About

Destructuring.net belongs to Jonathan Vanasco.

  About Me  

Quick Intro

Hi. My name is Jonathan Vanasco. I live in Brooklyn and do things with computers, words, ideas, and (when I'm lucky...) raw materials. I'm an entrepreneur in the digital space: I created some of the earliest technologies in Social Network portability and syndication, authored multiple patents, consulted on digital and social media strategy for top record labels and political organizations, pioneered some online music publishing stuff, consulted brands and agencies on digital strategies, and etc etc etc.

I work with a handful of NYC startups as an advisor or consultant. Currently I'm the CTO of ArtWeLove.com - a truly unique community and publisher designed to democratize art appreciation. My pride & joy, FindMeOn.com, is unfortunately embroiled in an IP mess and now functions as an R&D firm / IP Holding Company due to patent and trademark 'issues'. Despite words like "patents" and "IP" I am an active contributer to numerous open source projects, mostly around the Python and Perl languages.

Quirky Interests

I like to cook for fun, and am obsessed with good Coffee and Wine. My current setup is a cherry-red Expobar Office HX machine, an in-progress PID + custom expansion valve tweak to an Isomac Venus, and a Mazzer Mini grinder. I prefer drip coffee out of a Chemex, and often flip between Vacuum Pot and French Press. I have a moka pot too. I used to home-roast on my fire escape, and sometimes I post on CoffeeGeek or Home-Barista. I brew my own Kombucha at home. Sometimes it scares me. Actually, I ferment it... but that doesn't sound as good. Suffice to say, food is my luxury.

For a few years I was part of the BrewskeBall Competitive Skeeball League in NYC's East Village. My team was known at times as The Holy Skee, Goatskee (pronounced Goatse.kee), and finally Brewniccula... the alcoholic vampire bunny. I played on the 'Brass Knuckles' team in the Brooklyn Kickball league, until we were kicked out for poor attendance and a constant losing streak. In addition to my penchant for ironic sports, I'm always up for some frisbee, soccer or bike riding. I strive to help out local community groups and non-profits whenever I can.

Education

I graduated from Pomona College ( possibly the happiest and smartest place around , and the guides agree ) in 2000 with a Double Major in Political Science and Media Studies. Most of my academic work was on the intersection of Politics and Media, specifically the use of media as advertising to sell political candidates, policies, and cultural change.

I almost majored in Studio Art, and was fortunate enough to spend a semester on the East African Coast, where I studied Urban (Street) Art Forms & Methods. I spent far too much time in Mombasa with the greatest artists you'll never hear of, played nonstop cards and football on Lamu Island, and swam with Dolphins off Zanzibar. I even worked as a tout on a matatu for a day. I once thought about going to Law School, now I'm leaning towards an MFA or an MBA if I ever return to academia.

Professional

My interest in the net started in undergad, when I interned at a string of Web 1.0 startups. At Pomona I produced my first personal web project, "The Booty Party" (later named "Campus Cupid") -- the first college-specific, closed crush matching & compatibility website. It was basically a closed network version of 'secret admirer', and we let everyone know who their matches were at a big party with a bunch of kegs. And condoms. It is important to be responsible.

I've since worked as an online media strategist, cpg branding & advertising consultant, technologist and designer with everyone from major record labels, to media outlets and beauty brands. I've designed both hardware and software for kiosks and in-store promotions, and worked on the first generation of RFID enabled retail shelving units which were placed in WalMart stores. A few years ago, I co-wrote a screenplay about Breast Milk and Fads with a very talented director, and have written several equally irreverent shorts since.

In 2005 I left the 9-9 world to focus on my own projects, with a concentration on identity, syndication, and workflow efficiency. With all of my projects, I aim to help consumers and publishers deal with the proliferation of online networks. Every property we've developed has been about significantly ahead of the market.

I currently serve CEO of FindMeOn.com - a company I started in 2005 to offer social network portability, people search, advanced advertising targeting & media buy planning. After three years of hard engineering/architecture work and an advocacy push for open social networks, we found ourselves embroiled in Patent and Trademark infringement issues. Nevertheless we are committed to the core values of Open Source and portability -- and continue to devote considerable resources to open projects and standards.

I'm also the CTO of an Arts startup, ArtWeLove.com, and consult technology architecture, business development, strategy and bootstrapping to a handful of NYC startups and agencies.

Professional Interests

Throughout my professional career I've functioned in many diverse roles -- as designer, developer, project manager, product manager, executive management, specialized consultant across the fields of CPG, Branding, Technology, Advertising, and Media. The sum of these experiences have privileged me with a truly unique toolset and understanding: the ability to understand the who , what, why and how of building and maintaining successful products and campaigns.

As a CEO: I'm really focused on hands-on organizational and product management, making sure the product and team live up to the corporate vision and end-business needs. I'm always looking for new revenue streams, and how to reposition existing technologist and services into new product lines and verticals.

As a CTO: I'm much less interested in the hands-on problem solving that rockstar engineers excel at (though I respect, admire, and often envy them!), and am more concerned with the general technology infrastructure, development, and product design/architecture that drives the business model and maximizes ROI for the organization. I'm big into maximizing revenue too. I have a business minded approach to IP management -- which focuses on protecting the core values of a product line in the most-likely-to-succeed-in-litigation markets. Aside from companies where I've served as part of the executive management team, I've typically been hired to: help startups bootstrap their technology strategy; get interactive projects back on schedule for ad agencies; help existing companies redevelop their tech strategy ; and audit/due-diligence potential technology acquisitions.

As a Social Media Consultant: I care less about generating buzz and 'friends' than I do about maximizing ROI. Social Media is a great tool to generate conversations that build and foster brand awareness... and eventually drive sales. Many Social Media Consultants focus on maximizing the social media aspects and the 'hip internet aspects' as their end means -- to me, they are just a tool that drives the end business concerns.

Topics I love: Social Network Portability, Identity, Identity Resolution, Identity Mapping, People Search, Data Mining, Ad Targeting, Social Media Advertising, Media Planning, Media Buy Optimization

Why 'Destructuring' ?

I thought Destructuring was another one of those words that some postmodern author imagined. On a whim, I opened some Derrida or Foucault book, flipped to a random page, and chose the least-likely-to-not-be-a-real-word word to where my finger landed. I was *pretty sure* Destructuring wasn't real: and I was half-right. There is no real word 'destructuring', however it does exist as Computer Science term which is popular in the Lisp community ( and growing in JS, from what I'm told ). However... the CompSci definition had little to do with the manner in which the PostModern author used it, so they're still wrong. I'm just less right. And I'm okay with that.

Why All the Crappy Movies & Books?

I studied film for several years in undergrad. One day I realized that film/media studies makes you hate movies, and ruins your creativity - people end up focusing on inane revisionist histories like "the usage of white & black in Citizen Kane". Orson Welles couldn't have cared less about white/black and what it could convey - his cinematographer was drunk or high and just shot what looked cool. When I realized what a bitter, cynical cliche those classes were making me, I dropped the studies. To detox I started watching awful movies for a few years - and it finally worked - I actually enjoy watching films now. Sometime around 2005 I played around with exporting Netflix and Amazon histories into blog entries, and trying to do 1 line summations. Some worked, some didn't.

My Projects

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Too many!

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