About

Summary
I’m an online technologist with a strong business management background and have worked with digital media since 1994.

I conceive, design, develop and project manage database-driven, content managed products and services across several sectors including real estate, medicine, investment banking, entertainment, leisure and publishing.

I have a particular interest in mobile web and helping clients get to grips with it.

I mainly work as a freelance consultant / contractor and I especially enjoy projects where I am able to mix elements of conceptual , technical and visual design with technical project managment.

Employment
Since 1995 I have enjoyed medium and long-term contract / freelance relationships with clients including ABN AMRO, Bank of America, Blackwell Science (now Wiley) , Sony and many medical projects sponsored by major pharmaceutical companies such as Astra Zeneca, Pfizer and Amerhsam Health.     

I especially like working closely with end users to empower them in terms of  content management  and designing intuitive and easy-to-use interfaces.       

The central core of most projects tends to be SQL database with user and admin web interfaces to respectively display, capture and manage content.

Typical projects can be business information systems (internet and intranet), e-learning, and social media. Many projects increasingly have a high level of streaming and on-demand short-form video content and I have particular knowledge and production skills in relation to commisioning, producing and deploying embedded video in a wide variety of desktop and mobile project contexts.           

My technical skillset is CSS, ASP (Classic), .Net, SQL.

My Real Estate Development Years 
Before entering the technology world I spent eleven years in the real estate development sector as  a new business development and commercial manager mainly working on largescale, complex urban re-development schemes in central London, London Docklands and elsewhere in the south east of England.

In this capacity I was responsible for identifying new business opportunities, bid negotiation and tender submissions, technical and financial feasibility studies, managing planning appeals and all legal purchase, easement  and statutory consent elements.       

During my real estate career I held management positions at Wates Ltd,  Countryside Properties Plc and finally at Balfour Beatty where I was development director of their Specialist Housing Division.

My Technology Interests
I became interested in technology whilst at Balfour Beatty – specifically in relation to Building Managment Systems which intelligently control all utility, security and communication services within any kind of building.

In 1994, this interest led me to diverging into online communications via internet and between 1995-1998 I spent three years working on two pan-European R&D projects funded by the Euroepan Commission  and which focused on developing prototype broadband products and services for the real estate and construction sectors over both terrestrial and wireless networks.   

Auhoring and Education
In 1997 and 1998  I authored the annual European Multimedia market reports for McGraw Hill / Datapro and as a result of my broadening interest in multimedia began to work in sectors other than real estate where my generic database-driven web application skills proved to be the key to working on a variety of back-office banking information systems, medical and technology sector projects.

As an aside to my commercial work, I have also had a long-standing interest in industrial education – commencing as a distance-learning tutor for the College of Estate management at Reading University followed by bouts of CPD authoring and lecturing in relation to digital technologies targeted at  the surveying, architectual and engineering professions.

I tend to study something new every year and in 2o10 this has led me to acquiring Mobile Best Practice certification from the W3C and also SCRUM Master certification in relation to technology project management.