On the Move Again

It was almost exactly a year ago that I wrote about changing jobs, and now I’m at it again. Luckily, this year doesn’t involve a change of address as well. The past year at PricewaterhouseCoopers has been an education for me. I’d never really worked in such a large corporate office environment before, and despite being surrounded by great people, I felt isolated. As well, my job function was quite specialized and I never really felt I was flexing all my muscles, especially when it came to social media. In addition, the combination of some legacy technology limitations as well as a generally risk-averse culture left me feeling frustrated a lot of the time. Despite my manager’s and team’s enthusiasm for social media, it was just too difficult to put much into action in such a large corporate environment. My job devolved into writing (or rewriting) corporate marketing copy and then waiting for various levels of approval. For someone coming from an entrepreneurial environment where I was basically a one-man-web-band, the adjustment was difficult.

A few months back, I was introduced to Leona Hobbs, the marketing honcho (honcha?) at Tucows who was looking for someone for her team. It turned out that it wasn’t the right position (my euphemistic way of saying I wasn’t qualified) and I didn’t think I’d hear from Leona or Tucows again. And then about six weeks ago, she contacted me about a brand new position with her team and after several weeks of interviews and paperwork, I’m happy to announce that on Monday August 25th, I’ll join Tucows as a Community Specialist. The job description ticks off all my favourite boxes and basically allows me to be an internet rockstar for money. Of course, there’s more to it than that, but I’m looking forward to stretching out in the social media space again.

I know this opportunity wouldn’t have come along without all the meeting and greeting and learning I’ve been doing in the past year, starting with the Talk is Cheap unconference, continuing throughout the year at the excellent Third Tuesday PR events, CaseCamp and Mesh, in addition to my eighth South by Southwest Interactive conference. To everyone I’ve met and chatted with over the past few months (and especially to my colleagues at PwC), thank you for giving me the benefit of your knowledge, your experience, your connections and your encouragement. I hope that I’ll be able to repay it in some way.