Tom Peracchio's career in business and technology started with military radio and telephone communications in the Army National Guard back when radios had vacuum tubes in the 1970s. Tom began to develop his knack of putting complex topics into simple terms as a trainer.
In the 1980s Tom's career moved to "office automation," that was the buzzword before "information technology" was used to describe the field of bringing technology to the small business office. As a field service technician and manager for various office automation companies, Tom attended numerous customer service training programs and fine tuned his skills in hardware repair and customer service.
Tom began actively speaking and writing on both business and technology issues since before the internet was widely used by small business. Exploring PC telecommunications and its role in business lead to Tom's first article for a regional business journal on how the average business could use Computerized Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) as a tool for customer service.
As small business networks evolved, Tom's career expanded as well into the areas of computer networking and systems administration using the Novell network operating system in the 1990s. Working as a consultant to numerous businesses delivering various technology solutions, Tom gained valuable project management experience.
As a community college technology trainer, Tom learned that not everyone taking webmaster classes was there to be a technician or engineer. Many people took the classes to appreciate the topics covered so they could communicate more effectively with the technology folks they had to deal with in their roles as business managers.
In the 1980's as online services created handles and nicknames, Tom began using Questy as his alias. As online services exploded into the internet in the 1990's the merger of technology, and philosophy, and "Questy" tried to pull all these ideas together in the "World of Questy" websites.
Looking for a domain name for sharing some web building tips, Tom registered the domain computerguru.net in May 1998. In the website Computerguru.net Tom tried to focus on sharing some of his experiences with others looking to explore technology as a profession, as well as help small business people looking to integrate technology into their lives.
In 1999 while hanging out on the Tripod online communities Tom became a community moderator, and created the identity of Philosophyguru for that role. Later as a volunteer for the Open Directory Project Tom used the screen name Philosophyguru.
In searching for a central theme that would assume the role of the "mother ship" of my online world, Tom kicked around various combination's of words and phrases. Tom used the term guru in various online adventures, and thought of how it might apply to a central theme for a family of websites. In the strictest philosophical sense the term guru is used to describe one who is regarded as having great wisdom in a certain area, and who uses it to teach others.
Tom liked the concept of the "guru" but wanted to spin just a bit off center. What better place to look for an off center spin, than to look to the world of science fiction. In the "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," (a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams), a computer named Deep Thought is asked to calculate the answer to the "Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything." The answer was revealed to be 42. Douglas Adams would later create the 42 Puzzle, a puzzle which could be approached in multiple ways, all yielding the answer 42. The Guru 42 Universe was created to help stretch your mind beyond the buzzwords.
Mahatma Gandhi once said, "The various religions are like different roads converging on the same point. What difference does it make if we follow different routes, provided we arrive at the same destination."
No matter what your destination, or puzzle in life, don't get hung up on thinking there is only one way to approach it. The Guru 42 Universe was created to stretch your mind beyond the buzzwords, to see things in a different perspective. Even if you totally disagree with the guru personally, if you think about a problem or idea in a way you never have before, the Guru has succeeded.
Tom Peracchio is not a university professor with a team of editors and advisers. He is one man who loves technology and history and tells stories to increase awareness, educate, and entertain.
Support the efforts of Tom in developing the Guru 42 Universe by your small donation here at Buy me a coffee.