Mark-IT





 


     

 

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(Winter 2000/2001)


1. OVERVIEW

Mark has over 35 years experience in the computer field covering hardware, software, networks, MR Data-processing, data-base, communications, Internet and client support.

He spent 20 years in the market research/advertising industry developing, marketing and supporting leading-edge products for interactive database enquiry systems. In this field, he shared his expert - contributing regularly to technical seminars, submitting articles for the media and providing strategic consultancy to research agencies and research departments of the larger service/manufacturing companies around the world.

Since 1995 he has been responsible for a number of Internet based retrieval system and e-commerce applications. He has headed (internal and external) development teams and delivered to them the benefits of advanced technology.

His experience has been gleaned from three perspectives - strategic planning, development/operation of technical products and managing support teams. As a director of a number of successful companies he is familiar with financial, legal and marketing issues associated with providing services in the fast?growing IT field. He works well as part of a senior team of internal and external consultants to put together the best resources for satisfying business needs.

2. ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE

Mark obtained a BSc in Mathematics/statistics and MSc in Computer Science in 1967. His then acquired in-depth knowledge of statistical and database technology. He now lectures regularly in two main areas - large-scale data retrieval/archiving and the benefits/practical aspects of Internet technology. He is a prolific writer and a list of some 20 recent professional papers is available on this web-site.

3. MOST RECENT INTERNET DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

During 2000, Mark was the CTO of E-tep (http://www.e-tep.com/) building an Internet based Trading Exchange in the financial sector, and responsible for all IT matters within the company - see also http://www.interactiveintelligence.net/. Work involved the development of the web-based e-commerce application, including formal design, documentation, load-testing, help-desk systems and marketing/support to the clients. It included the on-going maintenance of the in-house technical infrastructure - hardware and software, liaison with third party software suppliers

Mark became familiar with the business area and the needs of the users in the Traded Endowment Policies (TEP's) market. As a result he was a key member of the senior management and the Board to advise on the feasibility of new business developments.

4. MANAGEMENT SKILLS

Mark has been at the helm of many companies. He understands well what makes a company tick - marketing, finance (budgets, funding), admin, and personnel. This, combined with his technical knowledge, provides a unique combination of skills for the evolution of all IT concepts, projects and products.

5. HARDWARE/SOFTWARE SKILLS

  • Worked on PC's, IBM/ICL Mainframes, PRIME and VAX minis - across a full range of Operating Systems. Has particular skills in UNIX and its' derivatives, utilities and concepts. User, and developer, of local and wide area networks, Internet protocols, telephony systems, web-technology and construction of 'active' web-sites/interfaces.
  • Languages include the 'old' COBOL, PL1, Fortran, Algol, Assembler through to the modern VB, VBA and C. Speciality is "awk" - contributes regularly to the comp.lang.awk newsgroup and was a co-author of the FAQ.
  • Over 20 years experience in various specialist statistical data-reporting/analysis programs - often provides training for experts in this field.
6. WORK EXPERIENCE
  • 1960's - COBOL programmer/analyst in the IBM Mainframe market place - set-up the UK's first IBM based computer bureau service in 1970.

  • 1970's - moved into the data-analysis field initially as programmer then technical director of the bureau. Developed state of the art interactive editor/tabulator of structured data. Had a 2-year spell in the IBM world (selling very advanced telecommunication concepts).

  • 1980's - held senior Board position in software houses (Quantime - see later) with responsibility for sales, technical development and online bureau services.

  • 1990's - Set up Mark-IT (initially ISPC) - company specialising in tools and consultancy for data-delivery. Produced a network/internet delivery system for financial/statistical reports as used by over 6,000 clients around the world.


7. CAREER SUMMARY

1979 - 1989 - QUANTIME

Quantime is a software house providing high quality software and support services for the Market Research industry. In 1996 they were acquired by SPSS - in a deal worth around $50M - to supplement their base of statistical and analytical products with specialist MR related IT systems - see http://www.spss.com/spssmr

Mark was one the founding partners helping to forge the sales, marketing and technical focus of their programs. His speciality was the interactive system data-analysis system - Quanvert - that has over 10,000's users around the world. It was a very fast and user-friendly system running on both PCs and UNIX platforms. He set up an internal consultancy division - Quanline - to help people load up their large survey database - for interactive access, remotely by clients and researchers.

Clients included British Telecom for their TELCARE project, Department of Employment with the Labour Force Survey, ISIS - providing doctor/prescription based data for the pharmaceutical industry and Farmstat - farmer/agricultural data for the agro-chemical industry.

1989 to present - Mark-IT (ISPC)

After leaving Quantime in 1989, Mark formed the IT consultancy company marketing -

  • General consultancy in the wider Market Research field selling, together with a number of colleagues, IT services, consultancy and products to users in the private and public sector.

  • The e-tabs package (initially ite) a program suite for converting numeric/tabular reports into web-based documents (see http://www.e-tabs.com). The system was sold to over 6,000 users in 40 countries around the world. This division was subject to a Management Buyout in January 2000

  • Web/Internet consultancy services - assisting companies setting up e-commerce systems. Helped some of the UK's largest companies to set up Intranet systems and integration with external sources of research data. Controlled development/management of a web-based Trading System for the Tep (Traded Endowment Policies) market place - see above.

8. CONTRIBUTION TO THE MR INDUSTRY

Mark is an Associate member of the British Computer Society and member of the Market Research Society and of ESOMAR.

Mark contributes regularly to the UK Market Research Society, ESOMAR and ASC seminars - has given papers and convened seminars in USA, Australia, South Africa and many counties in Europe. Has published technical papers for conferences organised by IMRA, IASSIST and British Computer Society Data-base specialist groups. Has written many articles for the MR Media and gave a keynote address at the SGCSA meeting in 1992 on Secondary analysis of large survey databases.

9. PERSONAL

Mark is 56 years old, a native of Wales but has lived in London for over 40 years - is married with 4 children and a growing number of grandchildren. He sits on many local social/communal committees, produces a monthly e-newsletter and has set up newsgroups and information web-sites for his local community. His current hobbies include cycling, gardening and IT career training for school leavers. For relaxation, he develops data-efficiency tools based on his extensive knowledge of UNIX, its utilities and web/HTML publishing systems.

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