Curt Monash, data guru, blogger, analyst and IT personality posted an interesting entry on his lessor known www.softwarememories.com blog, which I was directed to, thanks to Ray Wang’s tweet.
You can read about the suggested rules of the meme by reading Curt’s entries on his post. But the basic premise is to list 10 things or truth’s about yourself that people might not know. It’s framed by Curt as anti-April Fool’s where untruths are spread. Basically you author your blog post and tag back to the originator (which would be me if you are reading my meme first) via a comment which links to yours.
Here goes:
- I love a good deal – I’m an avid bargain hunter for everything I purchase, from shopping at Costco, reading reviews on products to getting packages for travel and bundles with discounts. In fact I almost never ever pay full price for anything. I consider 50% a reasonable discount and head straight for outlets for 70% off or more. This is not to say I’m cheap. I’ll happily pay $$$ for a pair of normally retail priced $$$$ red Gucci shoes (which I recently did on my honeymoon at the Gucci outlet in the hills of Tuscany)
- My friends consider me a financial whiz – Along with bargain hunting, I’ve been able to “game” the financial system whenever opportunities have presented itself. During the dotcom frenzy when IPOs where tripling and more in value each day, I managed to figure out how to get in on retail IPOs ground floor. Then I shared the secret with a few of my closest friends and family. Over a 9 month period we were able to collectively make over $$$+. A portion of which were donated to charity as well as forming the self-seeded angel funding round for MetaTV (the company I ended up being the VP of Marketing for)
- I have a military and political family heritage – My Great Grandfather was a general for Chiang Kai Shek and was part of his entourage that was kidnapped in the famous Xian incident December 1936. He is pictured in this photo second from the left in front However, I have not inherited any of his political genes.
- I used to be pretty fit– Last century, I used to bike alot and even did a few 100 mile rides for Multiple Scelrosis charity, including a double century waves to wine. I’m a little less active these days but I still take the trash out to the curb and climb up our long steep driveway without assistance.
- My mentor at University was the inventor of Multi User Dungeon (MUD) – I did my computer science degree at the University of Essex in Colchester where Richard Bartle was my professor where I would create AI and expert systems applications using Prolog and Lisp, using Map Reduce techniques. I spent most of my allocated PDP-11 time playing MUD however.
- I am an advocate for Lyme Disease awareness – A good friend of mine suffered from Lyme disease for many years and I helped her both financially, physically and emotionally for over 7 years to beat the disease. It was a tremendous struggle where every day after work and every weekend without fail we worked together to counter the pain, try different drugs, apply different alternative herbs and therapies. Countless healers and physicians, $$$$$$ dollars, ridiculous pain and antibiotic cocktails, alternative medications, pain treatments later, I’m happy to say that the Lyme is (touch wood) gone. But she still struggles with back pain and other ailments. It took 12 years before she was diagnosed, and that is a typical time frame because doctors don’t recognize Lyme as an illness. I’m telling you that LYME IS REAL and the cover up is advocated by the medical insurers who don’t want to pay for the expensive lengthy treatment! (maybe I do have a little of Great Grandad’s political blood in me after all :-)).
Please read up on it, because if you get bitten by a tick with Lyme you need to take quick action or you’ll suffer terribly, as did the famous author Amy Tan, read her story in her own words here.
- The last 5 companies I have worked for have been acquired or IPOed – I previously wrote about this in a blog post titled, “How to make sure the next startup you work for gets acquired” What I didn’t mention is that in 2 of the acquisitions (1 of which didn’t consumate at first) I was probed by the acquiring company. As the head of product management (PM), as I was to discover later, it is a corporate tactic to send an executive recruiter from a well known recruiting firm (in my case Korn Ferry) to enquire if I would be interested in interviewing for a very senior position at the acquiring company. The result is that if you bite, you get asked all sorts of questions pertaining to how the company is doing, would I be interested in leaving etc. None of which I would reveal due to confidentiality reasons, but the probe looks to see how willing I am to jump ship. If I am, then the company may not be all that. I’d be interested in hearing from any head of PMs out there have had similar experiences. BTW, fingers crossed working on my 6th 🙂
- I was in the Interactive TV business and put on a marketing booth that rivaled ESPN – As VP of Marketing at MetaTV, building Brand was critical as we were not only selling technology but appealing to companies who’s sole existence revolved around entertainment and brand. The planning and booth created for industry shows such as CTAM (Cable Telecommunications Advertising and Marketing) were up against the likes of Disney, ESPN, NBC, Microsoft and others. At one of the events, a high ranking TV and Cable executive paid us the highest compliment by remarking that we had a better booth than ESPN. After MetaTV it was a simple task to consistently win awards for best booth at every conference Synon and GoldenGate (2 of my other companies) participated in.
- I had to deal with Fox, CNN and other news outlet during a major scandal in which my CEO was arrested – In the summer of 2001, the CEO of MetaTV and a personal friend was arrested by the FBI for cyber soliciting a minor. Being the VP of Marketing, I was responsible for PR crisis at a critical inflexion point in the company where we were also about to close a critical C-round of funding for $35M+ from Comcast and others. I am glad to say not only did we handle it well, but the San Francisco article wrote about how companies deal with crisis and our PR team MSRCommunications even won an award. MetaTV continued to thrive till they we were ultimately acquired by Comcast Cable.
- I enjoy a good game on the Nintendo Wii and have been even known to belt out a tune on American Idol for the Wii – We’ll end on a “low” note with my Copacabana Manilow attempt posted on YouTube with my lovely wife Kathy.
Hope you’ll create your own “No-Fooling top 10” and please post a link to it here via a comment.
Thanks Curt for kicking this off, it was fun in a painful sort of way :-). Just Kidding.
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