Spotlight on CCT Alumnus Steffan Antonas

I was born on January 24th 1980 in Nassau, Bahamas. I came to the states when I was 14 (for boarding school), and I've been in the U.S. ever since. After finishing a bachelor’s degree in Business Management at Boston University, I had a brief (but enjoyable) stint at an Internet marketing startup in Boston, and then moved to D.C. to attend CCT (Class of 2005). After graduating CCT, I moved back to Boston, MA and joined KPMG LLP's IT Advisory Practice (Risk and Compliance and IT Performance Consulting). I worked there for about four years. I traveled a lot all over the U.S. during that time on varied projects. In my final year my fiancee (now wife) got a job at a Private Equity firm in San Diego. I put in for a transfer and we moved to CA in late 2006. In mid 2007, I left KPMG and took a job at Callaway Golf as the resident IT Compliance specialist (again IT Audit, Risk & Compliance, IT Security).

A bit about my blog...

In my second year at CCT I wrote a thesis titled Gaming In Cyberspace: How Interactive Entertainment Is Changing Communication & Identity On The Net . Back then (2004) social media wasn't really mainstream yet (Facebook was founded in Feb 2004, and our class at Georgetown wasn't on it until late that year. Twitter didn't even exist until 2006). For my thesis I did a lot of research on how people interact and communicate in virtual communities.  I read a lot on network theory, interaction design and human behavior in digital mediums. I was super interested in this stuff, but back then it didn't have much practical application because these kinds of virtual communities were so new. Though, I knew huge numbers of people were changing their behavior and gravitating to these communities and that this stuff was going to be big. Quite a few people at CCT thought that I was just a wee bit crazy. Fast forward to February 2007.

I was at a tech conference here in San Diego and was introduced to Twitter. After just a few weeks being on the service, I had bumped into half of the authors that had written books that were the foundation for a few of our classes at CCT. People like Howard Rheingold (Smart Mobs) and Steven B. Johnson (Interface Culture and Emergence). They all had blogs and were having daily conversations about the stuff I loved. So I started blogging publicly and joining in those conversations. Because I had studied a lot of this stuff at CCT for my thesis and in my courses, I was having great informed conversations with influential people in the tech world. I was having a ball. I would never have had this access without the exposure to the authors and ideas I was exposed to at CCT. I've been having conversations about new media daily online (on blogs and on social media etc.) ever since as a full time hobby, and it's opened a lot of doors. I have written for one of the top 10 blogs in the world, ReadWriteWeb.com, and I've been on WSRadio Internet radio here in San Diego as a guest host several times (recently again last week). This month I was nominated for InfluenceSD's New Media Blogger of the year award (awards take place in April). I didn't plan any of this, it's just sort of happened organically while I was writing about stuff that I like. Over the last year I've also turned the blogging and social media into a part-time freelance business. I do social media marketing projects with companies and non-profits in southern California, which keeps me busy and engaged on nights and weekends.  During the week I work a full time job in Carlsbad, CA as well as freelance. In my free time I read a ton, hang out with my amazing wife Jules, enjoy the San Diego sun, and write as much as I can.

-Steffan