Professional Bio

I cut my professional teeth in the electronic service trades.  I semi-intentionally created the first multiuser CD-ROM publishing system for collaborative authoring of Interactive Service Manuals. TekDisk (Later Trademarked “TechDisc”) was a long, long time ago. In those heady, crazy days just prior to the Internet and VC boom, I was in a self-generated synthetic maelstrom of my ideas that simply had to see their creation made real. I wrote numerous proposals, presented these ideas, and I was dissuaded and shot down at every turn, and by everyone I knew. I was even lambasted by some of the companies that took the expense to fly me out for the presentation. I was at the time, mystified and distraught by such a lack of sympathy or understanding (such irony cannot be captured in print), but I carried forward the lesson that certain ideas will persevere on their own momentum, with the inspiration and force of the inventor.

But I did succeed as an ‘ideas and systems champion, subsequently learning powerful lessons – that VC was not the sole path to starting a technology based product or services venture. I discovered that  a product or a service can be launched by going into an existing enterprise environment, and leading the team to glory.
I was thereafter fortunate to be tapped as an analyst for a pension fund’s alternative investment portfolio , where I helped grade and evaluate IP in their distressed portfolios. The 1990′s were an intense time for me.

I eventually reached a place in my career where I could work as an independent product analyst, providing input to B2B and Industrial / Techo-Vertical software and hardware companies. I have a semi-reliable sixth sense of how markets change over time, and I can often communicate a strategy or work cooperatively with my client’s product managers, designers and engineers, to initiate the right moves – in marketing and media, as an industry advocate, and in certain cases, as a policy advisor. My current project encompasses all of these vectors.

I am, if nothing else, an unbiased, true (to myself)  voice among the chorus of well-meaning voices in a company; especially when there is a buzz storm heating up the market. When the exec’s need a clear eye, I’m the closed end contract, so they can be sure I have naught but the truth, a sincere opinion, well-referenced and supportable observations, as my work product.

I’m also a utility man, writing white papers, composing presentations, etc. I cover a lot of bases, and that enhances my value.