Moving Forward

About a year ago now I sat down and wrote a long blog post titled “What’s Next”. In that piece, I talked about how I am not happy unless I am continually learning and moving forward. That goes for my professional life as well as my personal and spiritual life.

At that time the next step in the journey was a position at Microsoft, developing their marketing technology strategy. Doing just that for the past year has been an amazing experience. Where others in the marketing technology landscape are spending billions of dollars, Microsoft has not invested as heavily, but has the technology and resources to be a major player in the space.

Because of these amazing technologies and the amazing people at Microsoft I was able to put several different strategies, solutions, and products together that allowed Microsoft to tell a unique story in this space and helped to change the perception of Microsoft. I can’t get into much detail about the work, but you will see the fruits of this in the press in the coming months.

That said, it has come that time for me to move forward and to the next stage in my professional journey. Microsoft is an amazing place with some of the best and brightest people around, but going in I thought it might be a short stay. Even knowing that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make an impact in the MarTech/AdTech space that puts the customer at the core. I think the team and I did just that, but I am passionate about creative, think outside the box, and am at my heart a marketing guy and this was definitely not a marketing job.

I wouldn’t change anything however; as it was a transformative experience that pushed me to learn new exciting things. Never on my past career path have I had the opportunity to be surrounded by so many people with completely different backgrounds and experiences than myself and I am better off because of it. There are very few companies in the world I could have worked at where I’d be working daily with the best technical experts and thought leaders in the space. These people were not just the employees of Microsoft either, I also got to work with great people from some of largest brands, agency holding companies, and marketing technology players. I’d never have thought before this, that I would be able to carry on conversations with the best and brightest around machine learning, big data, and technical architectures, but I was fortunate enough to be able to do so on a daily basis. I remember at one meeting being surrounded by four rocket scientist, two guys with PHD’s in mathematics, and other guys with Ivy degrees and thinking to myself should I bring up that I chose my college based on where I wanted to play football? There was nothing to be scared of however, as they were there to learn from me much like I was there to learn from them. Even with all these great memories, the best part of the entire experience are the friendships I developed with people from across the globe and many of whom have vastly different backgrounds and experiences than myself.

During this time I also got to work with various business group leaders from across Microsoft and will say that I believe Microsoft under Satya’s vision is headed in the right direction. The Azure teams are perfect representations of this and are relentlessly focused on the customer and operate fast and efficiently.

Microsoft is on the right track it just isn’t mine. Now is the time for me to get back into the execution of marketing and to work in creative environments. Technology has always been a part of my career, but now I will focus my efforts on finding a place that allows me to use my skills in that area to develop solid marketing plans and programs.

At a time like this I should be scared as I have no hard set plans for what is next and going out into the unknown can be difficult. Even with that, I am at peace and have a strong faith that God will show me the next step of my journey and it will be even better than anything I have done before.

With all these changes it does mean I have some free time and would love to connect over coffee or lunch with anyone that wants to. Part of what I was missing while working in Redmond was connecting with various people in the industry who mostly work in Seattle and I would love to use this time to try to catch-up on some of those meetings. LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter me if you are interested and I will do my best to make it work.

As my old boss, Clay McDaniel, says and is perfectly fitting here,

Onward!