About Jeff McNeill

Contact

24/1 Ratchaphakinai Road, Soi 1 – T. Sriphum, A. Muang – Chiang Mai, 50200, Thailand
+66 (080) 673 1438 – jeff@jeffmcneill.com – http://jeffmcneill.com

Origins

I was born and raised in the United States of America, and have lived in

I currently live in Chiang Mai, Thailand, having arrived in November, 2008.

Education

I have two degrees from UC Berkeley, a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies and an MS in Information Management and Systems (which I think they just call “Information” these days). I was enrolled in a PhD program at the University of Hawaii for 8 years but left without graduating. Altogether I have spent 16 years in higher education and have gone from studying literature and philosophy, to information management and network engineering, to social sciences, statistics and education.

Careers

Depending how you count, I have or have had approximately six careers, not including the summertime lawn-mowing and year-round paper route activities that began around 12 or so.

Restaurants and Janitorial Services

The first careers are largely unskilled or semi-skilled labor. This is a step up from newspapers and lawn mowers. Restaurant work began with fast food and eventually included 4 star restaurants, tableside service and French fine dining. I’ve been a dishwasher, busboy, cook, expediter, host, waiter and bartender.

During this time I alternated with or concomitantly held jobs cleaning office buildings as well as movie theaters (multi-screen theaters with acres of carpet and dozens of bathroom stalls). Altogether the restaurant and janitorial lasted from around 16 to 23 years of age.

Administrative Support

After that I became an administrative assistant (aka secretary) and worked in offices from 23 to around 29. There was a 1 month period of time where I was a bicycle messenger in San Francisco upon moving to Berkeley, California, but that lasted until I realized the pay was low and the rainy season was starting.

I also spent this time getting an undergraduate degree (6 years), which included an Associates degree at the Community College of Denver and led to a transfer to the University of California at Berkeley. During that time I started to pick up more and more computer skills, starting with basic typing and word processor classes, and was eventually offered a position as User Support Specialist, my first IT job.

Corporate IT

After several years of corporate IT, and due to the massive growth of corporate networks, I had been promoted to Help Desk Manager, Network Analyst, and Network Engineer. At the age of 33 I went back to school to get my Masters’ degree and at 34 resigned from my position. I have continued to do IT consulting but have not worked full time in a corporate position.

University Teaching

After a few years I began teaching university courses and did that from the ages of 35-43. Unlike most teachers, I prepared and taught a wide variety of classes on several different topics, including Information Technology, Marketing, Innovation and Organizational Change, Organizational Communication, Political Communication and Public Relations. The last year of courses were taught online.

English as a Second Language Teaching

In January, 2009 I enrolled in a 120-hour, 4-week Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) course. I have taught individual and small group customized courses in Business English, Academic Writing, and test preparation for the IELTS, TOEFL, and TOIC exams. I also have strong interests in pedagogy and curriculum development as well as educational psychology and teaching effectiveness measures.

This item is not necessarily a career by itself so much as an extension of the teaching career at the University as I generally had the same demographic though the setting and context is different as well as the content of the teaching.

Internet Marketing Consulting

I have consulted with individuals and organizations ever since I left my last full-time corporate IT position in 2000. However, the last several years I have moved the focus from IT consulting from corporate IT to Internet Marketing, including Search engine optimization (SEO), Search engine marketing (SEM), Internet Marketing, Ecommerce consulting and web content management. My consulting work is done through SEO Chiangmai, Thailand.

This should be considered a separate career from Corporate IT, as the focus has shifted to the Internet and to Marketing rather than to the Corporate offices and to basic IT services. It is a different knowledge base, a different set of activities, and includes client management rather than corporate hiring and reporting.

Publishing

This is the newest career which technically began in 2008 but only gained real traction in 2009 (currently conducted at the same time as SEO consulting) and includes entrepreneurial activities as the publishing organizations are my own (Parliament Press) and with partners (Lanna Innovation). Publishing for print, web, and mobile includes print-on-demand technology, offshoring and building a scalable content management and advertising platform. The SEO Indochina business strategy is a bit larger than the two current organizations (organizations themselves should be seen as components of a strategy and not the reverse, especially if it is a multi-country, regional strategy).



Jeff McNeill
November 18, 2009 — Chiang Mai, Thailand