| St. Cloud State University, bachelors degree |
Teddy Lyngaas is currently Director of Optimization at AboutFace Media.
Growing up in Madison, Wisconsin, Teddy was an admittedly terrible soda vendor at Camp Randall Stadium, where the Wisconsin Badgers football team plays. “I would lacksadasically stretch one tray of diet sodas through an entire game by posting up by one section and just watching the game,” he confesses. He was also captain of his football team, president of DECA, on student council, and worked dressing up in a giant mouse costume at Chuck E. Cheese. “A well-rounded youth,” he laughs.
College took him to St. Cloud State University in Minnesota where he earned his bachelors degree and played “hooker” on the school’s rugby team. Then it was off to Milwaukee where he worked as a production assistant and production coordinator on various film, television, and commercial productions.
Teddy had been blogging since around 1998. “I made my first Geocities site on my parents’ dial-up connection and have since made the transition from Angelfire, Blogger, Wordpress, to Tumblr and everything else under the sun” He was also enthusiastically wanted to be in your top 8 on MySpace and then an early adoptor of “The Facebook”. “The Internet is such a powerful place,” he says. “And I’ve always been passionate about it.”
Teddy is also passionate about Badgers football and basketball, hip hop music, rugby, camping, and the occasional alcoholic beverage. As Director Of Optimization, his job is essentially “to get the videos seen.” He spends inordinate amounts of time watching online videos, staring at Excel spreadsheets regarding demographics, views, and audience retention, and obsessing over the smallest changes on YouTube. “It’s fascinating because every day is different – things are always rapidly changing – and every video behaves differently – so you have to stay on your toes,” he explains.
No, Teddy doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up, but he knows it’s definitely going to be rooted in the Internet that he loves.
