@myerman on Twitter. While supplies last.
Austin, Texas Area
- Current
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- President at Austin AMA
- Information Architect/Business Systems Analyst at Austin Energy
- Principal/Owner at Triple Dog Dare Media
- Past
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- Technical Writer & Information Architect at Vignette
- Technical Writer at Cisco Systems
- Technical Writer at WheelGroup
- Assistant Editor at Harcourt Assessment
- Education
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- State University of New York at Binghamton
- The University of Texas at San Antonio
- Panama Canal College
- Recommended
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Thomas "myerman" Myer’s Summary
I'm a book author, information architect, business systems analyst, speaker, and web developer based out of Austin, TX.
As an IA/BSA, I bring my naturally inquisitive self, ask a lot of questions, translate the answers into diagrams and documentation, and guide the business in their quest to build actual, useful, marketable solutions.
Sometimes I think of myself as translator or negotiator. I take what the SMEs say and turn it into geek talk. I make sure that the geeks understand why its important to build things a certain way. I end up talking ROI and TCO to the geeks, and APIs and constraints to the SMEs.
Yes, it's true that many times I find myself preemptively working with SMEs and other non-techie stakeholders on crafting requirements that have more than half a chance of being built. That's where 10+ years of web development comes in very handy--I'm an experienced PHP, Javascript, XML, Perl, and shell script guy.
As a writer, I perform a similar role to that of translator. I take impossibly complex or dense subject matter and turn it into something understandable and valuable to a particular audience.
I'm the author of From Geek to Peak, which focuses on the needs of consultants in their first year of business. Other titles include: Professional CodeIgniter (Wrox), Lead Generation on the Web (O'Reilly), and No Nonsense XML Web Development with PHP (SitePoint). I'm currently working on a book that covers UNIX commands on Mac OS X.
Thomas "myerman" Myer’s Specialties:
Technical writing. Information architecture. Business systems analysis. Web development.
Thomas "myerman" Myer’s Experience
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President
Austin AMA
(Non-Profit Organization Management industry)
May 2009 — Present (3 months)
Currently President of the Austin chapter of the American Marketing Association. See you at our monthly luncheons and other events! http://www.austinama.org
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Information Architect/Business Systems Analyst
Austin Energy
(Government Agency; Utilities industry)
November 2008 — Present (9 months)
Currently working a contract gig with Austin Energy. My job is to interview users, suss out requirements, determine objectives, and create wireframes/workflows/sitemaps/use cases that help our team of developers execute properly.
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Principal/Owner
Triple Dog Dare Media
(Public Company; Internet industry)
May 2001 — Present (8 years 3 months)
Freelance technical copywriting. Mostly user guides, web copy, case studies, white papers, and data sheets.
PHP development. Particularly ecommerce and content publishing applications. A lot of work in SMARTY, JQuery, CSS, XHTML, CodeIgniter.
Information architecture and web content usability consulting. Define requirements, interview users, create wireframes/site maps/use cases/process & application workflows. -
Technical Writer & Information Architect
Vignette
(Public Company; 501-1000 employees; VIGN; Computer Software industry)
October 1998 — May 2001 (2 years 8 months)
I was a technical writer working on user guides and other short pieces for a group of web consultants. Then I got shifted over to Vignette Global Marketplace and was asked to help put together an effective information architecture and content strategy for the portal, which I did until I left to start my own thing.
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Technical Writer
Cisco Systems
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; CSCO; Computer Networking industry)
March 1998 — October 1999 (1 year 8 months)
Maintained NetRanger documentation as my official day job. Wrote a network security planning guide. Helped a bit with the XML/SGML initiatives and with CCIM, our Documentum-based web publishing tool.
Wrote about network security, intrusion detection, firewalls, and other related topics. -
Technical Writer
WheelGroup
(Computer Software industry)
October 1996 — March 1998 (1 year 6 months)
I was a technical writer, mostly, but also filled in a bit to help with the web site until we hired a full-time webmaster.
My job was to write technical manuals for NetRanger and NetSonar product lines and learn everything I could about UNIX. Along the way I picked up shell scripting, Perl, and lots of HTML skills. -
Assistant Editor
Harcourt Assessment
(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; Publishing industry)
1995 — 1996 (1 year)
My job was to shepherd books through the entire process, converting them from initial drafts into real live products that sit on a book shelf in a book store. This involved a tremendous amount of editing, numerous meetings, liaising with manufacturing and marketing, and herding a bunch of artistic types delivering book covers and layouts.
Thomas "myerman" Myer’s Education
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State University of New York at Binghamton
MA , English , 1994 — 1995
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The University of Texas at San Antonio
BA , English , 1991 — 1992
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Panama Canal College
A.A. , 1989 — 1991
Additional Information
Thomas "myerman" Myer’s Websites:
Thomas "myerman" Myer’s Interests:
poker, xml, content management, codeigniter, writing, photography, film, military history
Thomas "myerman" Myer’s Honors:
Voted Most Likely to Argue With You in High School
Thomas "myerman" Myer’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- career opportunities
- consulting offers
- new ventures
- job inquiries
- expertise requests
- business deals
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
