Can we automate accountability for completing every monthly task required to effectively manage a rental or vacation home? This was 1980. It took several iterations and I had to overcome severe memory limitations of the Atari 400 and Atari 800XL (64kb RAM), but I got it done in BASIC.

Can I “try out” unfinished/unreleased games and share them with my friends? It was not enough to join a BBS, I also had to modify a chip on my Atari 800XL and add a Happy Drive to my disc drive. (1983)

Can I code a simple role-playing game that required text entries like a “choose your own adventure” book? I learned COBOL, Fortran, and Pascal while in college. Assembling Fortran code was the best solution in 1986, so that is how I created a very short D&D type of ‘game’ that my professor used in UT’s testing of NSFNET. [It was too simple, but the story was appreciated because it was creative and had humorous outcomes for bad choices.]

Can I design and build a form that integrates formatted text and images for the World Wide Web? In late 1993 I launched my resume for Mosaic browser users to see. I also frequently tried out new applications that allowed me to code in HTML over the next seven years.

Can I prevent Y2K issues for my employer, Performa Solutions, and some of their key clients? 1999 was the last time I used COBOL for any reason. It was rather simple to expand the hard-coded two character limitation for the ‘year field’ to four characters. I did a few workshops to show our clients how to make the corrections - and how to update the existing dates and calculations in their systems. (Once you went from two to four characters, you had to make sure every date that was already in the database was updated to start with “19” or you got a lot of errors.)

Can I design and build a talent management platform that would allow organizations to identify internal talent (based on competencies) for critical job opportunities or projects? In 2002 collaborated with a developer on a PHP/My SQL solution that included multiple levels of validation for declared knowledge, skills, experiences, and innate abilities - including card sorting (both absolute and Q-sorting). The final product is available on GitHub.

Should we rewrite the entire reservation system for a major cruise line? In 2006 all of the myriad applications were on an AS400. The green screen (or amber, if that is what you had) required travel agents and the company’s contact center agents to know/memorize hundreds of codes to complete or modify a booking (e.g. dates, ship, shore excursions, restaurant reservations, stateroom gifts, dining times, etc.). Plus, each application was written independently and one change could blow up several different parts of the overall system. I was the Business Change Management leader and liaison with the vendor that proposed the change. It took a year of process mapping and endless code validations before we realized that: 1. The solution was going to be very expensive and might become outdated in just a couple of years, and 2. We could overcome some of the hard-coded problems by treating the larger ships as if they were two separate ships in the reservation system. “No” was the right decision at that time.

Can I capture all of the acquired knowledge from 2,700 mortgage originations employees before we shrink the companies? I leveraged SharePoint to build a learning management system (LMS) and Wiki that everyone could contribute to (ostensibly, so that we could identify and recognize best practices and amazing ideas). In 2008 we had collected at least two verified, useful inputs from each employee. The processes, lessons learned, tips/tricks/techniques, and potential future improvements were captured and stored for the day when demand for small-balance commercial securities returned.

Can we create a platform that would automate a vast majority of the underwriting process for small-balance commercial mortgages? We could easily grab credit-worthiness information from numerous sources (and use online presence to validate most of it) and compare/contrast to our risk models - resulting in a clear set of stipulations (additional information requests) for the borrower. Once those were received in a digital format, the system could also update the total package and re-run the risk models. The most expensive people in the process, underwriters, would only be required to review the final results (and have the ability to manually override findings or decisions if something looked suspicious) and sign-off their approval. [I did all of the wireframes in 2014, but the solution was never built.]

Can we provide accurate, on-demand answers to non-performing mortgage customers, so that they don’t have to talk to a human? This was not how the industry behaved and there were concerns about unauthorized access. My wireframes enabled a natural language processing, machine learning solution that not only allowed customers to directly gain access and make informed decisions, the employees in the contact center started using it because it was much easier and faster than the systems used by the industry for many years. (2018-2019)

Can I build a video game on the Cardano blockchain that allows players to sell/buy in-game items using NFTs (and retain a small percentage of each transaction via a smart contract)? The prevailing model is for characters and items to be exclusively owned by a single player. Thus, increasing the likelihood of in-game purchases to quickly level up. [In 2021, the answer turned out to be “Yes,” but I could not afford the cost of development while bootstrapping.]

Can I design a job platform that dramatically deescalates the war between recruiters with their applicant tracking systems and the candidates who are using spray and pray tactics leveraging LLMs? I am presently working on the logic behind a SaaS that would provide companies with more accurate (and validated) information about an external candidate’s competencies, while also dramatically improving the accuracy of job descriptions, so that candidates really know what the work will be.

Other noteworthy projects:

• 16 digital games (Android mobile games and browser-based games)
• Digital version of Your Career Adventure Workbook

Let me know how I can help you or your organization.