about.html

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<h2>About Me</h2>
<p>I thrive on helping people - and in my line of work this ends up being the end user whom I advocate for.  I tend to view solutions that are more of an "And" than an "Or", and approach problems holistically with a primary goal of understanding reasoning of the end user (and/or business reason, as applicable).</p>
<p>But that is about as far as my brand of optimism goes - I'm very analytical (almost to a fault), and - perhaps out of sheer stubborness - don't give up on solving problems once determined to figure them out.</p>
<p>Perhaps my best asset is in growth-based mindset.  I love learning new things all the time - improving the way I interact with others and learning about behavior, emotions and motivations.  I have mostly worked in only two organizations throughout my thirteen year career, I've never stayed on the same job for more than a couple of years, often drastically changing my focus to new technologies and/or new stakeholders.  As a result of this I've gained a lot of varied experience - from very large production oracle environments, to smaller workflow internal applications.  Throughout, my best work has remained on helping others with their work.</p>

<h3>Things I love to learn about</h3>
Some subjects really fascinate me and ultimately, I'd love for my work to somehow impact:
 <ul>
  <li>Learning about what motivates people, how emotions work and influence behavior (and vice-versa)</li>
  <li>Pretty much anything relating to cognitive science or neuroscience</li>
  <li>Developmental disorders - especially Autism and ADHD - and the use of technology/games for developing affect and ease learning - so much that I wrote a dissertation about this subject</li>
  <li>The technology in our daily lives - things like nutrition, fitness, health, learning, entertainment, etc.</li>
</ul>


<h3>Other things that I like to do in my free time</h3>
 <ul>
  <li>Craft beer, visiting breweries</li>
  <li>Various house projects - especially decorating, browsing pinterest or ikeahackers for inspiration</li>
  <li>Biking/Cycling (but not at the same time as craft beer)</li>
  <li>Runnning (and some 5ks)</li>
  <li>Yoga</li>
  <li>Playing board games with friends, especially Dominion :-)</li>
  <li>Playing games on iPad.  I used to do video games a lot more heavily but the Angry Birds, etc. are so addictive!</li>
  <li>Playing bass guitar or piano.  I've been in a few bands in the Chicago-land area - Ballistic Edna, Livid Vivian and Burnside Bridge</li>
  <li>Creating/designing chainmail and other metal jewelry</li>
</ul>