My buddy Shawn is probably best known as being The ADO Guy, but lately has rebranded himself. More on that below. I caught up with Shawn in between his extensive travels and asked him these NINE Questions:
1. Where are you from?
While I was born in Brooklyn, NY I really grew up in south Florida. I’ve moved around a lot with the highlights being my stops in Amsterdam, Boston and Portland, Oregon. I currently live in Atlanta where I’ve spent several five year stints, but this time it’s a permanent home...at least that’s what Tricia tells me ;)
2. Give me the 10 second pitch on what you do.
I own a small consulting and training company (http://wildermuthconsulting.com). While we have a number of small projects going, our main effort these days is running The Silverlight Tour (http://silverlight-tour.com). On the tour we teach a three day workshop based on a class that I authored. The workshop covers design, development and server-side interaction. We teach it in cities across the continental US, while our partners teach it in Canada, Australia and Latin America, in English, French and Spanish.
3. How did you end up where you are now?
I spent the ‘90s working for a lot of start-ups and moved quite a lot. But after following the work for so many years, we decided to settle down in a town I love, Atlanta.
4. I know you're "The ADO Guy" and now "The Silverlight Guy" but what are some of your other areas of technical expertise?
Data has always been my passion. I started on pre-RDBS’s on CP/M systems in my teens and continued doing database development through dBase, Paradox, Clipper, FoxPro, SQL Server, Oracle to where I am now. I spent a lot of time developing data driven applications in C++ and VB until .NET was announced. Since that I’ve been deep into the .NET, working and consulting on a variety of subjects. During that time I’ve authored or co-authored five books and a bunch of articles.
5. I see you Twitter a lot and you're obviously a travelin' man... what's got you burning up the airways lately?
The Silverlight Tour mostly...We teach it a new city once or twice a month so I am on the road a lot. I am back to doing more conferences as well so my next few months is going to be busy with a couple of European conferences in October.
6. Speaking of Twitter, what's your take on the whole social networking boom? Love it hate it, why?
I think some of the social sites are useful for coordinating distance relationships (e.g. past co-workers, etc.) Twitter on the other hand is a different beast for me. In many ways it serves two purposes: a replacement for mailing lists (as you can get very immediate responses and great dialogue about issues); as well as a replacement for trivial blogging (like what 360 games I am playing or what movies I am watching).
7. What's something the world doesn't know about Shawn Wildermuth?
I have a reputation for working quite a lot...the reality is that I work just enough...I maybe a night owl, but some nights are spent with Nico as much as I do with VS.
8.As you said, you're a really busy dude... got any time for non-technical hobbies? What are they?
When I can find time, I still yearn for the time when I could spend time playing and singing music.
9. Last of all... any ADO or Silverlight tattoos (or any others)?
No tattoo’s yet...