Some of my regular readers have no doubt noted that I have not been posting much lately. The primary reason for this is that Business has suddenly become so busy as to not have much time....

Among our current projects:

* A Corporate Training for Executives of one of San Jose's Top Business Hotels.

* Developing a Blog for the Publishers of La Republica Newspaper. (Rogue Angel did a helluva job as our subcontractor), pays to read ISOU. Hehe...

* Preparing for a six month project to developer the first International Call Center in Guatemala.

* Providing a slew of new personal and business services, for people immigrating to Costa Rica.

Planning a major Event with HP and a couple of other major technology players for October.

Planning a new system integration business with HP.

Working on an alliance with an American Technology provider to provide enhanced WAP services for Costa Ricas new GPRS network.

So my hands have been kind of full these days. It appears my guest bloggers have not stepped up too much, so I am looking for others interested in guest blogging. If you are interested let me know via email, or comments to this post.

Since my previous "About David Anderson," post was lost with ISOU V.2, Angel suggested I put up a new post. I have taken the opportunity to expand it a bit. It will no doubt be a work in progress.

I was born in a little town called Pulaski Virgina in April of 1960. I grew up and attended public schools in Los Angeles California. Following College at Los Angeles Southwest College and The University of Southern California, I spent several years working as a journalist and civil rights activist.

I began my high tech career as a consultant for Cap Gemini America in the early 1980s. In the early 1990's I was responsible for building call center operations for Packard Bell Electronics in the United States, Mexico, Europe and Australia. While at Packard Bell, I developed the first toll (900 Number) support line in the consumer electronics industry.

I also helped to conceptualize the, "Packard Bell Desktop"; one of the first Graphical Front ends to run on a consumer PC. In 1995, I founded Acer Information Services S.A., a call center organization supporting Acer customers in the United States from Costa Rica.

The Acer facility employed over 450 highly trained PC hardware and software technicians. I also launched two subsidiaries for Acer Information Services; one was an Internet startup, hosting some of the most dynamic commercial sites in the country. Since Acer's founding, several high-tech giants including Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco have developed presences in Costa Rica. My forte is known for being a startup and turnaround wizard. The mark of my organizations has always been rapid deployment, execution and conversion. I have managed call centers world wide and I am known by some as a visionary and consummate people manager.

Many of my protègè's have went on to become senior managers and executives with some of the world's largest companies including Dell, Oracle, Western Union, Sykes and others. I studied Journalism at Los Angeles Southwest College and later attended the University of Southern California where I studied Political Science and International Relations. Upon graduation I worked for three years with a small but respected community newspaper, The Los Angeles Capsule.

My Company, Grupo Utopia Internationale S.A. was founded in August of 2001 by Maribell Anderson, Federico Esquivel, Paul Strasburger and M.J. Best. The company was originally founded as a vehicle for outsourced call center services. As the founder of the first bilingual call center in Costa Rica, I returned to Costa Rica in August of 2001 with a vision of founding a call center and a software development company.

Grupo Utopia is parent to two companies, PDA Utopia S.A., which develops software for the wireless LAN and WAN market, and Utopia Professional Services S.A., which focuses on consulting and professional services, with a specific focus on IT consulting and Contact Center consulting and development services.

I am married to the lovely Lourdes Maribell Anderson,

with Three Children, including Jean Carlos (13):

Elsie (7):

and the famous Apollonia(19 Months):

I have lived in Costa Rica (This Time), for nearly five years, and love it here. My Company has had much success at creating a niche for itself here, and our Brand:

is one of the most well known and respected in the country. We have formed powerful alliances with some of the largest companies in the world, including Intel, Cisco, HP and IBM.

In Search of Utopia (Version 1), was started in October of 2003, as an outlet for my political writing. The Blog has had three different versions resulting from changes of host and a catastrophic loss of data earlier this year.

ISOU was conceptualized as a place to discuss politics, reflect on life, look at new technology and make friends. It has been successful on all counts.

For a view of my politics, please review this post.

It has been bought to my attention that many regular readers of ISOU are not participating in discussions because of trolling by other readers. My definition of trolling is simple:

1. Personal Insults against myself, guest bloggers or commenters.
2. Off thread comments of an abusive or condescending nature.
3. Putting words in my mouth or the mouths of others.

Anyone engaging in this kind of behavior will be given ONE warning, have the offending comment deleted with explanation, and then will be banned.

ISOU has prided itself over the two years we have been online in being a fair and open exchange of ideas, from all political viewpoints. I have often tolerated abuse because of my strong aversion to censorship.

I have not and never will censor comments because they disagree with me. But this does not mean I will tolerate personal attacks on myself or my guests. Nor will I tolerate people putting words in my mouth. If you not sure of something I have said, asks, do not assume.

While asshats do not generally bother me, I will not tolerate them chasing off people who otherwise enjoy this forum, one of the only places in the blogsphere where on a regular basis, both sides are encouraged to share their point of view, including guest blogging. For my critics, until you are willing to do the same, your criticisms mean little to me. I walk the walk...

Trackbacks
Trackbacks are the lifesblood of the Blogsphere, and as such I appreciate them. ISOU's trackback policy is simple. If you trackback to ISOU, please link to the post you are tracking back to. Failure to do so will result in your trackback being deleted. Insulting or abusive trackbacks will be treated as an act of war. I will respond, and I will trackback to your post. If you delete the trackback, I will delete yours, it is that simple, so do us both a favor, dont waste your time or mine over childish crap.

I am a Progressive/Centrist Democrat

I am not a communist
I am not a socialist
I am not a fascist
I am not a member of the ACLU
I am not a Kennedy Liberal

I am someone who believes in America.

I am someone who values our constitution, and believes that we must protect it against those on the Right and Left who would corrupt it for their own gain.

I am someone who believes we should send our sons and daughters off to fight only when there is a threat to us.

I don't believe in abortion based on moral grounds, but I believe such a decision is one that should be between a woman and God.

I don't believe in Welfare, but I do believe we should be a country that helps our citizens when they are in legitimate need, with limits.

I believe in openness in government, as long as that openness does not endanger our national security.

I believe in Justice, not just for Americans but for all who fall under our sphere of influence.

I believe that the President and our elected representatives should represent ALL of the people, and that NO American Citizen should be denied the right to attend a Presidential function, unless they are a danger to the President or to others attending the event.

I believe in a Strong and Free Press, that is not only Free but obligated to serve as a public watchdog, regardless of which Party is in power.

I believe that we as Americans should hold ourselves to a higher standard, and that torture, holding people indefinitely without hearing, and defiling the religious symbols of other cultures is beneath our National Heritage, and shameful.

I believe in honest debate and discourse,and I will respect anyone's point of view. What I wont accept is condescending behavior, from ANYONE.

Now you know who I am. Either live with it... Or get over it. Your call...

I have generally reached the Conclusion that political blogging pretty much Sucks! On the Right you have a whole lot of people that would believe Bush was okay, if he spit on Mother Theresa! On the Left you have a bunch of Self Important yahoos who are more Concerned with their place in the tlb ecosystem than they are in building a Community!
Well...
In Case you haven't noticed.
I have not been doing too Much blogging lately.
I am pretty tired of Some of the bullshit that passes as Social discourse these days.
No, I am not going away!
But I do think I will Blog for me for a spell.
I haven't looked at stats for Weeks and frankly don't give a Rats ass anymore about the dysfunctional TLB!
I know Angel, Beck, Boyd, Stephen and Jay will drop by from time to time! As will a few others. But I am not going to Sweat it anymore.
I am going to Sit here propped up on Some pillows, and write Blog post like they were meant to be...
Like a personal Note to friends!

I went to the wrong damned Jungle! Hehe!

Hey everyone. Just dropping in to say hello. Some asswipe has signed me up for a mailing list in german so this mailbox is getting flooded with emails I dont even understand. I am going to give my email address to Rogue for those of you who need it. I will also eventually create a catchall email address at blog -at- grupo-utopia -dot- -com-. If you need to send me something important, DO NOT send me email at the old insearchofutopia email address, contact Rogue via comments to this post and if she knows you she will give you the address, she will also probably forward it to all of my guest bloggers. Sorry for the inconvienance, and Fuck you very much to the asshole who signed me up for the German Newsletters. I will soon be deleting the account, and wont bother reading it after today.

Angel out did her self, and the new logo from Dave of Zencomix fame, rocks. Thank you both for your awesome creativity, friendship and support in resurrecting ISOU.