About
About Joel Foner
Problem Solver, Communicator, Project Manager, Coach
I’ll keep this short, and leave the rest to my resume, to the folks who have written recommendations below and my LinkedIn profile.
I am a problem solver, communicator, project manager and coach with an uncommon array of business, consulting and technology skills, as well as expertise in technical and consultative sales support and software development.
I’m an Agile Certified ScrumMaster, and lead successful local and geographically distributed teams in multiple areas of the information technology industry using both Agile and conventional methodologies. In addition to face to face settings, I regularly manage projects, hold business meetings, lead distributed teams and create engaged communities using social media, telepresence and virtual worlds platforms.
I have led multiple troubled project rescues, received formal awards, and my work regularly generates enthusiastic customer feedback and consistent, positive, measurable results.
Practice Areas
Agile Scrum and conventional Project Leadership
Coach and shepherd teams to deliver outstanding results and positive community response.
Team Process Development and Improvement
Process improvement, enhanced team communication, innovative and appropriate use of collaborative technology.
Consultancy and Small Business Coaching
Tailored coaching for consultants and entrepreneurs to find and close more business, manage expectations, complete projects and deliver projects more successfully, have more on-going business and develop powerful recommendations.
Troubled Project Rescue
Repeated success in rescue of troubled projects, both small and large.
We Are The Network
Facilitation of team and community building programs in face to face and virtual settings.
Best regards and thanks for stopping by,
Joel (contact info)
Recommendations
Also found on my LinkedIn profile
“Joel was director and production manager during the 2008-2009 season of the Metanomics series, a weekly virtual worlds business series done in conjunction with Treet TV. Joel and I worked together on every episode…. he managed the inworld team and event team while we at Treet managed the live video production.
One thing I love about Joel is his attention to detail and the ability to adapt rapidly to changing circumstances and requirements. There is no substitute for these skills when you’re doing live production. Joel inherited an existing production, but within weeks, reorganized the way production materials were designed, submitted and managed.
The resulting season was a significant step forward from the first season, and we will miss Joel as he moves onto bigger and better things. Joel also has a comprehensive knowledge of audio production as well as virtual worlds technical details. Joel was responsible on numerous occasions for diagnosing problems and implementing changes to minimize the chances of such problems occuring in the future.
I can personally recommend Joel highly.”
September 16, 2009
Gary Wisniewski, CEO and Founder, SLCN.TV / Treet.TV
was with another company when working with Joel at Remedy Communications Ltd.
“I worked with Joel on a project at Linden Lab upgrading the physics engine in Second Life. This was a complicated, long project that required coordination between developers, QA, product management and customers. Joel was at the center of this, juggling the requirements and keeping the project moving along. He did an excellent job of coordinating the moving parts and keeping everyone up-to-date. One key element he brought along was a pilot user program, allowing us to put development code in the hands of our customers for real-world testing. This was crucial to our ultimate success – we never would have finished without the valuable feedback and bug reports from hundreds of users. Joel coordinated this and made it work. I definitely recommend Joel for future work and know he can organize and manage large complex projects to successful completion.” December 15, 2008
David Simmons, Developer, Linden Lab
worked directly with Joel at Linden Lab
“Many businesses today can be analyzed as networks, as connections between people, services, objects, ideas and values. Okay, this is a complicated way to say that in this day and age of online media, conversations are crucial. I participated in forum discussions at the Metanomics community in Second Life which were facilitated by Joel Foner, and now I participate in his forum discussions at We Are the Network, also in Second Life. Joel is a great conversation-facilitator, an expert in unlocking the creativity of communities, by inviting people to take part in a conversation, and in masterfully combining creativity with structured discourse.” September 24, 2009
Roland Legrand, Chief Internet & New Media, Mediafin
was with another company when working with Joel at JoelFoner.com – We Are The Network
“Joel was the project manager for the Havok4 project for Second Life at Linden Lab. The Havok4 project was very complex and involved upgrading twenty thousand virtual world regions from Havok1 to Havok4. These regions contained hundreds of millions of user created objects many of which were scripted.
Joel brought an innovative approach to incrementally testing the Havok4 engine first on the Beta Grid, then on the Beta Grid with customer regions and finally on an opt-in basis on the public grid. Afterwards, the entire public grid was updated. There were many software issues that he and the team worked through. Joel also spent extensive time communicating to and interacting with the Resident community.
The Second Life resident community was very appreciative of Joel’s approach and developed a large fan base within the community. The project was considered a strong success by the Residents and within Linden Lab.”
February 8, 2009
Hamilton Hitchings, Director, Linden Lab
worked with Joel at Linden Lab
“I worked with Joel as a vendor; he was my contact at the client, Remedy Communications. Joel was a pleasure to work with, intelligent and technically saavy, making support a pleasure. I wish all of our clients had someone like Joel interacting with our products.
I also found that Joel had an excellent grasp of the potential to which a technology could be taken, as well as a complementary sense of the relevant business cases. Joel has my highest recommendation.”
August 18, 2009
Nicholas Chase, President, InterSection Unlimited
was with another company when working with Joel at Remedy Communications Ltd.
“I had the pleasure of working with Joel Foner during most of 2009 on the weekly interview show Metanomics. I served as host and Editor-in-Chief, and Joel served as the producer and project manager of Metanomics in his capacity as an employee of Remedy Communications.
Joel was exemplary in the three key roles he played in Metanomics: as the technical expert for a highly complex media project; as a project manager overseeing a large number of staff and volunteers; and as a community manager for the hundreds of Second Life residents who participate in weekly programming and live events.
The technical component of Joel’s job placed him on the ‘bleeding edge’ of technology, and required him to interweave Second Life simulator/script management with web and video technologies. Joel kept these moving parts working together smoothly in the face of constant surprises. Metanomics tends to be an unwieldy project to manage, facing the exigencies of weekly production deadlines as well as a highly distributed work team (with key players in Ithaca, Boston, Toronto, Australia and elsewhere).
My motivation for transferring management of Metanomics to Remedy Communications was that I wanted the project to be managed reliably, with minimal demands on my own time. Joel did a great job, since that is exactly what happened.
Finally, Metanomics is more than just a weekly talk show; it has a large and vibrant community of people who take virtual worlds seriously, and want to explore their enterprise and educational uses. Joel did an excellent job engaging the community, and in particular was a thoughtful and much-liked host of a weekly ‘forum,’ in which he led discussions and brought out community viewpoints.
I was very pleased to have someone as reliable, easygoing and professional as Joel to work with on Metanomics, and I would strongly recommend him for any job that includes tasks that would take advantage of his skills as a project manager, technical expert, community manager, or consultant.”
August 11, 2009
Robert Bloomfield, Founder and Editor in Chief, Metanomics
managed Joel indirectly at Remedy Communications Ltd.
“Joel is a rare breed, with strong people management and technical skills alike. One of his more notable achievements at Linden Lab was replacing the complex physics system that is the foundation of Second Life. By every right, such a fundamental rework should have been a very disruptive event, but Joel expertly managed the transition.
On one hand, Joel kept his team on task and focused on priority issues. At the same time, he fostered the growth of a huge team of beta test volunteers and kept them excited about participation. In turn, these testers provided a steady stream of useful information, became evangelists for the new technology, and persisted in looking for other projects to test under Joel’s guidance.
By keeping the community engaged and informed, they enjoyed what would have been a frustrating experience at most other companies. I was very sorry to hear of Joel leaving. Managing live transitions in a public-facing product is no easy task. We have more transitions coming, and few could do this work better.”
December 12, 2008
Brian McGroarty, Developer, Developer, Developer, Developer!!! >:O, Linden Lab
worked directly with Joel at Linden Lab
“Joel Foner has become THE premier facilitator of live discussions in virtual world environments. For “We Are The Network” weekly meetings in the Second LIfe virtual environment, he chooses engaging topics, provides links to relevant “prep” materials, and then creates and and manages a lively interactive discussion in voice and text. On occasion he includes group viewings of videos, links to relevant web pages, and poll questions and weaves them into a free-flowing, in-depth conversation among as many as 40 individuals from all over the world. “We Are The Network” may have begun as a personal project, but the skills that Joel has developed in leading these sessions would be invaluable in any situation that requires brainstorming or intensive problem solving with a diverse group of individuals.”February 11, 2010
Cindy Harris, Participant, We Are The Network
“Joel is an exceptional community developer with a keen eye for developing technologies like online video interaction and immersive spaces. His more technical work with Linden Lab (makers of the Second Life platform) has been superceded by his recent work with Remedy, whose use of the same platform is exemplary.
In particular, Joel has been associated with the community surrounding “Metanomics” – a weekly television broadcast focused on the more serious aspects of virtual environments and the economies that drive them.
He has successfully nurtured a large subset of the programme’s viewers to create a highly participatory group which discuss and exemplify the changing nature of communication and its application in the areas of politics, education, commerce and other business. It’s vibrancy will be a lasting legacy for both its participants and those who learn from it.”
August 10, 2009
Mal Burns, Metaverse News Aggregator & Broadcaster, malburns.com
was with another company when working with Joel at Remedy Communications Ltd.
“Joel is an industry leader in his field. As such, he brought a deep skill set and knowledge to his tasks working with Remedy which led to increased efficiencies and cost savings, the development of supporting tool sets and programs to support operations, and increased engagement with target audiences and communities.
Joel’s work specifically on Metanomics, a weekly broadcast on the serious uses of virtual worlds, demonstrated his multiple levels of expertise, spanning technical knowledge, community management, and project and process management. Joel also supported client-specific work ranging from highly technical in nature (.NET framework integration) to social media/community based.
Joel oversaw work with a rare diligence and thoroughness. Project plans were detailed, and extremely well executed. More important, Joel was able to create clear value in managing an ecosystem that included subject matter experts, volunteers, users, community members, and team members. In the challenging social and immersive media environments this is a rare skill set, especially when coupled with deep technical expertise.
Further reference information available on request. Note that the ’service category’ choice is highly arbitrary for this candidate!”
August 18, 2009
Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, High Integrity
Doug Thompson
hired Joel as a IT Consultant in 2009
“I have been fortunate to have Joel as my mentor for 12 months. He has been extremely approachable and responsive to my questions and learning needs. My technical knowledge is much less than Joel’s, but he had endless patience for explaining the basics to me. His explanations were thoughtful and clear, and I learned a great deal.
Due to the fact I am in Australia time frames were conflicted, however Joel was willing to work to my availability to ensure we could meet. I looked forward to talking with Joel as he was supportive, thoughtful, and willing to talk about both business and personal concerns. For challenges I was having Joel was good at helping me look at things in new ways, and nutting out exactly what the problem really was. I will sincerely miss his support and guidance.”
December 21, 2008
Belinda Andrews, Customer Service Agent, Linden Lab
worked with Joel at Linden Lab
“Joel is extremely organized and logical. He has a very analytical way of working through options and creating documentation around decision factors and workflows that I found very useful. His attention to project ownership is impressive, covering both the wide-scale effects as well as minor details, and projects that he has worked on are guaranteed to have lot of thought and research put into them. It was a pleasure working with Joel.” December 15, 2008
Donya Shirzad, Program / Project Manager, Linden Lab
worked with Joel at Linden Lab
“I was a user of Joel’s product at LL. During development cycle he was unusually responsive to user input, in fact, sought it out assiduously. The environment was difficult organizationally and technically, and he pulled it off with excellence. It was a pleasure being a user/customer. I’d hire the guy.” December 12, 2008
Top qualities: Great Results, Personable, High Integrity
Randy Bush
user of a developed product that Joel was product / project manager for in 2007
“Joel did a stunning job of conceptualizing and delivering an extremely valuable sales tool. The result – a Google Map overlaid with information on local broadcast markets, stations that had signed up, and more – was useful for strategic planning, fundraising and our fast nationwide rollout.
Joel delivered the application in record time, in a way that fit how we collected and updated data. Smart, quick on the uptake, superb results and flexibility. Was thrilled to have him working with us…”
December 11, 2008
Top qualities: Great Results, High Integrity, Creative
Steve Weiss
hired Joel as a IT Consultant in 2006
“As the primary architect of the original website for the charter school I co-founded (www.mcaulifferegional.org), Joel coordinated a team of IT experts and delivered an incredible product. He also gave me concrete, sensible guidance to support my web designer for my own company (www.thinkingoutsidetheclassroom.com).
Joel is able to attend to both the small details that affect people’s often unconscious judgments of a site and the big picture issues, such as site flow. It’s fun seeing his amazing mind at work and getting his well-considered opinions.”
February 5, 2009
Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, Creative
Michael Delman
hired Joel as a IT Consultant in 2004, and hired Joel more than once
Common mis-spellings of Joel Foner (for the benefit of the search bots):
Joel Forner, Joel Phoner, Joe Foner
