Well, it has been a long time coming, but I am finally jumping back into the blogosphere with my latest incarnation, rural TECHNOCRAT. Before I jump into discussing what I hope to achieve with this site let me briefly go over a little about what I have previously achieved on the Web.
During 2006 and part of 2007 I was the creator and sole editor of Shift+Backspace, a blog dedicated to the promotion of Linux and open-source software. I was extremely passionate about the proliferation of software with freedom and, for that for that reason, I provided over one thousand daily visitors with various software/distribution reviews, opinion pieces, and news related to the open-source community. The project was beneficial on a personal level as it helped me improve my written communication skills and gave me a sense of belonging, along with credibility, in the open-source community. The project came to a close as I began a co-op position with Goldman Sachs causing my free time to slowly dwindle away – without contributions on a regular basis it was difficult to continue and as such Shift+Backspace was retired.
A lot of time has passed between 2007 and 2009 so what have I been doing? Well, first and foremost, I completed my education – receiving both an Honours Bachelor of Business Administration (HBBA) and an Honours Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (HBSc) from Wilfrid Laurier University, located in Waterloo, Ontario. There have been various side projects with friends, notably one called Ninja’s Ninja. A group of friends and I found that we were continuously sharing funny videos, images, and insults with each other so we thought a website to share these would be ideal – sadly it was not. My partner in that pursuit has since become a Hawaiian-shirt-wearing and outdoor-living hippie. He is attempting to “reinvent”, either himself or the world by gathering a group of people to start a hunter-gatherer group in Ontario or New York. Feel free to hit up the Reinvent 2009 website for details.
There you have it, a brief look into my life for the past few years. So what is the deal with rural TECHNOCRAT? I originally used the domain to showcase my amazing experiences and skills to potential employers. While this was fine, I wanted to start discussing my passions – the Web, technology and business. It is my hope to pursue a career in the field of Internet marketing, trend analysis or business development for a technology firm. To tie these together future posts on this site will bring together ideas, resources and commentary that relate to my passions and career aspirations.
Well, I should stop rambling and start working on some content! I encourage everyone to contact me through the Contact page with recommendations, ideas, complaints, and anything else you can think of. I truly hope to provide my community of followers with quality content on a regular basis and with your support I see only success.
Take care everyone,
Cole
