print Industry for over 6 years; and have worked with many large blue chip organisations. I first started out as a junior flash designer and web developer for a small new media company called Thunderbird Studios developing flash presentations, print and websites for companies like Anglian Waters, ISC, HP and Muddy Fox.

After 2 years I felt I wanted more of a challenge, to be thrown into the deep end and work my way up the ladder. I joined the Astron Group in 2001 which grew to become the largest Print Management Company in Europe before being bought by RR Donnelley in 2005.

My responsibilities at Astron changed and I was moved away from flash design to develop ecommerce solutions and manage 2 digital asset management systems (Stellent and Documentum). I have also acted as a consultant for clients to help provide solutions that would increase their productivity from web applications to e-commerce implementation some of these clients include the BSM, RAF, MOD, BUPA, KPMG and Zurich.

I Left Astron in 2006 as I felt there were no more opportunities for me; as RRD had begun to outsource all IT development to the US and my job role was no longer of a challenge. Fortunately I was head hunted by a small company Access Communications and taken on as an operation manager; 4 months later and Access and their suite of products were bought by the Lateral Group part of the Howitt Printing Company. I stayed on for an additional 3 months as a project manager and systems architect developing a plan for a new system dPrint that would allow our clients such as Spec Savers and LA fitness to order customised stationary, however when I found out that the development work was going to be outsourced to India I had decided it was time to move on..

I’ve experienced outsourcing of IT work in the past on large projects and that was in the UK!
The development took 3 times as long and really was a waste of money, I wasn’t going to go through the hell Id seen others go through!
If you want to sell your own product and want it to be good – “Do it yourself” or “Make sure you project manage it and see it through to the end”.
Outsourcing especially to another country will never work unless you ship yourself off to that country and can trust the people you work with.

I joined Jagex Ltd (the developers of Runescape.com) February 2007 as their Web Producer.
It was a great Job it gave me total creative control over new websites and internal application interfaces.

In October 2007 I left Jagex, I would of stayed on for another 2 years or so as it was a great place to work.. If you can hack the long hours .
However, I handed in my notice to start up my own software house Digaset with Landon.

After 6 months dedicated to developing Digaset Desktop of which you can see dotted around my blog I joined Ether Solutions supporting and developing for – Crawley County Council, Carillion Plc, nPower, Balfour Beatty, Oracle and the British Red Cross as a senior Oracle consultant.

During my time working on Balfour WebCenter Portal we won an Oracle Open World Blazer award 2010!!
You can see the additional info here.

I have to say it is was a proud achievement of 2010 and we have to see what wonderful things lie in wait for 2011..