Apart from being a term that's popping up more and more lately, it describes a particular type of person: A mixture of left-brain logic and technical focus with a right-brain creative and wandering twist. Some have also referred to creative technologists as "Creeks" - creative geeks - although this sounds a bit too spooky for me.
A playful and curiosity-driven approach to life, paired with a pragmatic and logical approach to getting things done are traits which make creative technologists useful to have around in today's ever-changing and technology-oriented World.
I currently have over 28 years of practical IT market experience ranging from technical roles through to international sales and marketing management. I've worked for small start-ups and for large multinational organisations (where I was blessed with the experience of what it's really like trying to market products and services for such an organisation!). My initial exposure to programming was with IBM mainframes and DB2 back in 1984. Moving through the worlds of client/server (Sybase, PowerBuilder) and Distributed Computing (Java), I found my home in the worlds of web and mobile development. I've developed web sites, web-based applications, complex distributed solutions and mobile games - not to mention many Facebook applications. My experience has prepared me for just about any type and size of project that you can throw at me.
That's the "Geek" side pretty much wrapped up. But what about the right-brain "Creative" that marks out the true creative technologist?
I've always tinkered, fiddled, played with things to see how they work, taken things apart, built things, had crazy ideas, painted things, drawn things, made music and found myself making something. That's what I do. For me, life is a journey - a constant quest to find the best way to use technologies to make our day-to-day existence easier and more fun!
If you take a good look at the products which shape our World you'll see that those which are most memorable are those which invoke an emotional response - they don't just work: They work wonderfully, beautifully and provide joy. People bond with them. That's how all products should work. Information Technology is no exception. Applications should elicit the same response and provide pleasure alongside functionality. The creative technologist should be a key member of any team working on any product or service.
So. I'm a creative technologist.
The timeline link on the right will give you more of an insight into my background and, just as importantly, what I'm doing now. Take a look. Any questions, contact me and I'll respond as quickly as I can.
To keep up to date with my various technological (and even other) adventures, check out my blog