ThePlaz's Biography - Revision history

ThePlaz: add some stuff

2011-08-05T13:19:18Z

add some stuff

ThePlaz: fix nuvola

2010-11-13T05:30:23Z

fix nuvola

ThePlaz: rewrite my bio; still far from perfect, but up to date

2010-11-13T05:27:43Z

rewrite my bio; still far from perfect, but up to date

ThePlaz: Reverted edits by Douchefag (Talk) to last revision by ThePlaz

2010-10-18T05:45:24Z

Reverted edits by Douchefag (Talk) to last revision by ThePlaz

Douchefag at 05:35, 18 October 2010

2010-10-18T05:35:32Z

ThePlaz: fix spelling angel

2009-04-28T02:27:04Z

fix spelling angel

ThePlaz: add suburb of phila

2008-06-17T16:36:55Z

add suburb of phila

ThePlaz: add website

2008-06-16T21:49:47Z

add website

ThePlaz: fix link

2008-06-13T20:30:03Z

fix link

ThePlaz: update to current info and add a lot

2008-06-13T20:26:36Z

update to current info and add a lot

@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
 ==MIT==
 At MIT, Michael is involved in many activities. In his first semester, Michael became a [[SocialSaver|research assistant]] at the [[MIT Media Lab]] where he developed Facebook applications and user interface concepts for use in research projects.  Michael also got a campus job as a [[Residential Computing Consultant]], a position in the Information Services and Technology department offering front line support to students in his dorm.  Michael was also elected [[VPFS|VP of Facilities and Services]] in his dorm where he has a $6,000/year budget to maintain the stock of common rooms and loanable equipment.
-Michael is also active in student government on campus.  In freshmen year he was the undergraduate rep on the [[Athena Committee|committee to evaluate changes to the Athena and printing systems]].  The institute has already implemented some recommendations, and is working to implement the rest.  Michael also serves as a representative on the [[RFP Committee|Institute committee to award the new House dining contract]] (worth ~$4 million/year) putting him in the center of the largest political conflict on campus.
+Michael is also active in student government on campus.  In freshmen year he was the undergraduate rep on the [[Athena Committee|committee to evaluate changes to the Athena and printing systems]].  The institute has already implemented some recommendations, and is working to implement the rest.  Michael also served as a representative on the [[RFP Committee|Institute committee to award the new House dining contract]] (worth ~$4 million/year) putting him in the center of the largest political conflict on campus.
 ==Deutsche Bahn==
-In the summer of 2010, Michael worked at [[Deutsche Bahn[[, the state-owned railway of Germany.  Michael worked in the Project Mobility/Touch&Travel department, under the "Innovations Manager" for NFC (Near Field Communications).  Michael worked with him to extend NFC acceptance across other Deutsche Bahn departments, as well as Germany-wide, including taking part in meetings with partners and vendors.  Michael also designed the system architecture for new form factors of Touch&Travel, as well as the look of the smartphone interface.  Michael also prototyped (mockups) and developed (PHP, MySQL, HTML, JS/AJAX) a concept for pulling data together from different data "silos" within the Bahn to give consumers quick access to data to make their trip easier.
+==NextJump==
 ==High School==
 Michael graduated from [[Haverford High School]] with a 4.7 out of 4.0 GPA.  In later years he was a regular anchor of H-Vision, the school’s morning news program. Michael supports education for all, through his website, ThePlaz.com, where he has several thousands sheets of knowledge, freely available to all with a connection to the internet. Michael's passion for knowledge enables him to excel in school. Among Michael's peers, he has earned a reputation for hard work. In his freshman year, the yearbook staff chose Michael to be the section cover page of the "Academics" section title page.
 ==Web Projects==
 ===GridView===
 Michael developed several websites and web projects while in high school.  The most notable among them was GridView.  GridView was an application for Facebook which let users display of their friends' profile photos on their own Facebook profile.  Michael got the idea for GridView on the last day of [[10th Grade]], "What does the name Facebook mean?  There is no place to see everyone's face."  Michael used his newfound free time to experiment with the newly announced Facebook platform.  Very quickly the application became popular, with the number of users snowballing.  Michael attributed GridView's success to Facebook's Newsfeed which spread word about the application, as well as its visibility on user's profiles.  "I think the cleanness of the design attracted users to it.  I tried to keep it clean and usable, without all of the ads everywhere."
@@ Line 24: / Line 27: @@
 GridView grew to over 1,300,000 users.  Unfortunately in 2008, Facebook changed the layout of the profile and the usage of GridView fell precipitously.  GridView was essentially profile artwork - when Facebook changed the profile the art work become hidden.  We tried twice to build a second act, when we acquired my business partner's old firm [[ForumsPlace]] and building a petitions platform [[4Change]].  Unfortunately I did not have the time to dedicate to the projects and they never got any traction.  I think the timing of the economy had a lot to do with it, GridView's revenue was mostly from other app developers waving VC cash advertising their applications.  However the Facebook bubble burst and the entire economic environment became a lot more challenging.  Still, I personally made a profit from the venture, and I gained far more experience than other experiences high schoolers.
 Michael also produced [[Tecker 911]], a video podcast to help people with basic technological concepts.  The show was shot in Michael's house by a team of his friends.  Michael led the team, diving out the duties to write, host, shoot, and edit the episodes.  The shows were also shown on the local public access cable TV station.  100 episodes were ultimately produced over the 3 years. One of the former participants went on to major in new media production.

@@ Line 32: / Line 32: @@
 In the summer of 2008, Michael grew frustrated with the new map that Flickr released and he set out to build his own.  He also wanted to gain more experience with JavaScript, so he designed [[Geoov]] which displays all of his flickr photos on a map at one time.  Geoov uses the MarkerCluster to display over 20,000 markers on the map at once.
-Over the summer of 2009, Michael designed a new skin for my website "[[Nuvola skin|Nuvola]]."  Michael first fell in love with the Nuvola icon set in 2006 and he sketched a first design for the site then.  "It was a lot of work to upgrade the look of MediaWiki because years of subtitle accumulated modifications in MediaWiki make the code hard to decipher.  It also required a lot of CSS trickery to get it to work in all of the major browsers."  Michael also implemented a lot of the Yahoo! Speed optimization tricks into the site - such as image sprites - significantly improving page load.  In addition, Michael implemented server-side caching with Memcached.  Since then I have also made a few more extensions to MediaWiki.
+Over the summer of 2009, Michael designed a new skin for my website "[[Nuvola Skin|Nuvola]]."  Michael first fell in love with the Nuvola icon set in 2006 and he sketched a first design for the site then.  "It was a lot of work to upgrade the look of MediaWiki because years of subtitle accumulated modifications in MediaWiki make the code hard to decipher.  It also required a lot of CSS trickery to get it to work in all of the major browsers."  Michael also implemented a lot of the Yahoo! Speed optimization tricks into the site - such as image sprites - significantly improving page load.  In addition, Michael implemented server-side caching with Memcached.  Since then I have also made a few more extensions to MediaWiki.
 In middle school and early high school Michael made a lot of programs for the [[TI-83+|TI-83+ graphing calculator]].  This was Michael's first exposure to programming.  "Looking back the syntax was very basic - but I could build really simple program while sitting in the car."

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-[[Image:Combo Logo.png|thumb|200px]]
+'''Michael Plasmeier''' is a [[sophomore]] at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] (MIT) in Cambridge, MA, pursuing a double major in both [[Management Science]] (15) and [[Electrical Engineering and Computer Science]] (6-2).  Michael bridges the divide between computers and people - more interested in how technology can be used to help people's lives rather than the raw math behind them.    Michael has experience in both web development and designing user interfaces as well as managing a team and business strategy.
-[[Image:Michael Plasmeier October 2006.png|thumb|200px|October 2006]]
-'''Michael Plasmeier''', otherwise known as ThePlaz, has been a life long friend of technology.  His website it http://theplaz.com Michael's passion is for website product design and project management.  He is also an effective manager and business leader.  His public speaking background along with his technical knowledge makes him comfortable in front of or behind the camera.  Michael is also an "A" honors student.  Although he is not the smartest in the school, his willingness to participate in class and spread his knowledge, makes some students state otherwise.  Michael remembers amazing his kindergarten teacher with his technology skills.  He is 17 years old and lives with his parents in [[Havertown]], Pennsylvania (a suburb of Philadelphia) and attends [[Haverford High School]] as a senior.
-==Websites==
+==MIT==
-Michael runs several websites and web services.  On [[Facebook]], he runs [[GridView]], an application which lets users add all of their friend's profile pics onto their profiles.  GridView has received light angel funding and Michael works with and manages overseas development teams. GridView currently has 700,000 users.
-Michael also produces and regularly hosts, [[Tecker 911]], a video podcast which brings technology into hands of normal people.  Tecker 911 is also shown on Havertown's local public access [[Channel 11]].
+At MIT, Michael is involved in many activities. In his first semester, Michael became a [[SocialSaver|research assistant]] at the [[MIT Media Lab]] where he developed Facebook applications and user interface concepts for use in research projects.  Michael also got a campus job as a [[Residential Computing Consultant]], a position in the Information Services and Technology department offering front line support to students in his dorm.  Michael was also elected [[VPFS|VP of Facilities and Services]] in his dorm where he has a $6,000/year budget to maintain the stock of common rooms and loanable equipment.
-Michael developed [[SeniorQuoter]], a free, open-source PHP application which allows high school yearbooks to collect senior quotes.  In [[11th Grade]], Michael led a 5 person group study [[Dynamic Website Building Instruction and Practical Experience Group Study]] at [[Haverford High School]] where the group, under Michael's supervision, learned PHP and MySQL and built version 2 of SeniorQuoter.
+Michael is also active in student government on campus.  In freshmen year he was the undergraduate rep on the [[Athena Committee|committee to evaluate changes to the Athena and printing systems]].  The institute has already implemented some recommendations, and is working to implement the rest.  Michael also serves as a representative on the [[RFP Committee|Institute committee to award the new House dining contract]] (worth ~$4 million/year) putting him in the center of the largest political conflict on campus.
-Michael has also written many programs for the [[:Category:TI|TI-83+ graphing calculator]] and a [[ThePlaz.com's Dropdowns for MediaWiki|drop down menu for MediaWiki]].
+==Deutsche Bahn==
-==Education==
+In the summer of 2010, Michael worked at [[Deutsche Bahn[[, the state-owned railway of Germany.  Michael worked in the Project Mobility/Touch&Travel department, under the "Innovations Manager" for NFC (Near Field Communications).  Michael worked with him to extend NFC acceptance across other Deutsche Bahn departments, as well as Germany-wide, including taking part in meetings with partners and vendors.  Michael also designed the system architecture for new form factors of Touch&Travel, as well as the look of the smartphone interface.  Michael also prototyped (mockups) and developed (PHP, MySQL, HTML, JS/AJAX) a concept for pulling data together from different data "silos" within the Bahn to give consumers quick access to data to make their trip easier.
-Michael is a senior at [[Haverford High School]].  He is a regular anchor of [[H-Vision]], the school<nowiki>’</nowiki>s morning news program.  Michael supports education for all, through his website, [http://theplaz.com/ ThePlaz.com], where he has several thousands sheets of knowledge, freely available to all with a connection to the internet.  Michael's passion for knowledge enables him to excel in school.  Among Michael's peers, he has earned a reputation for hard work. In his [[9th Grade|freshman year]], the yearbook staff chose Michael to be the section cover page of the "Academics" section title page.
-Michael is also the technology manager for the publications department.  He also takes photos of many school events and publishes them on his [http://flickr.com/photos/theplaz/sets flickr account].
+==High School==
-==Community Service==
+Michael graduated from [[Haverford High School]] with a 4.7 out of 4.0 GPA.  In later years he was a regular anchor of H-Vision, the school’s morning news program. Michael supports education for all, through his website, ThePlaz.com, where he has several thousands sheets of knowledge, freely available to all with a connection to the internet. Michael's passion for knowledge enables him to excel in school. Among Michael's peers, he has earned a reputation for hard work. In his freshman year, the yearbook staff chose Michael to be the section cover page of the "Academics" section title page.
-Michel believes that he can best server the global community by utilizing his special technology skills to make an impact on the greatest number of people.  Michael's community service is highlighted by his involvement with [[SeniorQuoter]] and [[Tecker 911]].  Michael also has posted several thousand [[:Template:Main_Page:Video|videos]] and [[:Template:Main_Page:Photos|photographs]].  Most of these photographs are freely available under the Creative Commons license.  Most of Michael's school work and notes is also available under a similar license.
-==Business Experience==
+==Web Projects==
-Michael is a proven business leader.  Through GridView, Michael has gotten first-hand experience with running a business with a significant amount of revenue (for a high school student).  Through this, Michael also has gotten experience with advertising networks, analytics, contracts, as well as negotiations over investment and equity.
-==Leadership==
+===GridView===
-Through Tecker 911 and the SeniorQuoter group study, Michael has gained the ability to effectively lead and organize teams of 4-6 people.  As the producer of Tecker 911, Michael is responsible for gathering ideas, scheduling shoots, acquiring and setting up equipment, as well as using his theater and public speaking experience to direct and coach the other anchors.  For the SeniorQuoter group study, Michael directly project managed a team of 4 developers working on an open source PHP application.
+Michael developed several websites and web projects while in high school.  The most notable among them was GridView.  GridView was an application for Facebook which let users display of their friends' profile photos on their own Facebook profile.  Michael got the idea for GridView on the last day of [[10th Grade]], "What does the name Facebook mean?  There is no place to see everyone's face."  Michael used his newfound free time to experiment with the newly announced Facebook platform.  Very quickly the application became popular, with the number of users snowballing.  Michael attributed GridView's success to Facebook's Newsfeed which spread word about the application, as well as its visibility on user's profiles.  "I think the cleanness of the design attracted users to it.  I tried to keep it clean and usable, without all of the ads everywhere."
-For GridView, Michael meets regularly with his business partner to talk about and discuss ideas. Michael then writes the specifications to send to a development team overseas.  Michael then manages the project to the completion of his exacting specifications.
+Michael attracted some light angel funding for the project and a minority partner who brought years of experience in the industry.  Together they started building up GridView.  Michael designed a "rearrange" flash applet for GridView and then put it out for bid.  For the month as the flash application was being developed, Michael got up at 5AM every day before school to manage the overseas development team building the project.  Michael also hired and managed an independent domestic developer.
-Michael is regularly chosen to lead groups in school for school projects.
+GridView grew to over 1,300,000 users.  Unfortunately in 2008, Facebook changed the layout of the profile and the usage of GridView fell precipitously.  GridView was essentially profile artwork - when Facebook changed the profile the art work become hidden.  We tried twice to build a second act, when we acquired my business partner's old firm [[ForumsPlace]] and building a petitions platform [[4Change]].  Unfortunately I did not have the time to dedicate to the projects and they never got any traction.  I think the timing of the economy had a lot to do with it, GridView's revenue was mostly from other app developers waving VC cash advertising their applications.  However the Facebook bubble burst and the entire economic environment became a lot more challenging.  Still, I personally made a profit from the venture, and I gained far more experience than other experiences high schoolers.
 ==Acting==
-Michael also has some acting and technical theater experience.  He has acted in three shows while he was at [[Haverford Middle School]], stage managed a fourth, and was a casting consultant for a fifth.  Through the [http://www.peopleslight.org/ People<nowiki>’</nowiki>s Light and Theater Company]<nowiki>’</nowiki>s youth school, he has performed at the [http://www.constitutioncenter.org/ National Constitution Center] in downtown Philadelphia.
+In middle school and early high school Michael was involved in both acting and behind the scenes in both school and professional theater.  He was in three shows while he was at Haverford Middle School, stage managed a fourth, and was a casting consultant for a fifth. Through the [[People’s Light and Theater Company]]’s youth school, he has performed at the National Constitution Center in downtown Philadelphia.  Michael also volunteered at People's Light in the lighting department.
-[[Category:Me]]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[Image:Combo Logo.png|thumb|200px]]
 [[Image:Michael Plasmeier October 2006.png|thumb|200px|October 2006]]
-'''Michael Plasmeier''', otherwise known as ThePlaz, has been a life long friend of technology.  His website it http://theplaz.com Michael's passion is for website product design and project management.  He is also an effective manager and business leader.  His public speaking background along with his technical knowledge makes him comfortable in front of or behind the camera.  Michael is also an "C-" honors student.  Although he is not the smartest kid in the shortbus, his willingness to participate in class and spread his knowledge, makes some students state otherwise.  Michael remembers fucking his kindergarten teacher with his technology skills.  He is 36 years old and lives in his parents' basement in [[Havertown]], Pennsylvania (a suburb of Philadelphia) and attends [[Haverford High School]] as a senior citizen.
+'''Michael Plasmeier''', otherwise known as ThePlaz, has been a life long friend of technology.  His website it http://theplaz.com Michael's passion is for website product design and project management.  He is also an effective manager and business leader.  His public speaking background along with his technical knowledge makes him comfortable in front of or behind the camera.  Michael is also an "A" honors student.  Although he is not the smartest in the school, his willingness to participate in class and spread his knowledge, makes some students state otherwise.  Michael remembers amazing his kindergarten teacher with his technology skills.  He is 17 years old and lives with his parents in [[Havertown]], Pennsylvania (a suburb of Philadelphia) and attends [[Haverford High School]] as a senior.
 ==Websites==
-Michael runs several websites and web services, that suck.
+Michael runs several websites and web services.  On [[Facebook]], he runs [[GridView]], an application which lets users add all of their friend's profile pics onto their profiles.  GridView has received light angel funding and Michael works with and manages overseas development teams. GridView currently has 700,000 users.
 ==Education==
-Michael is a dropped out of [[Haverford High School]].
+Michael is a senior at [[Haverford High School]].  He is a regular anchor of [[H-Vision]], the school<nowiki>’</nowiki>s morning news program.  Michael supports education for all, through his website, [http://theplaz.com/ ThePlaz.com], where he has several thousands sheets of knowledge, freely available to all with a connection to the internet.  Michael's passion for knowledge enables him to excel in school.  Among Michael's peers, he has earned a reputation for hard work. In his [[9th Grade|freshman year]], the yearbook staff chose Michael to be the section cover page of the "Academics" section title page.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[Image:Combo Logo.png|thumb|200px]]
 [[Image:Michael Plasmeier October 2006.png|thumb|200px|October 2006]]
-'''Michael Plasmeier''', otherwise known as ThePlaz, has been a life long friend of technology.  His website it http://theplaz.com Michael's passion is for website product design and project management.  He is also an effective manager and business leader.  His public speaking background along with his technical knowledge makes him comfortable in front of or behind the camera.  Michael is also an "A" honors student.  Although he is not the smartest in the school, his willingness to participate in class and spread his knowledge, makes some students state otherwise.  Michael remembers amazing his kindergarten teacher with his technology skills.  He is 17 years old and lives with his parents in [[Havertown]], Pennsylvania (a suburb of Philadelphia) and attends [[Haverford High School]] as a senior.
+'''Michael Plasmeier''', otherwise known as ThePlaz, has been a life long friend of technology.  His website it http://theplaz.com Michael's passion is for website product design and project management.  He is also an effective manager and business leader.  His public speaking background along with his technical knowledge makes him comfortable in front of or behind the camera.  Michael is also an "C-" honors student.  Although he is not the smartest kid in the shortbus, his willingness to participate in class and spread his knowledge, makes some students state otherwise.  Michael remembers fucking his kindergarten teacher with his technology skills.  He is 36 years old and lives in his parents' basement in [[Havertown]], Pennsylvania (a suburb of Philadelphia) and attends [[Haverford High School]] as a senior citizen.
 ==Websites==
-Michael runs several websites and web services.  On [[Facebook]], he runs [[GridView]], an application which lets users add all of their friend's profile pics onto their profiles.  GridView has received light angel funding and Michael works with and manages overseas development teams. GridView currently has 700,000 users.
+Michael runs several websites and web services, that suck.
-−
-Michael also produces and regularly hosts, [[Tecker 911]], a video podcast which brings technology into hands of normal people.  Tecker 911 is also shown on Havertown's local public access [[Channel 11]].
-−
-Michael developed [[SeniorQuoter]], a free, open-source PHP application which allows high school yearbooks to collect senior quotes.  In [[11th Grade]], Michael led a 5 person group study [[Dynamic Website Building Instruction and Practical Experience Group Study]] at [[Haverford High School]] where the group, under Michael's supervision, learned PHP and MySQL and built version 2 of SeniorQuoter.
-−
-Michael has also written many programs for the [[:Category:TI|TI-83+ graphing calculator]] and a [[ThePlaz.com's Dropdowns for MediaWiki|drop down menu for MediaWiki]].
 ==Education==
-Michael is a senior at [[Haverford High School]].  He is a regular anchor of [[H-Vision]], the school<nowiki>’</nowiki>s morning news program.  Michael supports education for all, through his website, [http://theplaz.com/ ThePlaz.com], where he has several thousands sheets of knowledge, freely available to all with a connection to the internet.  Michael's passion for knowledge enables him to excel in school.  Among Michael's peers, he has earned a reputation for hard work. In his [[9th Grade|freshman year]], the yearbook staff chose Michael to be the section cover page of the "Academics" section title page.
+Michael is a dropped out of [[Haverford High School]].
-−
-Michael is also the technology manager for the publications department.  He also takes photos of many school events and publishes them on his [http://flickr.com/photos/theplaz/sets flickr account].
-−
-==Community Service==
-Michel believes that he can best server the global community by utilizing his special technology skills to make an impact on the greatest number of people.  Michael's community service is highlighted by his involvement with [[SeniorQuoter]] and [[Tecker 911]].  Michael also has posted several thousand [[:Template:Main_Page:Video|videos]] and [[:Template:Main_Page:Photos|photographs]].  Most of these photographs are freely available under the Creative Commons license.  Most of Michael's school work and notes is also available under a similar license.
-−
-==Business Experience==
-Michael is a proven business leader.  Through GridView, Michael has gotten first-hand experience with running a business with a significant amount of revenue (for a high school student).  Through this, Michael also has gotten experience with advertising networks, analytics, contracts, as well as negotiations over investment and equity.
-−
-==Leadership==
-Through Tecker 911 and the SeniorQuoter group study, Michael has gained the ability to effectively lead and organize teams of 4-6 people.  As the producer of Tecker 911, Michael is responsible for gathering ideas, scheduling shoots, acquiring and setting up equipment, as well as using his theater and public speaking experience to direct and coach the other anchors.  For the SeniorQuoter group study, Michael directly project managed a team of 4 developers working on an open source PHP application.
-−
-For GridView, Michael meets regularly with his business partner to talk about and discuss ideas. Michael then writes the specifications to send to a development team overseas.  Michael then manages the project to the completion of his exacting specifications.
-−
-Michael is regularly chosen to lead groups in school for school projects.
-−
-==Acting==
-Michael also has some acting and technical theater experience.  He has acted in three shows while he was at [[Haverford Middle School]], stage managed a fourth, and was a casting consultant for a fifth.  Through the [http://www.peopleslight.org/ People<nowiki>’</nowiki>s Light and Theater Company]<nowiki>’</nowiki>s youth school, he has performed at the [http://www.constitutioncenter.org/ National Constitution Center] in downtown Philadelphia.
-[[Category:Me]]