About the Tcoz Tech 'n Toys Blog

I've blogged before...well, no. Rather, I've occasionally updated my website with some notes as to what I'm up to in the industry these days. That no longer seems adequate; what with everybody Tweeting, Twooting, Twishitting, Friending, Sending, Poking, and what have you, I figure I better get with it to a degree. 

Voila, Tcoz Tech 'n Toys. The name is apropos; I avidly pursue lots of cutting edge programming and server technologies, and I do love my tech toys. Why I've never blogged is more about, "meh I dunno," than anything else. I'm certainly vocal about my experience and opinions. Here's the rundown:

I worked in Strategic Planning and R&D at American Express for roughly five years, left to run an internet redesign project at NYC-based Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield using Microsoft based technologies, which got me recruited for a roughly five-year stint at Microsoft, and then...the epiphany.

It became evident to me that there were some real disadvantages to working for large corporations, and that they precluded me being really happy at any typical corporate tech position; in particular, you get hired for specific skills to do "an urgent project", you complete it, then lose visibility and spin off into maintenance and errata limbo until something else interesting comes through the oft-clogged corporate pipe. After a time, "management" begins to get thrown your way, or somebody decides you would be "great in a new, important role." 

Case in point: Microsoft took my position, which was primarily technical and secondarily sales support--and which I loved--and flip-flopped it; the most important question at team meetings went from something like, "so how's that proof-of-concept .Net vs. Java project going", to the sorry mantra, "so how many seats do they have, what's the opportunity, how many people have you cold called...?".  You know, I don't care. I know it's important, but it's just not what I'm interested in, and I'm not going to act like I'm ever going to be (well, I tried for about six months. I couldn't stand it). 

So, I left to start my little cottage industry, counting on my non-Microsoft-like habit of experimenting with competitive technologies, and fairly deep knowledge of MSFT ones, to get me some work. It paid off; after scraping together some drastically underpaid project work and proving I could build a solution from the ground up, I started getting bigger contracts, and now the work comes in regularly enough that I really don't have to go looking for it...much.  My specialities are Flash/Flex, AS2/3 (I started working with Flash, or Director/Lingo actually, in my Amex days), and related technologies (like Java, .Net or PHP on the backend, etc.). I'm also a big fan of Facebook development (I was a tech reviewer on both O'Reilly Facebook dev guides), and have gotten my business, Tcoz Tech Services, into the "official" iPhone developer program. I manage projects, lead teams, and have the option to decline. Not a bad place to be. 

A warning to the techie who would follow my lead, especially nowadays; it was not easy. I lived out of pocket for about a year and it was scary. Don't attempt this unless you've planned for it carefully. I can't say don't try it at home though, since that's sort of the point. 

Additionally, I was involved in a startup for a little over a year as an equity partner, Nabbr.com. But that's a tale for another post. 

Regarding toys: I love the iPhone, have started with the Kindle, love Line 6 digital modeling equipment (love my guitars), am a Windows-to-Mac OSX convert (Vista...argh) and have always been a gamer, currently PC and PS3 (the Witcher and Dead Space are two of my recent favs). I'll be blogging about them as I go. 

So there it is; another blog by another guy interested in technology, toys, music, and so on. 

Hmm...you know, I'm still not sure why I'm getting into this. I guess we'll see.