Christopher Allen

Christopher Allen is an entrepreneur, advisor and technologist and has been working in the area of social software and online trust for over 26 years. He founded Consensus Development in 1988 as a groupware engineering firm; Consensus later went on to develop the SSL standard with Netscape Communications, a security standard which is now at the heart of all secure commerce on the World Wide Web. He later founded Skotos Tech in 1999, an online game channel centered on creating online communities.

More recently, Allen consults for social software companies such as SocialText, Opinity, and various other startups, offers executive social web coaching, and speaks on the topic of collaboration, trust, privacy and security at various conferences. Since 2003 Allen has been sharing his experience by writing in his blog Life With Alacrity, where he covers a variety of topics including entrepreneuring, collaboration, groupware, social software, online communities, facilitation, wiki, internet security, trust, cryptography, privacy, interface design, internet media, internet tools, and other topics that he's passionate about.

Christopher Allen’s Specialties:

Entrepreneuring, internet technology, internet security, groupware, social software, collaboration, trust, security, privacy, social web, executive coaching, and internet tools.

Christopher Allen’s Experience

Co-author

iPhone in Action: Introduction to Web and SDK Development

(Computer Software industry)

September 2008 — Present (11 months)

iPhone in Action, published by Manning Publications, offers a complete introduction to web and native SDK programming for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The book is co-authored with Shannon Appelcline.
Social Web & Blog Coach

Alacrity Management

(Internet industry)

September 2007 — Present (1 year 11 months)

Offer social web & blog coaching services for executives and entrepreneurs. This includes helping them focus and develop their own personal brand and teaching them how to get involved in conversational communities such as blogs and social networks. A particular emphasis on teaching the scanning and focusing skills required to manage time so that participation on the social web doesn't overwhelm their professional and personal lives.
Advisor

Areae, Inc.

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Computer Games industry)

May 2006 — Present (3 years 3 months)

Advisor to Raph Koster, CEO of Areae, Inc., a San Diego based privately-held virtual world developer. First alpha-tester of Metaplace.com.
Speaker, Consultant, Advisor

Alacrity Management

(Public Company; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)

August 2003 — Present (6 years)

I have been a keynote speaker or panelist at numerous tech conferences on the the topic of social software, social networks, online security, and collaboration. I also provide consulting on these topics to a number of entrepreneurial companies for a combination of cash and stock.
Writer, Columnist
Life With Alacrity (Self-employed)

(Self-Employed; Myself Only; Internet industry)

July 2003 — Present (6 years 1 month)

Life with Alacrity is my professional blog, covering a variety of topics including social software, collaboration, groupware, online communities, facilitation, wiki, entrepreneuring, internet security, trust, cryptography, privacy, interface design, internet media, internet tools, and other topics that I am passionate about.
Founder, Chairman of the Board, Acting CEO

Skotos Tech Inc.

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)

July 1999 — Present (10 years 1 month)

Founded online game company and gathered staff of game-industry professionals. Oversaw development and release of company's first game, release of game-building toolkit, a 24/7/365 customer support, subscription billing infrastructure with multiply redundant Internet connectivity. Initiated acquisitions of and partnerships with several other online games and companies. Evolved the game production company into a multi-partner affiliated online gaming channel with 17 games to date.
Founder & General Manager

Alacrity Ventures

(Public Company; 1-10 employees; Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)

February 1999 — June 2006 (7 years 5 months)

Manage and perform technical due-diligence for a $6M portfolio of investments in approximately a dozen seed stage or angel round companies, including business-to-business software, Internet games, robotics, and high-tech industrial material creation. To date, portfolio has shown considerable resilience and strength, despite the down-turn of the stock market over the same period. Offered advice and mentorship to these companies as they moved forward through their business cycle. Judge for the Haas School of Business/UCB 2001 Business Plan Competition. All stock held by Alacrity Ventures was distributed to the general partners as of December 2005, and the partnership closed in June of 2006.
Advisor

Magnatune

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)

October 2003 — June 2004 (9 months)

Advisor to John Buckman, CEO of Magnatune, the open music record label. Mentored John on the creation of his personal Magnatune blog. Assisted with outreach and evangelism to technology influencers that are the initial market of Magnatune. Assisted with technical issues regarding ID3 and XML meta-tagging of music.
Advisor, Investor, Former Board Member

MG Taylor Corporation

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Management Consulting industry)

February 1984 — January 2004 (20 years)

MG Taylor Corporation is a management consulting organization that specializes in architecting physical spaces for collaboration, as well as delivering tools, processes that facilitate individuals and organizations. I have been an advisor to the company for many years in the area of collaboration and groupware technology, was a board member for two years.
Chief Technology Officer

Certicom Corp.

(Public Company; 51-200 employees; cic.to; Computer Software industry)

June 1998 — September 1999 (1 year 4 months)

Oversaw integration of Certicom Corp with previous company, Consensus Development. Coordinated overseas development, export strategy, and management of extensive patent portfolio. Active leadership role in the $2M dollar acquisition of Uptronics, a security consulting house, and also led investigations into other acquisition possibilities.
Founder, CEO & President

Consensus Development

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry)

June 1988 — June 1998 (10 years 1 month)

Founded e-commerce pioneer and online security company. Led it successfully through growth and eventual merger with the publicly-traded Certicom Corp as part of $25M deal, with a compounded internal rate of return for investors in excess of 125%. Orchestrated development with Netscape of the SSL encryption standard, which has since become the security standard on the Internet. Co-authored next-generation SSL protocol, TLS. Led team to develop the commercial SSL-Plus toolkit, which is used by numerous industry leaders such as Lucent, Oracle, Sun, Sybase, and Wells Fargo for online security, including use in Lotus Notes and Quicken.
Mac Developers Forum Leader

America Online

(Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; AOL; Internet industry)

January 1989 — December 1995 (7 years)

Under contract to AOL, launched the the Mac Developers Forum, an online developer community. Grew the MDV Forum to one of the largest Mac developers communities online, with a staff of over two dozen volunteers. Over the years many of my staff became Forum Leaders of other AOL Forums online, making the Mac Developers Forum a essential part of the success of AOL commmunities in the Macintosh market.
Founder, CEO & President

Dreams of the Phoenix

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry)

January 1984 — January 1988 (4 years 1 month)

Dreams of the Phoenix was a leading publisher in the early Macintosh software industry. It published seven award-winning retail software products. These included the first bulletin board system for the Macintosh, the first MacBinary terminal emulator, and one of the first 3D CAD packages for the Macintosh. Dreams of the Phoenix products have since been sold off to other publishers.

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