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.
So cool! I was waiting for this great information. Best of luck, and here's to being Internet rockstars! : )
Who's the man… you are. Congrats pal!
congratulations! it is always nice to go someplace where you'll be valued for your skills and interests. and to know that someone valued you so much that they called you a few months later. those are the best jobs – people will expect big things from the start and you'll actually want to do it!
very exciting news!
Cheers James! We're all looking forward to August 25. I'm sure you'll be a tremendous asset to Tucows and a great addition to the team.
HOORAY! Well done my friend!
Hey James – glad to have you on board! “Welcome to the herd!” 🙂
Congratulations, James! This sounds like the proverbial “win-win” for everyone, but don't let that internet rockstar status go to your head…
Hey congrats James! Glad to hear you've escaped corporateville. I'm on the move shortly myself. Not sure just where yet though. Yikes!
Hi James — I saw your comment on Joe Thornley's post with my interview. Congratulations on the new gig, and on joining our growing community wrangling ranks! 🙂
I'm still pretty new to the game, too, and always up for connecting with more folks in the biz. Plus, hey, you're relatively local, which is nice.
Feel free to ping me any time with questions, ideas, or just to say hi. I'm at melanie at aiderss dot com, and @melle on Twitter.
Cheers!
Congrat's on the change. I did some client work for a large organization about 6 months back and I completely understand the frustration. It seems that to get anything approved, it has to go through 30 sign-off's. Community relations is exciting– it's a relatively new position in our field and what's most exciting, I think, is that it offers the opportunity to change the world!
Sounds like a great opportunity James, congratulations.
w00t! Congratulations! Does being an Internet Rockstarâ„¢ mean that you get roadies, too?
Congrats James. Glad you got the new job. Sounds like a perfect fit.