Some highlights of my 30+ years of being a digital nomad while watching the Internet, software, and wireless technologies change the way we live and interact.
- Witnessed the evolution of MLS services back in the late 80’s transform from printed MLS books to the online world as a young real estate broker at 19 years old. Back then you would print a listing on a dot matrix printer via an 8600 baud modem. You could watch your grass grow faster than information travelled over copper lines back then.
- Worked as a part-time software trainer for Microsoft. I was able to participate in the global launch of Office 94. Microsoft Office has come a long way from back then.
- During the explosion of the Internet and networking hardware, I was a member of the data convergence team for Cabletron systems, a fortune 500 company where I was able to get trained on Nortel Systems products like the Passport and some of their legacy hardware. Back then, I travelled to Dallas, TX where Nortel had a campus and it was called telecom corridor back in the day. Yes, we all carried Crackberries back then or Nextel phones with click to talk. I was also part of the deployment team where we installed Goldmine CRM for thousands of sales reps in the early days when software was installed via CDs. I later moved to over to a Cabletron sister company called Velocity Solutions, a hardware agnostic solutions provider when voice and data systems where converging.
- In late 1999, I was recruited to join a start-up internet telephony company in Dallas, TX called call IPOperations (A play on IP and IPO) where we helped pioneer click to talk technology (long before anyone knew how to connect speakers and a microphone to their computers). We were probably one of the first companies at the time to put phones in the hands car dealers to take calls directly from the Internet. I remember a story from a Mercedes Benz dealer in Miami Florida where the sales guys would arm wrestle to see who got to take the Nextel phone home for the weekend. After the dot com bubble burst, we survived by wholesaling VoIP minutes around the world, but VC money dried up. It was during this time I cut my teeth on organic search and paid advertising. Showing up in Yahoo before Google become the dominant player in the space was easy.
Too be continued…