Resumé
Raven Zachary
4834 NE 18th Avenue, Portland, OR 97211 USA
(503) 334.1810
email: raven@rinzai.com
web: www.rinzai.com
Availability: speaking engagements, panels, contributed articles, non-vendor advisory boards
Topic Focus: open source and open standards, iPhone platform market and iPhone SDK
Overview
out of date - updates pending
Raven is the Open Source Research Director for The 451 Group and covers open source software and its impact on software vendors, end user organizations, and the investment community. He is also responsible for the 451 Commercial Adoption of Open Source (CAOS) Research Service, which produces a regular series of research reports and provides ongoing advisory services to clients.
Prior to joining The 451 Group, Raven was the Senior Technical Editor and Consulting Industry Analyst for Enterprise Open Source Journal, and the editor of The Open Source Update, an open source industry newsletter. He was also the principal of o*rev, an enterprise open source consulting firm working with enterprise IT and software vendors on open source strategy.
Before launching o*rev, Raven was Director of Internet Technology for La Quinta Inns, a nationwide lodging company, where he implemented an open source e-commerce system. Raven’s success with open source at La Quinta has been featured in a number of magazines, including Information Week, CIO, Optimize and Application Development Trends. He has spoken on the topic of open source at a number of industry conferences, including the CIO Executive Summit, JBoss World, the Cognizant Community Conference and the Information Week Conference.
Raven has also served as Director of Engineering and Site Manager of the Austin, Texas, office for Excite@Home. During his time at Excite, Raven had direct experience building robust, scalable, consumer Internet services for one of the leading Internet companies. His early work history includes the creation of Studio X, an Internet service provider and Web design company, in early 1994, as well as work with the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Radio Free Europe in Prague.
In 1998 Raven cofounded The Communicator for Rhapsody Project, an open source project to bring the open source Netscape browser (now Mozilla) to the Rhapsody Operating System (now Mac OS X). The project team included volunteers from Netscape Communications and Apple, along with independent programmers.
Media References
Featured or quoted in over one hundred technology articles, including Reuters, AP, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Forbes, Wired, CNET, Investor’s Business Daily, Technology Review, Venture Beat, InformationWeek, Red Herring, The Motley Fool, ZDNet, eWeek, IDG News Service, CRN, NetworkWorld, InfoWorld, Computerworld, Optimize, PC Magazine, and others.
Speaking Engagements
Presented or participated in panels at a number of events, including Open Source Business Conference (OSBC), O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON), LinuxWorld, CIO Executive Summit, SIIA Forum, JBoss World, Linux on Wall Street, InformationWeek Conference, Macworld, Enterprise Open Source Confrence, IBDNetwork Under the Radar, a number events products by The 451 Group, various webinars, and others.
Proficiencies
out of date - updates pending
* Over ten years of professional experience with open source and the Internet, in a variety of capacities from an entrepreneur to engineering director to advisory board member.
* Experience in writing business plans and contracts, presenting to venture capitalists, managing local and remote teams, online services strategy and marketing, designing software and networks, classroom instruction, technology journalism, public speaking, serving on advisory board, and bridging the gap between product marketing, design, and engineering.
* Managed projects utilizing Akamai, Ant, Apache, Application Performance Management, AppleScript, ASP, BSD UNIX, C, C++, CGI, Cisco, Client Software Engineering, Clustering, Cocoa, Content Management, CSS, CVS, DNS, Eclipse, EJB, F5, Flash, FTP, HTML , HP/UX, IIS, Informix, J2EE, J2SE, Java, JavaMail, JavaScript, Java VM Tuning, JBoss, JBuilder, JDBC, JMS, JSP, LDAP, Linux, Load Balancing, Load Testing, Mac OS X, MIDI, Multicasting, MVC, MySQL, Offshore Development, Open Source, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Performance Tuning, Perl, Personalization, PHP, Portals, QA, Rational Rose, Rich Internet Applications, RMI, Sendmail, Servlets, Session Replication, Shell Scripting, SMTP, SOAP, Socket Programming, Solaris, SQL, SQL Server, SSH, SSL, Streaming Audio, Struts, Sun ONE, TCP/IP, Tomcat, UDP, UML, UNIX, Usability Testing, Video Over IP, VPN, WebDAV, WebLogic, Web Services, Windows NT/2000, Wireless IP Services, XML, and XSL. (This is not a complete list)
* Direct experience building robust, scalable, consumer Internet services for one of the world’s leading Internet companies. Several of these services have generated in excess of one million page views per day
* Open source advocacy, Internet technology and development, infrastructure, architecture, management, offshore and nearshore team leadership, aesthetic computing, digital alchemy, awareness and intent, manifesting creative ideas through the use of technology.
Employment
The 451 Group, Portland, OR
Research Director, Open Source
February 2006 to present
Open Source Research Director for The 451 Group, an IT Analyst firm. Responsibilities include coverage of both open source industry and community issues, as well as the Commercial Adoption of Open Source (CAOS) Research Service.
o*rev, Dallas, TX
Principal
March 2005 to February 2006
Founder of o*rev, an enterprise open source consulting firm. Worked with enterprise IT and software vendors on open source strategy. Clients included JBoss, Novell, and Metallect. o*rev was acquired by The 451 Group in February 2006.
La Quinta Inns, Dallas, TX
Director, Internet Technology
May 2001 to April 2005
Responsible for the development and operation of www.LQ.com, as well as various Internet technology projects for the company. During the four-year period, annual online revenues grew from $4M to $40M.
* Migration of hosted eCommerce website
* Creation of highly scalable data center infrastructure
* Hiring and management of internal development team
* Offshore development management
* Development of new eCommerce website, LQ.com (83% revenue growth in 2003)
* Integration of multiple data partners via XML APIs
* $3M+ annual budget management
* Partner connectivity projects with WorldRes (sockets), hotels.com (web services), and Expedia (web services)
* Rich Internet Applications development
* Migration of middle-tier from WebLogic to JBoss
* Use of multiple open source solutions
* Deployment of application and infrastructure monitoring solutions
* Email management system rollout for multiple departments
* High Speed Internet Access launch for select hotels
* Portal management for PeopleSoft Financials project
* Member of the Intranet project team
* Speaker at the 2004 Information Week Spring Conference, “Opening up to Open Source”
* Interviewed for open source articles in Information Week and Optimize magazines
Excite@Home (previously Excite), Austin, TX
July 1998 to April 2001
Director of Engineering / Austin Site Manager
September 2000 to April 2001
Director of Engineering and Austin Site Manager for Excite@Home. Responsibilities included day-to-day management of the Austin Excite@Home office, including financial and staffing issues. In addition to the Austin Site Manager duties, responsible for various development projects relating to Webshots and Excite@Home client technology initiatives.
Engineering Manager
July 1999 to September 2000
Engineering Manager for the Excite Photo Center. Responsibilities included management of the engineering staff, project tracking and prioritization, overseeing the launch process, business deal analysis, budgeting, and product strategy. In addition to these duties, acted as the Program Manager for the Webshots Desktop client for Macintosh.
Production Manager
July 1998 to July 1999
Production Manager for Communities, including the Excite People & Chat Channel, Message Boards, Chat, Clubs, and Instant Messaging. Responsibilities included management of the design and engineering production staff, project tracking and prioritization, content programming, online event production, and statistics reporting and analysis.
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Prague, Czech Republic
Senior Internet Analyst
July 1996 to June 1998
Member of the Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Internet Team based in Central Europe. Team duties included special projects management, Internet technologies analysis, multi-lingual content planning, development and administration of the RFE/RL web site and Intranet, and the creation of streaming audio services.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM
Hypermedia Team Leader (Contractor)
July 1994 to June 1996
Contractor for the Computing Division (CIC) at LANL. Served as team leader of an Internet technology group. Additional responsibilities involved software industry relations, desktop video-conferencing and handheld computing analysis, and the creation of an electronic software distribution system. Obtained DOE “L” Security Clearance for work with sensitive / classified data.
Studio X, Santa Fe, NM
Director
December 1993 to June 1995
Director and co-founder of a web site design and Internet Service Provider company (Santa Fe’s first public Internet gateway). Duties included project management, coordination of online publishing projects and web site design, marketing, public talks and demonstrations, UNIX system administration, and software and hardware support.
Publications
The 451 Group. 2006-Present. Numerous written works on the topic of open source, from blogging to long-form research reports.
Optimize Magazine: “Six Options for Open-Source Support.” March 2006.
The Open Source Update, 2005-2006: Editor of EOSJ’s weekly email newsletter, “The Open Source Update” - an open source news summary with more than 20,000 subscribers.
Enterprise Open Source Journal, 2005-2006: “The Prince and the Golden Egg: A Tale of Open Source Project Fund-Raising”. January / February 2006. “The Commercialization of Open Source”. November / December 2005. “OSCON 2005 Recap”. September / October 2005. “Perspectives on CAOS” Column.
OS Xing, 1999-2000: Contributing Editor and Columnist for MacWEEK.com, a leading Macintosh news site. The weekly OS Xing column explored Mac OS X Server and the forthcoming Mac OS X operating system.
The Rhapsody Report, 1998: Editor of a weekly report summarizing Apple Computer’s future Operating System efforts. The report was available via the web and via email and had a weekly readership numbering between 10,000 and 15,000.
Advisory Boards
Enterprise Open Source Journal, 2005-2006: Member of the Enterprise Open Source Editorial Advisory Board.
JBoss, 2004-2006: Member of the JBoss Customer Advisory Board.
Champlain College - e-Business & Commerce Program, 2000-2002: Member of the Advisory Board for Champlain College’s e-Business & Commerce Program. Champlain College is a private, non-profit college located in Burlington, Vermont.
Zonagram Networks, 2000-2002: Member of the Advisory Board for Zonagram Networks, a private Internet company based in Seattle, WA.
Consulting
Enterprise Open Source Journal, 2005-2006: Senior Technical Editor & Consulting Industry Analyst for Enterprise Open Source Journal (EOSJ), a new magazine covering the emergence of open source solutions in the enterprise. Editor of EOSJ’s weekly email newsletter, “The Open Source Update” - an open source news summary with more than 20,000 subscribers.
Addison Wesley, 2000-2003: Book proposal review and technical editing. Twelve titles on topics such as Java, UNIX, Cocoa (Objective-C), Web Services, Macintosh, Wireless, Personal Area Networking, and RSS.
Zuma’s Electronic Cafe, 1995-1996: Technical consultant hired to oversee the implementation of the Internet connection and creation of Internet services within the Cafe. Other duties included training and management of the technical staff and strategic planning. Zuma’s, located in Santa Fe, was a joint venture between Dave Mark and Robin Williams, two well-known computer authors.
AT&T Teleconcert Series, 1994-1996: Santa Fe Telecommunications Director for three telecommunications events involving music, dance, and video art. Duties included design and operation of data and multimedia network systems in coordination with technical staff in New York and Los Angeles. The series was a collaboration between the California Institute of the Arts and The Electronic Cafe International sponsored by AT&T.
Michael Linder Productions, 1995: Internet advisor for a media production company. Primary duty was the development of Internet services to compliment the television program, Berserkistan, a series focusing on the lives of photojournalists. Michael Linder Productions is the creator of “Reality Television,” PBS’ Future Quest, and the Fox Network series America’s Most Wanted.
Santa Fe Community College, 1994-1995: Part-time instructor of introductory Internet and information technology courses (3 semesters, 5 classes). Students in these five classes gave an instructor rating averaging 4.75 out of 5. In addition to teaching, served as a consultant to the Information Systems Department on upgrading their Internet infrastructure and supplying enhanced computing services to the college.
Perfect World Productions, 1995: Internet and online marketing consultant for an interactive world-beat television series proposed to Nickelodeon and Disney. The series, Zeitbeat, was co-created by Michael Stearns, composer of such films as Baraka and Chronos, and Universal Studios’ Back To The Future ride.
Projects
iPhoneDevCamp. 2007: Founder and co-organizer of iPhoneDevCamp in San Francisco, July 2007.
BarCamp, 2005-Present: Co-organizer of both BarCampAustin1 and BarCampPortland1.
The Mozilla for Mac OS X Project, 1998: Co-founder, along with Chris McAfee from Netscape Communications, of a project to bring Mozilla (the Netscape web browser) to Apple’s Rhapsody (now Mac OS X) Operating System. This project team included volunteers from the Netscape Communications and Apple, Inc., along with independent programmers.
ADlet, Inc., 1996-1997: Founder and President of a startup company intending to utilize intelligent technology to provide advertising relevant to its audience. The primary use of ADlet technology was to control advertising banners on Internet search engines. Portions of the company were sold to Adletts International LLC in October 1997.
The Small World Game, 1994-1996: Co-designer of an Internet application that intended to assist people in connecting through acquaintance chains. Potential uses of the product included auto-updating of contact data and other assorted PIM functions, locating business contacts through a “friend of a friend”, targeted advertising, polling, and gaming.
toolCards, 1993: Inspired by the work of Christopher Alexander (A Pattern Language) and Ted Nelson (Xanadu), the toolCard project set out to develop a new medium based on two-sided cards. Described as a sort of “philosophical Tarot”, toolCards attempted to break down contemporary philosophical concepts into simple elements with basic visual and written descriptions.
References
Available upon request.
last updated 2007.09.08
