Don Jarrell's ResumeBlog™

Don Jarrell is Director of Product Management Practice at Austin-based Digital Thinking Inc. which he founded in 1996. With over 25 years of experience in a variety of technical, marketing, and management positions, in systems, software, and services companies, from start-up to multinational, Don consults on a variety of topics in licensing and managing intellectual property, product management, and business-technology strategy. Don also has industry-reconized experience and expertise in setting up and negotiating source code escrow arrangements, simple and very complex royalty accounting processes, and intellectual property management functions related to software engineering governance. These areas of exertise have been applied in several engagements as an expert witness and technical consultant to litigators. A distinct advantage brought to clients running growing software enterrpises is DTI's Software Business Framework from which process interdependencies can be addressed and optimized.

Background :::
Don carried out major business changes and held significant responsibilities with organizations such as Alcatel, Northern Telecom (now Nortel), The Equitable (now AXA), Qwest Communications, and others. His past work includes monetizing software lines of business, improving license-based relationships, optimizing business process infrastructure for emerging, growing and transitioning companies, and creating software and service business models. Don is working on a book planned for publication in 2004, tentatively titled "The Next Software Industry".

Causes :::
In addition to client work, Don is actively involved in promoting understanding and acceptance of Open Source Software and its long term opportunities for collaborative development of technologies - especially as combined/hybridized with current successful models of software commercialization and intellectual property management. This includes speaking and writing through the Licensing Executive Society and other organizations involved in technology policy and practices. He is also leading a working group chartered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation of Austin to address the problems of "spam" (unsolicited commercial email). The effort, currently called the "BadMail project", will compile the input of people in positions of thought leadership in technology, public policy, law, education, government, sociology and human sciences, to construct and popularize a body of understanding to serve as the basis for policy, tools and laws pertaining to electronic mail.

Membership :::
He is Past Chair of the Software Committee and Secretary of the High Technology Sector of the Licensing Executive Society; a member of IEEE-CS; Austin Technology Council (ATC), Bootstrap Austin, Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP), an active member and presenter at the Product Management and Marketing Forum affiliated with the Austin Technology Council, and the Software Product Marketing "eGroup".

Social Networking :::
It is becoming increasingly interesting how professional individuals and small companies establish their brands online through social networking tools and techniques. Don maintains presence in several online realms including the Ryze and LinkedIn networks as well as this ResumeBlog page in the highly-organized Software Professional Guilds.



email: Don Jarrell
phone: 512 266 7126
website: www.DigitalThinkingInc.com