What can you do with 10 dollars? Hmmm buy a shirt, buy 2 footlong subs at subway, buy a couple gallons of gas, 2 cups of Grande coffee at starbucks, or save a life. Yup it’s true for just 10 dollars you can save a life. Malaria infects nearly 500 million people each year and kills more than one million of those who become infected. Last year State Chairwomen Sue Warmuskerken introduced us to the JCI Nothing But Nets program and with yours along with all the members of JCI efforts we have made an impact on this disease.

This year I’ll be serving as the Illinois Jaycees 2011 National Programs / Government Involvement State Chairmen or NPGI State Chair for short also I’ll be serving as the North Region Treasurer oh and also the Website Program Manager for the US Jaycees once again. The goal this year is promote the programs The US Jaycees and JCI have established to all of our chapters across the state. The Jaycees have a have long history of bring fourth change throughout the nation with programs like Get Out to Vote and other Government Involvement programs, Outstanding Young Farmers, Support Our Troops, Distinguish Service Award which became the Ten Outstanding Young Americans, Relay for life and just added in 2009 Riley’s Toys.

Each year members of the Illinois Jaycees support Camp New Hope through various community drives and as part of our annual fund raising campaign. Camp New Hope Respite building started construction 10 years ago, but due to the loss of State and Federal funding and the despair of our current economy, the construction remains unfinished. This building is used for the year round respite program which gives reprive to those families with members with special needs.

I come from a different world in my company, I’m not IT though I have formal training, I speak the lingo, and wear the uniform of Jeans, t-shirt, glasses and ton’s of geekieness in my swagger. I’m what they call Business Intelligence or better known as Shadow IT. Though i’m up front about what we do and the impact it has. In my company I’m the middle person between what the business thinks it wants and what it really needs long term.

When the Mount Prospect Jaycees needed a update to their aging website which i first built back in 2008. I worked with the chapter executive board to bring a fresh new look to their website. For this site it required moving over all the current chapter contain as well as introducing some new features. I choose WordPress as the platform to host their site because two of their board members were familiar with it and training the rest of the board wouldn’t be a problem.

So only my old AIM friends would get that title. But just last week grooveshark.com went through a full revamp of their website, switching from a flash based website to the new internet language of html5. Which seems to quickly becoming the standard. I’m excited about the switch for two reasons. First technically you can you use the site now on your iPad and iPhone in the near future. I’ve tried it on my iPad the other night and i got a notice saying my computer was not running flash and asked if i want to continue.