The Story
Welsh roots. Texas home. A few things in between.
I'm Jason Coldham. I was born in Manchester, grew up in Swansea, South Wales, and now call North Padre Island home.
The short version fits in a sentence. The longer version wanders a little: through technology, people, things I've made, and the questions I still want to follow.
A different coastline.
I moved to the United States in 2013. These days I'm a British and American citizen, living in Corpus Christi, Texas, a long way from where I grew up.
South Wales to South Texas is quite a change of scenery. Somehow, there's still a coastline in the picture. Swansea is part of where I come from; North Padre is where this chapter is happening.
People come first.
Much of my working life has involved technology, but the part I enjoy most usually happens in a conversation. Someone arrives with a problem, we work through it, and something that felt complicated starts to make sense.
I've done that work myself and led teams doing it. The best place to start is still listening. What is this person actually trying to do?
That moment when it clicks is a good reason to keep getting better at explaining things.
Follow the question.
My ideas branch like a tree. One “what if?” becomes three, and before long there's a whole other direction I hadn't considered.
I enjoy that part: joining things up, imagining how something might work, and following it far enough to see whether there's anything there. Sometimes I end up with a project. Sometimes I end up with a much better question.
Exploring a branch doesn't mean I'm building a treehouse on it. Some ideas are perfectly happy as a good conversation.
What matters to me.
Some of my favourite people can get me interested in something I knew absolutely nothing about. They know their subject, share it generously, and leave room for a different opinion. A sense of humour helps. Especially about themselves.
Independence matters to me: choosing my direction, making time for what I care about, and being allowed to change my mind along the way. I don't expect to have everything figured out at fifty.
I'd be a little disappointed if I did. There’s still too much I want to see happen.
The rest of the picture.
Of course, this would be a fairly incomplete introduction if I stopped at work and principles. I also have opinions about spaceships and fight choreography, and interests that are there for the simple pleasure of getting absorbed in them.
Those parts belong here too. The next chapters are where the picture fills out: what catches my eye, what gets me thinking, and what I do because I enjoy it.