uProfile - Dan Lister

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Here's the uProfile for January 2016 - Dan Lister

Name: Dan Lister @dan_lister

Location: Manchester, UK

Role/Company: Freelance Developer, AgeBase

Started working with Umbraco in which year?
I was introduced to Umbraco while working at Amaze in 2010. It wasn't until I started working with RB in 2012 that I began using Umbraco full time. Over the past 4 years, I have been given the opportunity to work with some amazing brands like Durex, Scholl, Vanish, Finish, Airwick, Strepsils and Veet.

What are you currently working on?
I am currently working with RB on what I like to call their Brand as a Service project. RB have over 100 brands which are sold in over 200 markets. The Brand as a Service project allows brands to quickly create multi-market, multi language Umbraco sites in just a few hours. Each brand site can be scaled, skinned and customised within a matter of minutes. This gives RB the ability to adapt to changes extremely quickly, whether it be for campaigns or spikes in traffic. Umbraco has been a great product to allow the project to succeed.

Favourite Umbraco moment or achievement?
That would have to be getting on the shortlist for the Umbraco 2015 MVP awards. Over the past few years, lots of Umbraco developers have helped me, whether it be via forums, packages or Twitter. I thought it was only fair that I returned the favour, so at the beginning of 2015, I set out to help as many people as I could via forum posts, creating packages and responding to tweets. Obtaining a shortlist place was a nice side effect of helping people.

Piece of Umbraco work you are most proud of?
The Brand as a Service project with RB has definitely been my proudest. Knowing that code I have written is used all over the world by lots of brands is something I will always be proud of. Setting up the platform was a great experience and I have learned so many cool things.

What about Umbraco keeps you coming back for more?
It sounds really cliché but it has to be the community. I've never met such a friendly bunch of people as I have with the Umbraco community. It makes working with Umbraco such a pleasure knowing that I can happily speak to other people about the project. The community does a really good job making sure the product is heavily contributed to. It also makes sure that new developers are given the best possible help, which is really nice to see and be a part of.

What is on your desk at work?
I like to keep my desk extremely tidy and clean. I am a bit of neat freak. Currently I have a laptop, keyboard, mouse and phone. Oh and my headphones. I could not go through a day without listening to music.

What has been your most memorable meal?
That would be while touring South Africa playing golf early last year. My wife was around 20 weeks pregnant and was due to find out the sex of our child. After finishing what was probably an extremely frustrating round of golf, I sat along with 12 other folks on the balcony having a nice meal. My wife sent me a picture of a child's pink hoover (because I'm a clean freak). It was quite difficult to stop the tears. In fact, it was pretty damn impossible.

What book are you reading at the moment?
My daughter is currently 5 months old so as you can imagine, my current reading features Very Hungry Caterpillars and Tigers who Came to Tea. Although my favourite so far is a book called HTML for Babies. It is not the most accurate book ever but it does a good job sending her to sleep.

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