One of the things I have to do a lot is send people a biography. Sometimes it's for a conference session, other times an interview, or for the "our team" section of a proposal I'm joining, and so on. You have to keep these things up to date, dropping old stuff and adding new, and nobody actually enjoys spending that time.

I've had a written bio to use for these purposes for decades, and over that time, the reasons for using a bio have changed. In the past it would typically be used in written material, and often for business purposes with large, conservative, staid organizations - governments, enterprises, that sort of thing. So even though I keep it up to date with what I'm doing, it has a really formal tone that's a bit old fashioned:

Kate Gregory is a C++ expert who has been using C++ since before Microsoft had a C++ compiler, an early adopter of many software technologies and tools, and a well-connected member of the software development community. She has over three decades of software development experience in a variety of programming languages including Fortran, PL/I, C++, Java, Visual Basic, and C#.  Her recent programming work is almost exclusively in native C++ and C#, on a variety of projects, for both Enterprise and ISV clients. Since January 2002 she has been Microsoft Regional Director for Toronto and since January 2004 she has been awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional designation for Visual C++. In June 2005 she won the Regional Director of the year award, and she was one of the C++ MVPs of the year for 2010. She maintains strong relationships with the C++, Visual Studio, and Windows teams in Redmond.

Kate is the author of over a dozen books, mostly on C++ programming: the latest, on massively parallel programming with C++ AMP, was published in fall 2012 by Microsoft Press. She teaches .NET, Visual Studio, and C++ (including online courses for Pluralsight) and is in demand as an expert speaker, with numerous cross-Canada tours for Microsoft Canada, and sessions at DevDays, DevTeach, TechEd (USA, Europe, Africa) and DevIntersection, among others. In 2014 she was Open Content Chair for CppCon, the largest C++ conference ever held, where she also delivered sessions. Kate is the founder of the East of Toronto .NET Users group and a member of adjunct faculty at Trent University in Peterborough. Her firm, Gregory Consulting Limited, is based in rural Ontario and helps clients adopt new technologies and adjust to the changing business environment. Current work makes heavy use of .NET and Visual C++ for both web and client development, especially for Windows 7 and 8. Managing, mentoring, technical writing, and technical speaking occupy much of her time, but she still writes code every week.

I've been meaning to do something about that for ages and I finally have! I've written a shorter, more informal introduction that focuses on what I think is important about who I am, instead of trying to get you to figure it out from a bunch of facts about me:

Kate Gregory has been using C++ since before Microsoft had a C++ compiler, and has been paid to program since 1979. She loves C++ and believes that software should make our lives easier. That includes making the lives of developers easier! She'll stay up late arguing about deterministic destruction or how C++ 11 is not the C++ you remember.

Kate runs a small consulting firm in rural Ontario and provides mentoring and management consultant services, as well as writing code every week. She has spoken all over the world, written over a dozen books, and helped thousands of developers to be better at what they do. Kate is a Microsoft Regional Director, and a Visual C++ MVP, an Imagine Cup judge and mentor, and an active contributor to StackOverflow and other StackExchange sites. She develops courses for Pluralsight, primarily on C++ and Visual Studio. In 2014 she was Open Content Chair for CppCon, the largest C++ conference ever held, where she also delivered sessions.

What do you think? Better?

Kate