Silicon Valley Business Journal - Best CIO: Matt Crampton

  Best CIO - Private Company: Finalist
  Matt Crampton, Chief Technology Officer & Founder/Gigwalk

  Matt Crampton’s fascination with technology all started with his first Tandy 1000 286 that his parents bought him for Christmas when he was a kid. He’s been writing software ever since: In middle school, he set up an electronic bulletin board on his home computer using a dial-up modem; in high school, he spent the bulk of his time at the computer lab; then, he went on to co-found the Kalamazoo Linux Users Group (a club with more than 100 members that still meets) before Netscape recruited him to California in 2000.

  Now as CIO for Gigwalk, Crampton is the driving force behind the on-demand workforce he founded in 2011 to help businesses find workers for short-term jobs. The company has 550,000 “Gigwalkers” signed up who check for jobs posted by Gigwalk clients. For example, a retailer might want to know what the shampoo stock is in their stores. Gigwalkers accept the assignment and fan out nationwide to collect the data.

  Crampton has set up an algorithmic system where data collected from Gigwalkers’ phones can tell him how well a member is doing the job. The system builds profiles of each Gigwalker. The better ones get higher-paying assignments.

  The system works well enough that Gigwalk still employs fewer than 30 people, although it is are expanding and hiring quickly.

  Crampton focuses his energies on bringing in top-notch people, not micromanaging them.

  “I write something in one place and then I can see people using it somewhere else,” he said. “That’s really neat to me.”

  Why IT?

  "I’ve been into writing software since I sat down in front of my first Tandy 1000 286 my parents bought me for Christmas when I was a kid. When I was in middle school (before the Internet), I ran an electronic bulletin board out of my bedroom. From there, I got into dial-up modems and writing up bulletin software, and in 1997 started the Kalamazoo Linux Users Group. It still meets today, 17 years later. We took over a cybercafé and set it up so people could play Doom and other games. It was a blast. That’s how I got my first real development gig at Netscape. They saw some Web stuff I did with KLUG and offered me a job."

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