About Christopher Aedo

Fri February 26 2010 by Christopher Aedo

For the longest time, this site has had no "about" page. It's Christopher Aedo's personal blog, so it's not very professional or career oriented. Just the same, there are plenty of useful tech-related posts sprinkled in here and there (so there's definite bleed-over between private and professional stuff).  In addition to the tech stuff, I love to brew beer, mountain bike, run, lift, do adventure races, camp, dive, build things and fly airplanes.  All of THAT stuff tends to keep my mind pretty open and active, so at work I am good at thinking around corners and bringing a unique perspective.

Considering the fact that the search engines are indexing the goods, I might as well throw in something to address the professional side of me.  So how about an abrupt transition to a professional-profile to cover the old "what's this guy all about on the work side of life?"

Professionally, in every position I’ve held (full-time, contract based or even advisory), I’ve become the nexus between nearly all departments. I have a talent for presenting extremely complicated concepts in an easy to digest manner for even the most non-technical folk. I believe more communication is often better than less, and I always try to make sure people understand WHY we are doing something first and foremost. As a talented communicator, I’ve been invited to speak at multiple conferences both in the US as well as internationally. Most recently in Okinawa I learned the true spirit of “omotenashi” at what was probably my most exciting speaking engagement yet. (It is very difficult to translate into english, but it has to do with perfect hospitality - every time I visit Japan I am reminded again of how friendly and welcoming their culture is!)

When it comes to management, I see the people I’m in charge of as humans with amazing talents rather than simply a group of interchangeable or easily replaced assets. The most important thing I can do is try to foster their strengths and improve their weaknesses, and make sure we’re striking the best possible balance of mutual benefit. Building fantastic teams is not easy, but it’s probably been the best part of every position I’ve held. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished to date, but I’m far more thankful for all the incredibly talented people I’ve been able to work with so far.

If you do find any of this to be interesting, feel free to contact me at doc@aedo.net, or via LinkedIn.