As the days continue, I’ve been hearing from old friends and honoring some of our members who have contributed the most to the Cre8tive Community.

Meet one of our most devoted members, Yannis Lazarides, from Cyprus!

1. If you can remember, how did you first learn about Cre8asiteforums?

I came to Cre8asiteforums via Google, just landed trolled for a few days and then decided to post and stay. One of my early posts was ‘With Apologies to Bragadoccio’
which was followed by a blog post by Elizabeth Able aptly named ‘With Apologies to Yannis . When Bill retired from being a moderator I thought of writing a post ‘With Thanks to Bragadoccio’, but I regret that I never got down to actually writing it.

[Kim's Note: He might enjoy that!]

2. Do you participate in other forums? I used to be one of the regulars at DP but dropped out because of the noise. I read WebmasterWorld and I visit SitePoint regularly but I am not actively involved with any of them.

3. Do you think forums are useful in your work or personal life?

I find them very useful and informative but mostly they help me to unwind and relax.

4. Please name an example of something Cre8asiteforums helped you with.

When I started with the web, I had this idea that a web page was just a page. Here at the forums I slowly came to understand that actually a website is a business first (even an informational website is similar to a non-profit organization). It is easy to sell person to person but if you have to sell something by just a display of words and images is tough. People apply marketing principles from outside the web to the web. I do mostly the opposite. I pick up marketing and usability ideas from the web and try to apply them to off-line businesses. Things like, ‘get your message out clear as a crystal’. The forums here were invaluable in this respect. See this thread.

5. What are your favorite topics covered at Cre8asiteforums?
I do not favor a particular topic and I do follow most of the discussions.

6. Who is your favorite moderator(s)?

I enjoy Ammon’s posts tremendously especially when he unleashes his sarcastic humour. Now and then I get lost in iamLost’s diatribes and for solid advise I tend to turn to people like Egol and Barry and Kim. If I get up early my favorite mod is Swainzy and her now irregular ‘Who is this?’ posts. All in all, I think what makes this place great is that people give thought in what they write and the way they respond and interact.

7. Feel free to tell us about yourself, your work, and your passions.

I have a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and I have been involved in computers one way or another almost as long if not longer than Kim! [HEY! LOL] I have a passion for programming and anything web.

I am involved with web development as an entrepreneur and as a hobby. I have a stable of websites who is steadily growing and one of these days I am sure one of them will become a real winner. I find that web development and coding helps me keep my mind sharp.

I am currently managing a large Electro-mechanical operation in Doha, Qatar. A couple of years back I was in Dubai in a similar position. I am originally from Cyprus and lived for a very long time in South Africa, where my kids still live. In many respects I consider myself more of a South African than a Cypriot.

Current pet projects are the ‘expander’ playing with semantic analysis of web-sites where you provide a topic and it does the opposite of a summarizer. It fetches content from around the world and tries and creates an article out of it.

Fun Stuff

1. How many towns have you lived in?

I lived in Larnaka, Cyprus where I was born and then studied in London. I worked in Athens and Dubai for a while before moving to Johannesburg in South Africa and then to a little mining town called Welkom in the Orange Free State. In between I lived in Tripoli Libya including sometime in the Sahara of all places and Dubai. Currently I am in Doha, Qatar.

2. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?

#dd0000

3. What did you want to be when you were little?
A grown up!

4. Are you a morning person or a night person?

With a website called Latenightengineer.com the answer is obvious. Haven’t slept properly since I discovered the web and that was a long time ago!

5. Where would you retire to?

I am not sure if I will ever retire or that I will make it to retirement, but if I was a ship I would probably end up somewhere in the high seas rather than rust in a port! As the Tao Te Ching says a good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving.

Thanks for giving me this opportunity.

Thanks Yannis!