Hi, I’m Tim Hordern.

Hi Tim! What do you do?

I work for the XO Group here in New York. I do QA, DevOps and Product work there, helping to build software in an agile fashion. I moved to New York after leaving Melbourne, Australia (not the one in Florida), where I was previously a consultant for ThoughtWorks. Now I live in Brooklyn and find myself moving towards the Product Manager space.

I’m passionate about building amazing products, testing, design, usability and experience design, and how real humans interact with the things that we build (whether software based or not). I’m exploring ways that teams can better incorporate all that stuff into building better products. It’s often easiest to summarise what I do as building better products.

In my previous life, I was spending time discussing how to best include the ideas of the Lean Startup into the enterprise, as well as optimising team processes. I was spending time learning a wide range of skills, from building usable prototypes in Node.js and Rails, working on iOS (iPhone and iPad) products for the public (including for vision-impared users), wireframing, agile coaching, test automation and good old exploratory testing.

So, I’m variously a professional geek, product manager, designer, developer, iteration manager, agile coach, tester, puzzler, inquisitor and pedant. It also means that I can work on (and help build) some of the coolest, newest technologies in the world with some of the smartest & coolest people.

Let me know if I can help you with something or if we can just be friends.

Are you writing on behalf of someone else? Are you some sort of corporate shill?

Nope, let me be very clear here: the opinions on this website are my own. Don’t misconstrue my opinions as the opinions of others. That way leads madness/politics. I write for myself, based on my experience, opinions and research.

So what have you written?

Well, the easiest way is just to check out the archives of what I’ve written so far. I always have a couple of posts in progress as there’s always something new to learn. If you want to join the conversation, you should comment or say hi on Twitter.

I have a Tumblr that I update with cool photos, products, or notes that I’ve come across. Sometimes it’ll just be photos that I’ve cross-posted from Instagram or similar, but I do find that a long-form website isn’t the best site to make small notes on other people’s content: Tumblr’s perfect for that.

I really like your work. Can I hire you?

Sure! I am interested in early startup roles as I’ve been moving more into that space. Send me an email or ping me on Twitter and we’ll work out a way to chat.

I really like what you wrote and I want to borrow it. Can I?

This site runs under a Creative Commons Attribution + Noncommercial + Share Alike (BY-NC-SA) License. Any usage of this site falls under this license. So you are free to share or remix the work that I do, but you cannot use it for commercial purposes, you must attribute it back to me, and you must also agree to license your content in the same manner. Share and share alike, people.

Cool. So do you do other stuff?

• I play ultimate frisbee - I used to be the president of Chilly Ultimate in Melbourne, the most successful and longest running club in Australia. Now I play in New York more casually but still love it. It’s a great sport. You should play!

• I take photos. Sometimes with DSLRs, sometimes with film, but mostly with my iPhone because it’s the camera I have around the most. As Chase Jarvis said, the best camera is the one you have with you.

• I drink coffee. You can see some of the places that I’ve reviewed here at Decaf Sucks, made by the awesome people at Icelab.

• I play with new and shiny technology. I may have quite a few lot of Apple products. I am slowly acquing Android products as well, but it’s an expensive hobby.

Great, nice to meet you dude! Where else do you hang out and chat?

I’m mostly on Twitter these days. Say hi!