So I’ve seen About.me in a few situations, usually among the people in my professional graph that are creative and technical. I finally put one together and it was an interesting exercise. I tried to take a different approach – more work-life integration, who I am as a person in the working world. It’s an interesting site – very visual as it pushes the boundaries of self promotion and art. In fact many of the folks out there are artists, actors as well as silicon valley superstars.
Headline: explorer, change agent and communicator
Work Life Integration
A quick study who loves technology and is usually plugged in…
… but easily unplugs and really digs nature.
- Work should be fun
- I’m a fire starter, catalyst for change
- Passionate about finding opportunity
- When I meet people I look for good
- I’m a traveler, observer and teacher
- I plant, nurture and enjoy the bloom
@jcharanis @allazotweets
I am most comfortable in the beginning when there is a market to be made, or when things have stagnated and its time to find hidden treasure. I am one of those guys in the room who just knows, some call it thin-slicing, but it has served me well to read people, situations and find opportunities often with no immediate conscious understudying of why. The reason I’m successful in those situations is that I enjoy asking “why”, engaging people and building out situations to get to the value. Because of this my approach is hypothesis driven, leveraging my experience and knowledge to teach and learn, engage and influence. I have meaningful conversations with a CIO or a CEO as well as the team doing the work. The result is strategic business development and influence on product strategy.
My weakness: operating mechanisms – I’m a slave to process because otherwise I’d never get things done. I expect others to do the same but don’t enjoy enforcing it. Please don’t ask me to manage a sales team for incremental growth, manage a program or to find administrative efficiency. That’s not my thing. Instead – allow me to bring out the best in them – when its time to focus on growth and innovation.
I have been involved in the business of software ever since my first job selling hardware – it only took me 12 months to realize that it was the stuff inside that had legs. I’ve spent my career vacillating back and forth between technology that converts images of data into data and remote access to data – with a focus on financial information and financial services – the banking industry. Let me drill down a bit – I sold online banking before the Internet was avaialbe to most and software as a service when it was called a service bureau. The pendulum has swung back and forth over the years but the needs remain constant; a balance of operational efficiency and access to information all focused on either generating revenue or managing funds. Specifically, here are all the ways its been described:
- Mobile Banking, Internet Banking, Commercial Online Banking, Cash Management, Treasury Management
- Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Document Imaging, Enterprise Capture, Information Management
- Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS), Enterprise Software, ASP, Outsourced, etc.
Here is the site: about.me/charanis
Cool and fun!