I'm an entrepreneur and consultant based in Chicago. I wear two hats - one non-profit and one for-profit (and actually a few additional non-profit hats). My non-profit hat is MeshForum (http://www.meshforum.org) a conference on Networks I started and which was first held at the beginning of this month here in Chicago. We had speakers from around the world, including Esther Dyson and many others.

My for-profit hat is JigZaw (http://www.jigzaw.com) a software and consulting firm I started five years ago in May of 2000. While we started out with angel funding and software ambitions, at present my focus through JigZaw is very high end consulting and the occasional contract software development - typically involving complex data analysis. I describe our consulting as being a bit more technical and in depth than what a McKinsey & Company can offer - I provide business analysis, but also can go deep into the actual code of an application or system to analyze it to make recommendations about whether to enhance, replace or build a new solution to complex business problems.

Our business tends to either be for very large, often Fortune 100 sized firms, or (and this is why I read your blog and Fred's) for early stage startups.

I've been active on the Internet (to the point of managing my own servers) since 1991. I have many friends across the globe who are at various stages of launching businesses. I try to stay up to date on emerging technology, on the VC community, and on general technology and business trends.

(I'm also the technology director of a non-profit, non-partisan public policy think tank - Hope Street Group (http://www.hopestreetgroup.org) and I'm the webmaster for a few other non-profits)

Keep up the interesting writing!

Shannon