| Objective | To integrate everything into the Web |
| Overview | Mark is an expert in, and a student of large scale distributed systems and software architecture in general. He has a special interest in Internet scale software and protocols, and in particular an in-depth understanding of the workings of the World Wide Web and the REST architectural style that inspired much of its design. He believes that, for the foreseeable future, the bulk of innovation in Internet scale systems will occur atop the Web. He is best known as the leading proponent for REST style Web services which leverage the architectural characteristics of the Web itself for machine to machine communication and integration. He spent much of his own time during the previous decade, working within standards setting organizations in order to ensure that Web services specifications either took maximal advantage of the Web, or failing that, at least avoided being harmful to it. Mark is also well known for his efforts to build out the Mobile Web through work in standards setting organizations, as well as through creating innovative mobile/wireless products at two startups, one of which he co-founded. |
| Target Position | Chief Architect, Chief Technology Officer, or similar, of a small to medium sized business developing software to help companies integrate their information systems, either internally or externally. My role could involve any or all of the following;
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| Experience |
Zepheira LLC, 2009- Principal Software Architect, developing primarily open source software solutions for clients such as OCLC, Eli Lilly and the World Health Organization to enable social data curation and integration, improve visualization and navigation, and otherwise reap the benefits of publishing Linked Data on the Web. Day Software, 2009 Senior Architect, responsible for development, installation, optimization, and troubleshooting deployments of Day's Web Content Management (WCM) software for various North American customers. Smoke Labs Media, Ottawa. 2008 CTO of a blogging network focused on mobile and social media, responsible for developing and supporting a high performance, highly available, scalable, search-engine friendly blogging platform for multiple properties. Coactus (self-employed), Ottawa. 2003-2011 Principal of a consulting services company specializing in large scale integration efforts wanting to leverage the full power of the Web. Clients include Microsoft, where I advised on the WCF and Windows Live API projects, and Justsystems Corp., where I was an evangelist and strategist for the xfy project. I also represented Justsystems in the W3C in the Compound Document Formats WG. Nanometrics, Ottawa. 2003-2004 Chief architect of initiative to improve scalability and manageability of networks of seismographs and related analysis and distribution equipment, and to permit their customers to more easily share and integrate data over the Web. Designed all protocols and data formats, and developed a new compact binary application envelope (which could be roughly described as SOAP plus DIME plus RDF), suitable for use over both satellite and land-line links. Rove Mobile (formerly Idokorro Mobile), Ottawa. 2001-2003 Co-founder and CTO. Designed core HTTP routing platform used to solve many integration problems seen in the mobile space. Represented company in the W3C as Advisory Committee member, and a participant in the XML Protocol and Web Services Architecture working groups. Sun Microsystems, Inc., Ottawa. 1998-2001 Senior Staff Engineer. Part of core team involved in combined IETF/W3C/WAPforum work to bring the WAPforum in line with existing IETF (HTTP 1.1) and W3C (HTML) standards. Co-edited XHTML Basic (and RFC 3236), the core of WML 2.0, to that end. While doing this, lead the development of a J2ME mobile XHTML Basic browser, and contributed to the development of the J2ME platform. Participated in various high level, cross-organizational strategy teams, including the one that decided to proceed with supporting SOAP 1.1. Represented Sun on the XML Protocol Working Group at the W3C shortly thereafter. Also served as Chair of the W3C Mobile Interest Group in 2000. Beduin Communications, Ottawa. 1998 CTO for startup developing applications for mobile devices, including a Web browser. Responsibilities included defining technical strategy for company, tracking and/or contributing to various related standards of the day (HTML 4, iCalendar, etc..), and architecting integrated multi-application component framework used by all applications. Acquired by Sun in 1998. Nortel, Ottawa. 1996-1998 Re-architected portions of global HR IT systems to use CORBA and the Web. Nortel, Toronto. 1994-1996 Lead core team providing augmented CORBA based infrastructure to a large scale integrated telecom service management system for SONET networks. Teleride Sage, Ltd., Toronto. 1992-1994 Lead Automatic Vehicle Location & Control (AVLC) team, developing monitoring & control systems for public transit authorities around North America. |
| Education | Queen's University, Kingston. Class of 1991 Honours B.Sc in Mathematics and Engineering, Control and Communications option. |
| Availability and Status | I'm currently happily employed. I am a dual citizen of Canada and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. |
Contact me via phone, email, or ICQ.
For more information about me, including specifications and publications, see my home page