[ubuntu-uk] [Fwd: ALL TEAMS: Speaker Representatives]

[Mark Harrison]

-----Original Message-----

From: ubuntu-uk-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com

[mailto:ubuntu-uk-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Nik Butler

Sent: 11 April 2007 08:48

To: British Ubuntu Talk

Subject: [ubuntu-uk] [Fwd: ALL TEAMS: Speaker Representatives]

 

> Jono has asked that the various Loco teams can nominate a few speakers, to
put this in his words

 

 

------- from jono

 

> Hi all,

 

> I often get emailed with requests for Ubuntu / Kubuntu / Edubuntu etc

> speakers for different conferences around the world, and I often

> recommend people I know from different LoCo teams.

 

======================================================================

 

 

 

Right - time to step up to the microphone :-)

 

I realise that I'm new to the UbuntuUK list, so most of you don't know me,
so I'd better give a brief summary of my speaking / Linux credentials :-)

 

 

WHEN WOULD YOU WANT ME TO TALK:

 

- When you needed a "businessman who got it" to talk about how linux / FLOSS
can not only save money, but genuinely provide BETTER IT services to an
organisation.

 

 

WHEN SHOULD YOU NEVER GET ME TO TALK:

 

- When you need a detailed technical presentation about something specific.

I've not been an "Uber-techy" for about 10 years - these days I know enough
to work with Uber-techies, but not enough to be one.

 

 

*NIX / LINUX / FLOSS:

 

- I spent two years as chair of the xAP project, an open-source project for
home control. As well as co-ordinating the activities of about a dozen
different developers in thrashing out a standard for home control to which
we wrote about 60 FLOSS applications, I wrote 3 myself (all available under
the GPL, however all for Windows :-( )

 

- I was responsible for the introduction of Apache into Kingfisher plc
(FTSE-100 company), and was head of systems for their web division at a time
when it was responsible for B&Q, Comet, Woolworths, Superdrug and Screwfix.

 

- I'm currently CTO of an Internet-based financial services company. We use
Ubuntu and nothing but Ubuntu for our servers. All our services are deployed
through the web (Ajax - yey!), as a result of which we don't really have a
"desktop build". Our policy is pretty much "run what you want provided you
can see this website and get IMAP email from our server"

 

- On the side, I run a number of non-IT websites, which all run LAMP (on
Ubuntu), and generally promote OpenOffice.org whenever I've made downloads
available.

 

 

SPEAKING:

 

- In the last two years I've given 53 "public" speeches (ie speeches to
which the general public could have come, albeit in most cases for the price
of an admission ticket.) Some of these have been "professional" in the sense
that I have been paid a speaking fee - most have been "promotional" in the
sense that I was giving the speech to promote something (a company, my own
name, or in several cases, some FLOSS solutions.) Oh, and I got the figure

53 by typing "select count(appearance_name) from appearances;" at MySQL.

 

- I'm a published "spoken word CD" author (albeit on stuff that has nothing
to do with Linux), with a six-CD set published by Nightingale Conant (which
has sold copies in the low thousands), plus some self published products.

(I've shipped a job lot of 54 of my CDs today, though that was exceptional)

 

- I've given a couple of talks at my local LUG (one on Asterisk, one on
OpenSource Home Automation software, because of my involvement with the xAP

project.)

 

- I'm comfortable with an audience of about 20-500 people. Beneath 20, I
tend to have trouble "working the room". I assume that I'd be happy with
more than 500 people, but that's the biggest gig I've been booked for so far

:-)

 

 

ABOUT ME GENERALLY:

 

- I'm 36, married (to a part-time Ajax programmer), and have two kids (hence
the part-time in both of our lives.)

 

- I've worked in big companies (head of IT for one of the BP subsidiaries
across Europe) and startups. I now much prefer startups, but can still do
corporate-speak when required.

 

- I'm a co-founder of Busy Bee Networking, a business networking group sort
of like BNI (but we think better :-) - your mileage may vary), so tend to
talk "the language of business".

 

 

Regards,

 

Mark

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-uk/attachments/20070416/49edbf07/attachment.htm