Tom joined Cadence Design Systems in March 2008 to manage the company's user community and help launch its successo... more

Tom joined Cadence Design Systems in March 2008 to manage the company's user community and help launch its successor.

He is the company's "social media" senior manager.

Tom was drawn to online communities in the Internet's early days. He began "blogging" in 1996 (though he called it his "online journal") when working in Tokyo as a journalist to keep friends and family informed of his adventures there. In 1998 he moved to Silicon Valley as one of Computerworld's first online reporters.

Tom's "professional" work with online communities began with Intuit when he joined the TurboTax team. He helped launch expert blogs and enhanced customer discussion forums.

He joined Symantec in 2006 to create and manage an online community for business customers, specifically IT managers. The result was the launch of the Symantec Technology Network, or STN, in early 2007. The site features white papers, expert blogs, videos and peer-to-peer discussion forums.