ThePlaz's Biography

October 2006

Michael Plasmeier, otherwise known as ThePlaz, has been a life long friend of technology. Michael's passion is for website product design and project management. He is also an effective manager and business leader. His public speaking background along with his technical knowledge makes him comfortable in front of or behind the camera. Michael is also an "A" honors student. Although he is not the smartest in the school, his willingness to participate in class and spread his knowledge, makes some students state otherwise. Michael remembers amazing his kindergarten teacher with his technology skills. He is 17 years old and lives with his parents in Havertown, Pennsylvania and attends Haverford High School as a senior.

Websites

Michael runs several websites and web services. On Facebook, he runs GridView, an application which lets users add all of their friend's profile pics onto their profiles. GridView has received light angle funding and Michael works with and manages overseas development teams. GridView currently has 700,000 users.

Michael also produces and regularly hosts, Tecker 911, a video podcast which brings technology into hands of normal people. Tecker 911 is also shown on Havertown's local public access Channel 11.

Michael developed SeniorQuoter [1], a free, open-source PHP application which allows high school yearbooks to collect senior quotes. In 11th Grade, Michael led a 5 person group study Dynamic Website Building Instruction and Practical Experience Group Study at Haverford High School where the group, under Michael's supervision, learned PHP and MySQL and built version 2 of SeniorQuoter.

Michael has also written many programs for the TI-83+ graphing calculator and a drop down menu for MediaWiki.

Education

Michael is a senior at Haverford High School. He is a regular anchor of H-Vision, the school’s morning news program. Michael supports education for all, through his website, ThePlaz.com, where he has several thousands sheets of knowledge, freely available to all with a connection to the internet. Michael's passion for knowledge enables him to excel in school. Among Michael's peers, he has earned a reputation for hard work. In his freshman year, the yearbook staff chose Michael to be the section cover page of the "Academics" section title page.

Michael is also the technology manager for the publications department. He also takes photos of many school events and publishes them on his [flickr account http://flickr.com/photos/theplaz/sets].

Community Service

Michel believes that he can best server the global community by utilizing his special technology skills to make an impact on the greatest number of people. Michael's community service is highlighted by his involvement with SeniorQuoter and Tecker 911. Michael also has posted several thousand videos and photographs. Most of these photographs are freely available under the Creative Commons license. Most of Michael's school work and notes is also available under a similar license.

Business Experience

Michael is a proven business leader. Through GridView, Michael has gotten first-hand experience with running a business with a significant amount of revenue (for a high school student). Through this, Michael also has gotten experience with advertising networks, analytics, contracts, as well as negotiations over investment and equity.

Leadership

Through Tecker 911 and the SeniorQuoter group study, Michael has gained the ability to effectively lead and organize teams of 4-6 people. As the producer of Tecker 911, Michael is responsible for gathering ideas, scheduling shoots, acquiring and setting up equipment, as well as using his theater and public speaking experience to direct and coach the other anchors. For the SeniorQuoter group study, Michael directly project managed a team of 4 developers working on an open source PHP application.

For GridView, Michael meets regularly with his business partner to talk about and discuss ideas. Michael then writes the specifications to send to a development team overseas. Michael then manages the project to the completion of his exacting specifications.

Michael is regularly chosen to lead groups in school for school projects.

Acting

Michael also has some acting and technical theater experience. He has acted in three shows while he was at Haverford Middle School, stage managed a fourth, and was a casting consultant for a fifth. Through the People’s Light and Theater Company’s youth school, he has performed at the National Constitution Center in downtown Philadelphia.