November 15, 2007 166 Comments

The New Gig

Thanks to everyone who sent me well wishes upon my announcement that I was moving on from my previous gig. I received 110 comments, and about 74 private emails regarding what my next steps might be. It was very heart-warming, as I’ve never (ever) been given so much good feedback and kind words between jobs.

What became really fun to me was hearing some of the ideas and offers people had. I enjoyed learning what was out there, and it gave me some interesting ideas about the state of the “social media industry,” such as it is. I know that lots of big, good companies are interested in this space. I also know that there are plenty of companies really just trying to be seen and heard out there. I felt compassion for the latter, because it’s really hard right now for people to get attention.

The Backstory

I had an idea what I wanted to do before moving on from the last place. I said it to anyone who asked. I said that I wanted to look into running smaller, niche-focused events, and that I wanted to work on social media, especially in how it works behind the firewalls of enterprise companies. Further, after talking with people like Jeremiah Owyang, who took a job at Forrester, I knew that I wanted to do something more than talk about cool bleeding edge technologies. I wanted to work with a team who wanted to make things happen, not just talk about things.

I got what I wished for. (Didn’t you warn me to be careful about that?)

My New Role

As of now, I’m the Vice President of Strategy & Technology for CrossTechMedia, a company that has been running IT tech events for the last few years. My role will be to create exactly what I mentioned above: more targeted niche events about specific technologies and trends, which will take the form of Executive Briefings for enterprise customers, and small-medium businesses seeking to see how certain leading edge technologies would work for their organization.

On top of creating and speaking at my own events, I’ll attend and speak at other events on technologies, including social media, virtualization, mashups, unified communications, and other areas we believe are directly impactful to companies facing IT challenges, and seeking to get ahead of the curve. This won’t just be what-if. It’ll have a strong component of “we can do this today” built right in.

My other duties involve working with CrossIntegration, our services and software development organization, on showing them which of these technologies matter to businesses, and building a practice to execute the strategies we work on, such that we’re not just talking, we’re doing.

Why CrossTechMedia

There are a few reasons why this company will work for me. One, I am a partner in the business. I am incented to see the business succeed. Two, I’m being encouraged to get creative on ways to build the business, and it’s in my best interest to do so. Three, the team is really damned interesting, open to new ideas, and has a nice track record of running events and software projects, so I’m joining a bunch of people who know what they’re doing, but want some new brains to work with on a future puzzle. (Sounds cool, right?)

It’s also in Massachusetts, so I don’t have to move. I’ll be able to work remotely a few days a week (nice!), and I can do lots of interesting business with friends and colleagues. There are lots more ways to get things done, which is nice, too.

Details or FAQ

I’m still based in Massachusetts
I get to keep my 631-612-8945 phone number (thanks to pulvermedia for that!)
You can still reach me at: blog at chrisbrogan.com
I still will do things on this blog
I will still go to shows
I will still do PodCamp things
I am open to your ideas
I can consult and execute on social media business opportunities as well as other things
I’m happily employed

So that’s it. Any questions?

No related posts.

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http://jonnygoldstein.com jonny goldstein

Par-tay!
http://epicfu.com Steve Woolf

Belated congrats, Chris! Sounds like a good setup for you. One thing I know you’ll bring is breaking that bubble that seems to surround us in the online media world. I really like how you always find ways to introduce me to new people and new ideas through your blog, because the echo chamber has become deafening lately. I expect that you will be able to bring all of this to CrossTechMedia, lucky for them!
http://epicfu.com Steve Woolf

Belated congrats, Chris! Sounds like a good setup for you. One thing I know you’ll bring is breaking that bubble that seems to surround us in the online media world. I really like how you always find ways to introduce me to new people and new ideas through your blog, because the echo chamber has become deafening lately. I expect that you will be able to bring all of this to CrossTechMedia, lucky for them!
http://www.hawaiistories.com/infinity NEENZ: “InfintyPro”

Mr. Brogan:

Congratulations on your new venture.

My continued support and encourage.

ALOHA.
NEENZ.
http://www.hawaiistories.com/infinity NEENZ: “InfintyPro”

Mr. Brogan:

Congratulations on your new venture.

My continued support and encourage.

ALOHA.
NEENZ.
http://www.1or2thoughts.blogspot.com/ Mark Brage

Your small business focus sounds exactly like what I found missing at Blog World Expo. I wish you well and am very glad to have connected with you.
http://www.1or2thoughts.blogspot.com/ Mark Brage

Your small business focus sounds exactly like what I found missing at Blog World Expo. I wish you well and am very glad to have connected with you.
http://visuallounge.techsmith.com Betsy Weber

Congrats, Chris! I’m very happy for you!

Do they know how lucky they are to have you at their company?!
http://visuallounge.techsmith.com Betsy Weber

Congrats, Chris! I’m very happy for you!

Do they know how lucky they are to have you at their company?!
http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/ Dan York

Chris,

MANY congrats on landing the new role so quickly! It sounds like a perfect role for you and I wish you all the best with it. It was a month ago today that I started my own “dream job” that likewise came through my blogging about it and reaching out into the community. I’m incredibly pleased with how things are going and absolutely love what I’m doing. I hope that all goes as well for you and I’ll look forward to continuing to read your great posts here and catching up with you at various events.

Congrats! You’re an awesome guy and they are very lucky to have hired you!

Dan
http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/ Dan York

Chris,

MANY congrats on landing the new role so quickly! It sounds like a perfect role for you and I wish you all the best with it. It was a month ago today that I started my own “dream job” that likewise came through my blogging about it and reaching out into the community. I’m incredibly pleased with how things are going and absolutely love what I’m doing. I hope that all goes as well for you and I’ll look forward to continuing to read your great posts here and catching up with you at various events.

Congrats! You’re an awesome guy and they are very lucky to have hired you!

Dan
Susan Smith

Er – um – good luck with that. They don’t have a great reputaion….I’m a silent reader of your stuff so I hope you can impact them. I’ve never posted until now.

Check this out:

http://www.whiteroseproductions.com/blog/seo/pagerank-and-search-page-rank-are-not-the-same-thing/

More where that came from…good luck!

Sue
Susan Smith

Er – um – good luck with that. They don’t have a great reputaion….I’m a silent reader of your stuff so I hope you can impact them. I’ve never posted until now.

Check this out:

http://www.whiteroseproductions.com/blog/seo/pagerank-and-search-page-rank-are-not-the-same-thing/

More where that came from…good luck!

Sue
http://www.johncschuler.com John Schuler

Chris,
Congratulations on your move. Seeing that you are a partner, wanted to send you a comment that might help in your new venture.

I recently attended the ITEC show in Portland, Oregon, then got a Looooong questionaire asking what I thought.

I would like to commend all of you on what I think was a fine job of organizing and marketing the recent ITEC show in Portland, Oregon.

As a business consultant who helps CEOs of small and medium companies to improve their sales and marketing, I am probably not wholly qualified to give you feedback in the specific format you requested in your email; in addition, I find so many questions to be a bit of a draconian challenge. ;-)

Here is a suggestion for which I usually charge a 3-hour minimum of $360 to present to client: ;-)

When you ask for feedback, consider a limit to your questions of 3 groups of 3 i.e. 9 questions total. With a space for comments.
This will dramatically improve your response. e.g.
What 3 things did you like best?
What 3 things did you think were a waste of time?
What 3 things would you do if it were your show?

That said, I would now like to encourage you by offering a few thoughts – also pro bono – that might help at the 10,000′ level.

I feel you did a fine job of marketing by email. At least to previous attendees – of which I was one. Your monthly, then weekly, then daily reminders were VERY well done.

The IT world, as you might know better than I, is a difficult market in itself. Portland, Oregon is a unique (strange?) market which is itself a bit of a challenge. There are only 3M people in the entire State with some 1.5M within an hour’s drive of Portland. But very few of those people could be classified as “high tech”.

Prior to becoming a management consultant years ago, my forte was helping companies and selling and training teams to sell $M+ Electronic Test systems to manufacturing VPs and CEOs. If we had had to sell those same systems to IT managers, we would have starved to death. ;-)

I believe that one reason that selling to – or providing shows to – IT people is so tedious is that while the hardware and software involved in Information Technology is truly complex, very few people at high levels really understand or care. And conversely, the people doing the detail work seldom really understand the dyamics driving the future.

This means you wind up with – at least in Portland, OR – too many state workers and company IT technician types who are really there to just get some time off from work and perhaps “kick a few tires” – or take a shot at winning a Blackberry.

Most of the booth staffers with whom I spoke were:
* Bored
8 Unchallenged by the audience
* Knowledgeable only at the detail level of their own products;
they were not really up on the macro aspects of IT and its trends.
Many commented that they would not attend again if given a choice – and would tell their managers upon returning home.

Now, having probably thoroughly depressed you with my comments, let me offer some thoughts that might help.

1. Line up some truly high-level “events” like a 20-minute talk on “Cloud Computing” by IBM or Google. e.g. See: Google and the Wisdom of Clouds:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_52/b4064048925836.htm?chan=magazine+channel_top+stories

This would hopefully draw more VPs and CEOs.
You might perhaps “close” the booths for an extended lunch hour to draw in customer-managers who are busy in the mornings and under pressure to return to the office later in the day. That way, the vendors could also attend the high-level talks and be educated.

2. Your concept of having the talks right on the floor is a good one. I would suggest better signage and “clocks” to show the name and time of the next session in that area – and have a master board at the entrance with the same info. A number of us were sitting in one area while the talk had already started after moving to another curtained area.

3. Let the CEOs of vendor companies continue to talk about their products and services, but have them first give an intro – perhaps with handouts – that will position their company and their talk so that attendees are able to internalize both the big picture and the minutae of what is being offered.

Remember that the only true money-maker is motivation. And the only true motivation is useful education.

Regards,

John C. Schuler, PhD
Founder & Principal Strategist
OEM Solutions Group – Portland, Oregon, USA
Optimizing the Customer Interface Lifts Margins
Email: johnschuler@comcast.net
Web Site: http://www.johncschuler.com/12001.html
Cell: 503-709-5017
http://www.johncschuler.com John Schuler

Chris,
Congratulations on your move. Seeing that you are a partner, wanted to send you a comment that might help in your new venture.

I recently attended the ITEC show in Portland, Oregon, then got a Looooong questionaire asking what I thought.

I would like to commend all of you on what I think was a fine job of organizing and marketing the recent ITEC show in Portland, Oregon.

As a business consultant who helps CEOs of small and medium companies to improve their sales and marketing, I am probably not wholly qualified to give you feedback in the specific format you requested in your email; in addition, I find so many questions to be a bit of a draconian challenge. ;-)

Here is a suggestion for which I usually charge a 3-hour minimum of $360 to present to client: ;-)

When you ask for feedback, consider a limit to your questions of 3 groups of 3 i.e. 9 questions total. With a space for comments.
This will dramatically improve your response. e.g.
What 3 things did you like best?
What 3 things did you think were a waste of time?
What 3 things would you do if it were your show?

That said, I would now like to encourage you by offering a few thoughts – also pro bono – that might help at the 10,000′ level.

I feel you did a fine job of marketing by email. At least to previous attendees – of which I was one. Your monthly, then weekly, then daily reminders were VERY well done.

The IT world, as you might know better than I, is a difficult market in itself. Portland, Oregon is a unique (strange?) market which is itself a bit of a challenge. There are only 3M people in the entire State with some 1.5M within an hour’s drive of Portland. But very few of those people could be classified as “high tech”.

Prior to becoming a management consultant years ago, my forte was helping companies and selling and training teams to sell $M+ Electronic Test systems to manufacturing VPs and CEOs. If we had had to sell those same systems to IT managers, we would have starved to death. ;-)

I believe that one reason that selling to – or providing shows to – IT people is so tedious is that while the hardware and software involved in Information Technology is truly complex, very few people at high levels really understand or care. And conversely, the people doing the detail work seldom really understand the dyamics driving the future.

This means you wind up with – at least in Portland, OR – too many state workers and company IT technician types who are really there to just get some time off from work and perhaps “kick a few tires” – or take a shot at winning a Blackberry.

Most of the booth staffers with whom I spoke were:
* Bored
8 Unchallenged by the audience
* Knowledgeable only at the detail level of their own products;
they were not really up on the macro aspects of IT and its trends.
Many commented that they would not attend again if given a choice – and would tell their managers upon returning home.

Now, having probably thoroughly depressed you with my comments, let me offer some thoughts that might help.

1. Line up some truly high-level “events” like a 20-minute talk on “Cloud Computing” by IBM or Google. e.g. See: Google and the Wisdom of Clouds:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_52/b4064048925836.htm?chan=magazine+channel_top+stories

This would hopefully draw more VPs and CEOs.
You might perhaps “close” the booths for an extended lunch hour to draw in customer-managers who are busy in the mornings and under pressure to return to the office later in the day. That way, the vendors could also attend the high-level talks and be educated.

2. Your concept of having the talks right on the floor is a good one. I would suggest better signage and “clocks” to show the name and time of the next session in that area – and have a master board at the entrance with the same info. A number of us were sitting in one area while the talk had already started after moving to another curtained area.

3. Let the CEOs of vendor companies continue to talk about their products and services, but have them first give an intro – perhaps with handouts – that will position their company and their talk so that attendees are able to internalize both the big picture and the minutae of what is being offered.

Remember that the only true money-maker is motivation. And the only true motivation is useful education.

Regards,

John C. Schuler, PhD
Founder & Principal Strategist
OEM Solutions Group – Portland, Oregon, USA
Optimizing the Customer Interface Lifts Margins
Email: johnschuler@comcast.net
Web Site: http://www.johncschuler.com/12001.html
Cell: 503-709-5017
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The New Gig

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