If you’ve been to a community event anywhere in the right 50% of the continent (and possibly a few on the left) there’s a better than even chance you’ve shared some air with Steve Andrews at some point. This guy really gets around, and he’s a man on a mission. I’ll let him tell you more about that in these NINE Questions:
1. Where are you from?
I was born at a very young age to my parents in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where I currently reside. Between then and now I have lived in upstate New York (about an hour from a stoplight), New Jersey, Indiana, Maryland, and I lived on a boat near Philadelphia for a year and a half. Currently, I am working to sell my house and buy a motor coach. The plan is to live on the bus for a year which will enable me to travel and promote community across the country through some programs I am developing.
2. Who do you work for? Give me the 10 second pitch on them. Why would I want to buy their product?
You should totally buy their product! I am an independent consultant specializing in Application Lifecycle Management, Microsoft Visual Studio Team System, and custom application development.
3. What brought you to your current employer?
Given the current economic conditions, my former employer was forced to lay off a significant percentage of their workforce. I decided it was a good opportunity to go independent and I’ve been doing that ever since.
4. You're also the Director of Technology with INETA, which means what exactly?
Hah, it sounds fancy doesn’t it? It basically means that I’m in charge of INETA’s technology and everything is urgent. Seriously though, in a nutshell I am responsible for the technology assets across the organization. This includes the website, version control, email, and hosting as well as general the development process methodology and technology architecture strategies. One of my initiatives is also to build and promote the INETA Live brand and provide more regular content to the community through that medium.
5. How did you end up with that position?
See, Rob told me I was signing up for a Code Camp… Actually it was something I had my eye on for awhile as a way to further continue engaging the community. Back in January, the INETA newsletter announced that nominations were being accepted for Board of Director positions for INETA North America, so I proceeded to email all the UG leaders I knew asking them to nominate me. Then somehow INETA made a mistake and I was elected to the board.
6. You do more community events than anyone else I have ever met. Do you think we're hitting any kind of critical mass with all the Conferences, Day of This, Codefoo, User Groups, Camps etc...?
Definitely not: less than 1% of developers regularly attend community events. I think there is a lot of work still to be done in reaching more people, but I don’t think anyone’s figured out the magic formula to do that yet. I do however think we need more initiatives that engage high school and college students. As well I think we need to make conscious efforts towards providing more beginner level content. A couple local events have done that recently, and they were incredibly well received and resulted in an increase in attendance. I think a lot of us have been engrossed in the newer technologies for years, and we tend to forget that there are still a significant number of developers who haven’t ramped up to the newer technologies yet, even to .NET in general.
7. Ok, so obviously you're a strong supporter of the local and regional dev community, but that's just part of who you are. What's something the world doesn't know about you?
Hmm, I do have a hotel keycard collection. At last count I had 44 from over 14 states including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Washington, California, Hawai’i and Quebec. Does that count?
8. Any non-technical hobbies? What are they and why?
I’m a bit of a closet songwriter. I have a couple guitars and a Korg Triton workstation that I play around with. Music has always been a big part of my life. I also enjoy outdoor stuff, like hiking, rock climbing, biking, kayaking, sailing, SCUBA, etc.
9. Last of all, any tattoos?
I’ve thought about it, but so far I haven’t gone down that road. If I ever get one though, I have two simple rules for myself: 1) it shouldn’t be visible in casual summer attire, and 2) that I won’t regret it in 10 years. This means the decision to not get a VB6 tattoo on my forearm was probably a good idea <g>
{Edit: What exactly is he trying to say here, I wonder…}