Name: Pete Duncanson @peteduncanson
Role/Company:
Managing Director (same as a CEO for our American cousins) of Offroadcode Ltd based in Huddersfield in the United Kingdom of Great Britain (or "England" to our American cousins).
Started working with Umbraco in which year?
I always judge that by one of my first posts of the Umbraco developer forums (aka "Our") - August 2009, so nearly 7 glorious years of orange coloured CMS magic!
What are you currently working on?
It's always a mixed work load here. Every day can be different but that keeps it interesting. Today I've personally been working as a hired gun to do a 3 day sprint to iron out some performance optimising and trouble shooting on a v6 site that's struggling now real content has been put into it. I has to go live in 3 days but currently it won't even load on my machine and consumes 3Gb of memory while trying to do it. A classic case of a developers ego getting the better of them and allowing themselves to over complicate the site while they played around with test data. It's a good one to play with, when it's this much of a mess it's easy to make it better :)
Favourite Umbraco moment or achievement?
Now that's a tough one. I really enjoyed being invited to the HQ retreat sessions before last years Code Garden. Always wanted to go but I simply don't do enough answering of forum posts to get voted as an MVP to justify it, that's the usual route in for non-HQ folks. Luckily Niels has a few wild card invites and I got asked to bring a commercial point of view as well as some of my apparently opinionated thoughts, something I'm not normally shy about sharing.
Piece of Umbraco work you are most proud of?
I'll stretch the understanding of "Umbraco work" a little to say that I'm most proud of being able to present so often at the various Umbraco events around the world and share what we learn day to day in my numerous talks over the years. I'm honoured to be able to get up on stage and have people keen to hear what I've got to say. Every time is a buzz and a joy. Some of us are good at writing packages, some answer forum questions, some do pull requests to core. It seems I'm good at getting on stage and passing on some knowledge learnt in the trenches or so I'm told ;)
What about Umbraco keeps you coming back for more?
It continually keeps trying to get better, us Brits love a trier! What you can do with it now is so far on from when I started using it and there is so much more to come. Following its progress (and in my own little ways helping it as best I can) has given me the means and the excuse to travel the world to the various events and meet some of the friendliest people you could hope to meet all with the same traits of a good taste in humour, CMS software and beer.
It promises to only get better, what's not to love?
What is on your desk at work?
Hmmm honestly, a mountain of paper work, scribbled on opened envelopes, two end grain chopping boards, a toy car from my little boy! I always say my desk is a mess but my code is tidy. As chief dam buster (the job of unsticking anyone else who might be blocked/stuck/confused) at work I rarely get chance to clean it down. The state of my desk winds James (our Creative Director and my business partner) up no end which makes me leave it just as it is!
If you could be a superhero what would your power be?
Who wouldn't like to fly? I'm terrified of heights but still it would be good to swoop through the air superman style right? Would be an awesome way to see the world and my boy would love it although he's more of a Batman fan but I'd argue he's not a real super hero, his special power just seems to be he's rich and angry?
What is your spirit animal and why?
Are you kidding me? This went new age pretty swift, if you offer me homeopathy in the next questions I'm out of here! I'm a dog man...well I was, we lost our office dog 2 years ago and no desire to fill those boots (paws maybe?) just yet. I'm also say tiger but I imagine feeding one would bankrupt me and I'm not unsure what the wife would say about that.