Who I am

Writer, consultant, community manager, geek.

Freelance writer and online retailer, at the moment. I've also worked extensively as a consultant, manager, and participant in online community. Way back in the Dark Ages before computers, I used to be a typesetter, and I still dabble in web page creation.

What I've Done Recently
The past 15 years or so. Time does fly, doesn't it?

Compass Rose Internet Sales. 2005 and ongoing.
My retail business, selling imported and handcrafted items for home and garden, including fabrics, wall decor, and historical artwork.

BBI Systems, Inc. May 2002 to February 2005.
BBI Systems provides community management and hosting services to various large corporations. For several years, I worked part-time as a chat monitor for AOL US Teen Chats, AOL UK Kids and Teens Chats, and also did some message board moderation for MTV.com. When the contract was transferred to LiveWorld, I moved on to new things.

Smart Computing/PC Novice. 1999-2001.
See publications list. Freelance writing, for articles on technical subjects geared to an audience of new computer users; subjects such as online finance, online research, web site reviews, software and hardware how-to's.

Go.com (Infoseek/Disney). June 1999 to Jan. 2001.
Currently work as Host Manager, with responsibility for adminstration and oversight of the hosts and hosted forums. Began as Chat Room Host working daily with Go.com's online community site, then moved to Chat Room Manager, working with Go.com community hosts doing daily online chats.

Smart Business (formerly PC Computing). 2001.
See publications list. Freelance writing, for articles on technology and the Internet.

Petopia.com. Sept. 1999 to May 2000.
Sysop/host for community message boards.

Netscape Community Forums (Professional Connections). Feb. 1998-Mar. 1999.
Initially worked as a consultant, reviewing the Product Center Forums and advising the vendors/hosts during the beta stage of the PC site. After the site went live, I worked as Hub Guide for the Computing, Internet and Web forums, with responsibilities including writing bi-weekly publicity for the forum web pages, community participation and acting as an advisor to hosts. The Community Forums were part of the popular Netscape Netcenter site, until AOL bought them and shut us down.

Miscellaneous Web Things

Weblogs. Jan. 2004 to present. World Turning. News and Views on Ecology and the Environment. News updates, wildlife histories, forums, link lists, and more. Fierce Planet. Primarily political rants.

The Webby Awards. 2005, 2006. Provided web site reviews for the initial site selection for the Webbys, mostly in the business, non-profit, and community categories.

Utne Communities. 2001. Community management team based around the Utne Reader and the Utne Cafe. Provided community organization, hosting, and management for non-profit and educational organizations.

Web Internet, LLC. Mar.-Apr. 1999. Web site reviewer. Wrote short web site reviews for a catalog of shopping sites.

WellEngaged. Sept. 1998-Jan. 1999. Site monitor for E*Trade discussion forums, monitoring for SEC violations, spam, etc.

MediaCity/ISPChannel. July 1998-Sept. 1998. Production/web research for new set of cable TV-related web sites, with emphasis on building community contacts in various locales.

Electric Minds. May 1997. Contract host of on-line conference for IBM's chess match "Deep Blue vs. Kasparov". Worked as part of a group of hosts providing round-the-clock attention to the conference, which was visited by more than 100,000 people over 10 days.

The Nature Conservancy. Sept. 1990-May 1997.
Boulder, Colorado. Hydrology Technician. Primarily worked as a research assistant in biohydrology, performing detailed statistical analyses and database management. Co-authored articles which appeared in Conservation Biology, Natural Areas Journal, and Regulated Rivers, and also completed one major project for the EPA. Edited, wrote and published our in-house biohydrology newsletter, Cycles, for two years. Organized several biohydrology conferences and classes, performed some teaching and presentations. Helped form and host TNC's on-line biohydrology forum on TogetherNet. Trained and supervised many volunteers and interns while compiling a major database of scientific literature.

What I Did Before That
The 15 years before that.

New Society Publishers. Feb.-July 1990.
Santa Cruz, California. NSP publishes books on nonviolent social change and cooperative decision-making. Worked in both direct mail marketing and production, including copyediting, layout and design, and proofreading of books and marketing materials. Also involved with accounts and invoicing, customer service. Trained and supervised volunteers.

Tucson Cooperative Warehouse. Feb. 1986-Feb. 1990.
Tucson, Arizona. A consumer-owned natural foods wholesaler. Various duties in warehousing and purchasing departments, including orders and customer service, tracking work schedules and error rates. Purchaser for refrigerated and frozen food products, among other things, with over 50 vendor accounts and more than 500 customer accounts, with responsibility for over $1.5 million in sales. Publicity and marketing of new products, set sales with retail accounts. Constant phone contact with both customers and sales personnel. Trained and supervised clerical help and assistant purchasers.

New West Trails. Aug. 1982-Nov. 1986.
Tucson, Arizona. A non-profit publication collective which provided typesetting, layout and design services for political and non-profit organizations. Produced type and layout for flyers, newspapers, books, brochures and all manner of printed materials. Business tasks included budgeting and accounts receivable, sales and expense ledgers. Copyediting, proofreading, customer service, training of new collective members. Consensus decision-making through collective meetings.

Food Conspiracy Cooperative. May 1980-May 1982.
Tucson, Arizona. A consumer-owned natural foods store. Worked in all phases of the business, from cashier-stocker to order receiving and price control, to accounting services such as accounts payable, cash flow budgets, invoice reconciliation. Served twice on Management Team and twice on the Hiring Committee. Trained and supervised new workers. Consensus decision-making through collective meetings.

East Wind Community/Community Products, Inc. Feb. 1977-Feb, 1980.
Tecumseh, Missouri. A living community in the Ozarks which runs a hammock-production business and small working farm. Primary duties were in management and community planning, primarily in the Labor Department as asst. manager and manager. Preparation of work schedules for over sixty members for all community work including farm and childcare, long-term planning for labor and financial budgets. Trained new members in these areas of work. Some bookkeeping: general ledger, labor accounts.

Things I Know
More or less.

Computer conferencing: Have worked extensively with conferencing software, including Engaged, Motet, WebX, Caucus, UBB, and more, both as host and admin. I've used both WordPress and Moveable Type blogging software. I've also spent many happy hours in Muses, IRC, ICQ, and online social games such as Everquest. Some might say too many happy hours.

Software: MS Office (Word and Excel), Word Perfect Suite, Quattro Pro, Lotus, Dbase, Rbase, MS Access, Paint Shop Pro, HomeSite, some accounting and GIS software too. Statistical analysis via SPSS and SAS, though not recently. Lots of 'net software: Firefox, Navigator, Internet Explorer, Lynx, Eudora and Pegasus as well as Unix mailers such as Elm and Pine, ftp in various forms, Usenet access in both Unix and Windows flavors, other miscellany. Familiar with firewalls and security software as well.

Operating Systems: Windows XP, Windows '98, etc. back to 3.0. MS-DOS, a bit of *nix and a smattering of MacOS, AmigaOS (from long ago). Can install and update drivers, though I hate it, and am happy that the latest Windows versions don't require me to worry about manually allocating memory any more.

Hardware: Put together my computers from scratch. Know a bit about networking, including wireless networking.

Some other things I've done
Heart and soul.

The WELL, an online conferencing system with several thousand members. 1993-present. This has been my online home for years, and I've hosted many forums there, including the "Science Fiction TV" conference, "Women on the WELL", "Water", and "Muse" conferences. Co-host of the Spirituality Conference at the WELL-sponsored "State of The World" Forum, member of judges panel for the first annual Well writing awards, and for a time worked on the Tips Team. Currently I am a co-host of the Well's "Media" conference.

I interviewed Pat Cadigan for the Well's Inkwell.vue conference, which spotlights authors and their works. Read that topic and many more in Inkwell.vue, which is publicly readable

The River, a member-owned online conferencing system. 1995-2001. Founding member, co-host of the "Earth" conference, co-administrator for leased Motet conferencing.

Movement for a New Society. 1980-1987. Tucson, Arizona and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. MNS was an organization which performed nonviolent direct action and trained others in nonviolent action and cooperative decision-making. With others, edited and produced internal newsletter (The GrapeVine) and the external newsletter (Dandelion). Trained many people in meeting facilitation, mediation, nonviolent direct action techniques. Member of Tucson local Coordinating Council and National Coordinating Council. Facilitated dozens of meetings with sizes ranging from 10 to 100, conducted mediations and counseling sessions.

Re-evaluation Counseling (Co-counseling). 1979-1985. Participated in classes and private counseling sessions. Organized and facilitated workshops, taught introductory classes.

National Organization for Women. 1971-1975. Toledo, Ohio. Local committee work including research into television stereotypes, local newsletter production. Also worked with several other feminist collectives and projects, including Women Against Violence Against Women, Take Back the Night and a women's theatre group which performed original material.

Where I've Studied
Formally, I mean.

University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, 1993-1996. Majored in Environmental Conservation and Geology, with coursework in hydrology, soils, population biology, limnology and basic ecological principles. No degree.

Short intensive courses in statistics (1993 - Institute for Professional Education) and wetland soils (1995 - Institute for Wetland and Environmental Education and Research).

University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio. 1971-1976. Majored in experimental psychology. Honors program, honors list, dean's list. No degree.

Notes

You sure have done a lot of weird stuff. What can I say? I'm a generalist. I always have been.

Why jnfr? Because I'm a lazy git. I started writing it that way when I lived at East Wind, and never broke the habit.

Ok I admit it. When I build computers I let Fabrice set the boards in the slots. I have trouble with that. And we tag team driver conflicts sometimes, cause it's so crazy-making.

Publications
Technical and scientific, mostly.

View my publication list.

How to reach me

Send email here or email anyone@jnfr.com
View my home page.

Last update: December 6, 2007