Hi! I am Dimitri Glazkov and I am the Chief Technology Officer of Estrada, a software development company hailing from Birmingham, AL.

My journey into the social networking began in 1999, when at University of Alabama at Birmingham, a bunch of us built wow.uab.edu, a site that was created as a conversation between scientists, travelling in remote parts of the world (Antarctica, for instance) and those interested in science.

This was kind of a big deal back then, considering that the site offered tools for open, two-way communication: scientists wrote entries (with pictures) in their journals, and readers commented at the end of each post. We ought to have named it then. Perhaps something more elegant than the now ubiquitious moniker -- blog, but we didn't know better. We were excited about the elementary school kids, coming back daily to check on the replies from the team on the frozen continent. We were watching the online community form around something as boring-sounding as chemical ecology.

Then came the iSay, our first experiment in forming and engaging the community directly. In the span of 12 weeks, we opened up the development of the next university's students site to public. We asked for feedback, talked about progress, responded to questions and comments. It was one heck of a ride.

Fast forward to 2006. Bob Robertson-Boyd and I had a priviledge of building the new version of the Capital University site, one of the first higher education sites to have unmoderated and unfiltered student blogs feeding to the home page.

It was also the start of the symbiotic professional relationship, now flourishing at fuzzycontent.com. We talk about content, context, discuss millenials, and ponder the meaning and the outcome of this thing we call "social content management".

Being a technologist, I learn and get inspired from Bob's perspective of a reader and a futurist, and I hope Bob benefits from my techie ramblings. Fuzzy Content is growing and multiplying: we now have 2 more sharp fellas in the conversation, the latest joining the group last week (hi Jeff!)

My hopes for the conference are simple: I want to listen, learn, and draw as much inspiration as possible. Oh, and I also want to not choke at my talk.