
Online Games/iPhone Consultant
United Kingdom

Online Games/iPhone Consultant
United Kingdom
I'm a Technical Director / CTO and serial startup founder.
As a CTO, I find the most important issue is to understand and excel at solving the meta-issues of technology companies: how can we sell more, at lower cost? how can we develop more effectively? how can we develop better products? who do we hire? how can we grow? how can we make our development cheaper to run? etc...
I split between technology, project management, business/finance, and design.
Most popular blog posts:
- Kongregate’s ratings, rankings, and reputation systems
- We need to talk about Tabula Rasa; when will we talk about Tabula Rasa?
- Entity Systems are the future of MMOG development
- May 2009: Survey of iPhone Developers
Unlisted / volunteer work:
- organized business-plan competitions (helping startups get off the ground with up to $100,000 cash)
- judged game-development competitions
- founded/chaired the IGDA's Alternate Reality Games SIG
NOTE CAREFULLY!
* I only add people I actually know. If you're not sure, ask. If you don't ask, and I have no idea who you are, you'll get "I don't know this person".
Strategy, Scrum, Viral Marketing, Project Management, Contract Negotiation, Systems Architecture, Funding rounds, Programming, Consulting, Alternate Reality Games, MMOG, System Architect, Development, Design
(Computer Games industry)
2008 — May 2009 (1 year )
Mass-market Education. Social Games. Learning is fun, but how do you help people see that for themselves? Learning is entirely internal, but how do you give people the power to be in charge of their own education?
(Public Company; Computer Games industry)
January 2007 — July 2008 (1 year 7 months)
Helped to build the first European development studio for NCsoft, starting from just myself and Ken Malcolm. Big thanks also to Alys Elwick and Rene Reichert for all their hard work helping make this happen!
Oversaw internal development on PS3 and PC MMO projects, and internal technology projects (tools), as well as performing all technical due dilligence on external development (tech recommendations on funding pitches, reviewing project milestones for games in development).
Member of the US/EU Social Networking Steering Group analysing the effect on NCsoft's business (game design, technology, and marketing) of new trends in social networking and social gaming, and making proposals to the US and EU executive management on what to do about this.
Many brilliant people joined us in Brighton to be part of this dev studio. I highly recommend hiring as many of them as you can.
(Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Computer Games industry)
September 2006 — November 2006 (3 months)
Lead for Network/Multiplayer and Online Systems for an upcoming next gen title.
Also designed company-wide infrastructure for integrating all games with online micropayments, in-game content-delivery, and in-game advertising systems.
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Games industry)
January 2005 — August 2006 (1 year 8 months)
Oversaw design and development of two major systems (an internal development/publishing/workflow system and the cluster of game servers for Perplex City) and delivery of many dozens of minor websites and casual games.
(Computer Games industry)
2001 — 2005 (4 years )
Founded company during dot-com crash, turned down investment offers of upwards of $1million because valuation was stupidly low, then watched every potential investor drop like dominos or go bust. Doh.
Kept the company alive long enough to wind it up without debt, but nothing more.
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Consumer Goods industry)
2000 — 2000 (less than a year)
Short fixed-term contract to develop POS systems for the retail outlets, ended up also designing and building a real-time screen-scraping and price-replacing system for 5 websites (including Amazon and Firebox).
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Computer Networking industry)
May 1998 — April 1999 (1 year )
IT Consultancy based in London, specializing in designing and implementing end-to-end content-management systems and tech outsourcing for SME's from 20-75 employees.
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; IBM; Computer Software industry)
1997 — 1999 (2 years )
IBM Hursley - SSA labs, and DirectTalk test-team
igda, ARG SIG, PUE, Alternate Reality Games SIG, Virtual worlds panel, GDC, TheChaosEngine
Finalist, Cambridge Enterprise Conference 6, 2004
Finalist, Cambridge Enterprise Conference 5, 2003
Finalist, Cambridge 50k Business plan competition, 2001
Finalist, CIMA Universities Business Challenge, 2000