Technology Leadership Experiences

Dan's experience working with and leading teams in the realm of technology is impressively broad. Here are some very snippets of his experience. More details about these things may be illuminated in other areas of this site.

- leading technical sales efforts for large multinational clients
- managing "matrixed" teams that do not directly report to him - such as specialty sales, partner sales, or cross-functional software development
- leading product enhancement and implementation team
- leading corporate conference content efforts for multiple products
- leading cross-functional product experience improvement team (resulting in $2mil+ and likely much higher yearly savings)
- leading multi-national teams with members in places such as India, China, and Israel
- overseeing post-sales implementation of solutions in assigned accounts
- leading divisional "Alexa" growth project - creating Alexa-integrations  to grow skills

Over the years Dan has been involved with many product enhancements and innovations, including but not limited to:

- being an inspiration behind and part of the team to architect a patented secure file erasure idea - on which Dan is listed as a co-inventor. (See Patent US10146782 : SECURE ERASURE OF FILES BY A FILE SYSTEM)
- driving multiple product enhancements as a customer advocate from roles both within the product organization and within sales
- carrying responsibility for implementing product enhancements as a software developer - both personally and in the context of managing a development team

Innovation of all kinds (product, process, etc) is core to Dan's wiring: he likes to make new things. (He doesn't love to maintain them as much.) Dan is a creative type. 

As a creator Dan thinks outside the box. Sometimes his ideas are really big. Sometimes he has ideas for small things that make a big impact. At the end of the day, making new and helpful things is one of the core values that drives Dan. 

Dan does not need to directly own the innovation... he's satisfied to simply create. That can look like generating the idea (whether alone or in team context) and working with others as they implement it, more direct involvement in the implementation, or ownership of the implementation. He's more motivated by the big picture conceptual idea, the workings that enable it, and its benefits than he is with the details of how it comes to be. That said, he can see to the details of implementation if needed, and he has done that before.

For a personal example of how Dan loves to create far more than he does the technology used to create, consider the python script he wrote for his own personal interest. (See the Software Engineering page for more details.)

Leadership in the sales environment was constantly part of Dan's role while in sales. He needed to coordinate with his client, lead solution positioning and creation within his direct sales team, lead cross-organization positioning for some of his employer's subsidiary companies, lead the oversight of implementation in conjunction with his assigned project managers, etc. For more details and examples see the Sales page.

Some of the biggest challenges Dan has encountered in leadership include, but are not limited to:

- differing priorities of team members in a matrix leadership environment
- treating people with integrity, honor, and love while also maintaining a culture of accountability (including self-accountability!)
- ownership of outcome without ownership of the people and resources needed to bring it
- cultural and personality differences among team members
- figuring out the best balance between due diligence, deal or project pressure, and likelihood of achieving desired outcome
- adapting when team members suddenly leave, have medical or family problems, etc.
- being patient when the pace of movement is slower than desired and beyond one's control

People need to have fun together. Teams gel when they do things together.

Whenever possible, Dan likes to get people together outside of the assigned work to fellowship and have fun together. Having fun is important!