(The description fields on LinkedIn are too limited to share what I want to share! So this is my supplement to LinkedIn)

Finally I've decided to look into building up my connections on LinkedIn. I joined LinkedIn in February 2004 and until recently I've only been accepting connections rather than initiating them. Some exciting things are happening at Crane, so I decided to invest time in LinkedIn to help spread the word.

My bio page is still at http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/bio/gkholman.htm, so I won't copy that information here. You can see the latest at your convenience. For example, there is more detail below regarding resigning my JTC 1 responsibilities, as I'm going to focus on OASIS and ISO TC154 for the next while.

This page is more along the LinkedIn style of "what am I up to and what do I want to get up to?".

It is a ways away, still, but we've actually got dates for a public delivery in Prague, CZ in March of 2011! When we heard dates were finalized for XML Prague and an ISO meeting, we called our favourite hotel in Prague and reserved what we think is the best classroom in the city: a two-storey cathedral ceiling room with beautiful 14th century hewn beams. The drawback is that the room only seats a maximum of six students, but that has its benefits as students get a lot of one-on-one opportunities through the week. You can find the links here:

Europe - Prague, CZ - http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/index.html#Crane201103PRG

I'm looking for new opportunities to teach publicly and privately, so let me know if you want me to teach in your area of the world.

Also, I am getting involved with a new company. In February I had the privilege to be at the Copenhagen home of one of the founders of Skype. He is funding a new startup by two of my friends, and I've been asked to be involved from the start. http://www.Tradeshift.com is combining free electronic invoicing with social networking: business-social networking. I'm providing UBL expertise and stylesheet expertise. It is quite exciting. They only opened up their web site last month, and they are going live next month. Totally free invoicing to small companies and individuals. Fixed subscription rates based on the number of suppliers but regardless of the number of transactions for larger companies, municipalities and governments that want to bridge their existing ERP systems to the Tradeshift platform. At the core is the use of OASIS UBL document structures, and I'm a co-editor of the UBL specification. Neither the sender nor the receiver need to know they are working with UBL, but if they do know, then they can take more advantage of the information ... it is otherwise seamless and users create, send, receive and manage invoices, orders and in the future other UBL documents.

Please let me know if you have any questions regarding training or Tradeshift.

Did you hear I finally resigned all of my JTC 1 volunteer responsibilities? After 22 years of working in various subcommittees of JTC 1 I decided to step away from it all to free up some time. I'm still keeping up with my OASIS responsibilities and my new TC154 Canadian chairmanship, but just not all the JTC 1 work. Now that my focus is moving towards e-commerce rather than publishing, it makes sense to make this change. And it is consistent with my work at Tradeshift. Even some former publishing customers are talking with me regarding some commerce issues they are facing. It has been very interesting to change my focus from publishing to commerce, while still sticking to my strong suits of XML and XSLT/XQuery.

Finally, thank you for considering being connected to me!

. . . . . . . . . . . . Ken