Image courtesy of the Ad Generator, which mashes up fragments of real corporate slogans with Flickr images to generate ersatz advertisements on the fly.
OK, perhaps it's not momentous and/or exciting to anyone but me. But today I want to go public with the news that I have taken on the role of Director of Marketing at BlueMetal Architects.
I have already been working in this capacity for several months, and I am absolutely thrilled by this change, which translates my experience helping clients be successful on a project-by-project basis to a comprehensive strategy for driving success and satisfaction across all our clients. I'm working with a much broader spectrum of technologies, where I continue to emphasize strategy and maturity in our solutions, and I'm interacting more closely with the great teams of experts in all our practices and locations. Among many other initiatives, I now have responsibility for focusing on the people at BlueMetal and helping each one of them build their individual brands. And best of all, I get to do all this in an environment that encourages innovation and creativity, where I can continually challenge myself and others to lead with the strength of our differences (rather than trying to mimic our competition). And our differences are VERY strong.
In the past few months, the folks who've learned my news all had similar questions for me. Because I can't resist an opportunity to re-use information, I put together this FAQ.
Why Marketing?
Information Technology welcomed me in when I was young, as it did for so many of us, and I made my career there doing what I'd always been good at - organizing information, simplifying processes, connecting people, surfacing knowledge. But after many years of doing IT work that other people encouraged me to do, I could no longer ignore the signs: in my free time I read Marketing books. Walking into stores with my kids, I talked to them about brand recognition and consumer behavior. I admired logos, labels and packaging for their own sake. I subscribed to technology blogs but I read marketing and design blogs. I envied the Marketing staff at the companies where I worked. I harrassed the company leaders to update the corporate website, start listening via social media, and value thought leadership over brochureware. I worked nights and weekends to build my personal brand in the technology community, and that felt like the most fun part of my work week.
Then, this past Fall, we started interviewing candidates for a Marketing position at BlueMetal. Though the candidates were excellent, I found myself thinking, "They're not saying exactly what I want to hear. I know our company and this business. I can do better." I pitched my plan - and got the job.
It felt like a huge risk at the time - like stepping away from ten years' investment building my resume in a certain direction - but today it feels like one of the best decisions I ever made.
What's going to happen to the SharePoint Maturity Model?
It's alive and well, and with the help of the community I will continue to maintain and improve it, update it for new versions of the product, collect data, and share that data periodically.
Why would you leave the beautiful SharePoint platform and its magnificent community of users and practitioners?
While I'll be doing less hands-on delivery of SharePoint projects, I definitely won't be stepping away from SharePoint or the community. If anything I'll have the latitude to be even more involved in community groups and events, and to continue to offer tools to the community such as the SharePoint Maturity Model.
Is this like the time when that other SharePoint evangelist made a big deal of announcing his retirement from the community, but then never seemed to go away?
No.
Thanks for reading - now go dream at the speed of everything! (I swear by it!)
