Speaking

Since 2007, Tommy has been leading seminars, sessions and workshops at events and to corporate audiences throughout Ontario and the north-eastern United States. He has entertained and educated rooms of all sizes and works with material across every skill level. Tommy’s focus is on delivering lessons in a way that connects with his audience using stories and real-world examples. For more information about having Tommy speak to your group or at your event, please see the bookings page.

Current Talks

Featured Series - Tommy’s featured presentations are crafted to tell a story and are filled with tips, advice and lessons from various projects and observations. Each of these are timed to about an hour and have optional handouts, though digital ones are highly recommended. This series is well-rehearsed and rotated on a regular basis to keep content current and relevant. Tommy’s current lineup:

• Broken Fishbowls - Web-savvy people blog, tweet, check-in, read feeds and are said to be living in a fishbowl – disconnected from the people who don’t “get it”. There’s no fishbowl, though – and in a lot of ways there never has been. Hear the story of “Mike” – a guy who’s never been to Flickr, has only heard of Twitter on TV and couldn’t draw the RSS icon if he tried. But he’s active, social and lives on the web every day alongside the rest of us. Think you know Mike? You might just be surprised at just how much you’ve got in common.

• Living On The Cloud - Since early 2007 Tommy has worked tirelessly to eliminate desktop applications one at a time and move towards a computer-agnostic lifestyle based exclusively on web applications and browser-based software. Learn which applications he’s using to live his virtual lifestyle and how he’s designed his business to allow him to run his ‘office’ from any web-connected computer or smartphone. Plus, find out where we stand in web application development and what’s still missing.

• Making Minutes Count - Tommy had never felt comfortable billing his web development clients for an hour when a task took 10 minutes, so in early 2009 he changed his billing scope forever and started billing for all of his services by the minute. What wasn’t apparent at the time was how much this simple change would completely alter his workflow and make him more efficient. Learn dozens of simple, easy tips to speed up your own processes and find out which single web application lets him stay on top of his business. [Retires: May, 2012]

• Coming Soon: Appaholics - Being connected to the digital space means playing and working with smartphone apps daily. With no time for notes, this rapid-fire, high energy talk squeezes quick tips and reviews for more than 100 apps across all major platforms (Android, iOS, Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry where possible) into an hour. Bring a pen – or two – as you quickly jump into the world of the app, learn what’s common, what’s missing and which apps you need to stay connected.  [First Available: August 2012]

Learning Lunchbox  Series - Tommy has developed this “note-free” lesson series for small groups looking to learn a single, heavily-focused topic. Each of the talks in this series are timed to approximately 30 minutes and include time for questions and digital (or physical) copies of all of the talking points so that the audience can focus on their lunch and not on taking notes. With lunch included and more than three dozen topics to choose from, this series is the perfect way to spend time with great company, learning something new. A sample of current lessons:

• Facebook Fan Pages
• Facebook Privacy
• Social Media in Five Steps
• An Introduction to Twitter
• WordPress Theme Basics
• Your check-ins matter: A guide to location awareness
• The love (and hate) world of Groupon
• Hip to be square: Effective use of QR codes