Ensight – Jeremy Wright

Till I Collapse
by Enimem

Until the roof
The roof comes off
Until my legs
give out from underneath me

I will not fall,
I will stand tall,
Feels like no one could beat me.

Nearly 6 months ago (in 9 days), I announced that I was leaving b5media, a  company where I was the CEO and one of 4 founders, along with 3 other amazing individuals. I then  proceeded to take roughly 6 months of quieter time to work on me, sort through stuff and figure out what I wanted personally and professionally. Note: I highly recommend doing this if you haven’t recently (it’s a central  part of a talk I’m giving with @geekmommy at South by South West).

As I came out of my hardcore “Workcation”, and a month post the transition,  I wrote this post detailing some of my thoughts and whatnot. Looking back  on the post, the thing that stood out (besides my #madwritingskillz) was my thoughts on what I wanted to do:

1. Figure out what makes you smile, and do more of that
2. Figure out what makes you stress, and do less of that
3. Don’t be afraid to fail (I used to live by this, but sometime in the last year I lost it)
4. Sleep
5. Friends and family matter

More smiling.

Less stress.

More passion.

More sleep.

More involvement.

What I Wanted

Basically I wanted a job where I could be great, be part of a team, have real work/life balance (cause I’d be more inspired that way) and make a difference in the company and for our clients.

I’ve seen a lot of job opportunities over the last 6 months.  Many of them were amazing, and I felt silly turning them down, but something about each just didn’t feel with my fundamental needs to make a difference, be part of a great team and learn/grow.

Over the last few months, one opportunity has consistently excited me. I could never quite put my finger on “why” until a good and wise friend basically pointed out that if I was still interested even though it wasn’t the best pay, the best title, etc, then I must either be crazy or I must actually give a damn. I really did. And giving a damn about your “job” is actually pretty cool when you get right down to it.

She’s a smart cookie that one. Even if she does say “insurance” and “ambulance” wrong.

So, I talked to the company, we worked out details, and … well, today is Day 1.

What I Got

Today I’ve joined the Thornley Fallis / 76design team. The titles don’t matter. The details don’t matter. What matters is:

1. The team is Blue Angel incredible. From people I knew rawked like Dave, Michael, Terry and Joe to people I’ve gotten to know very recently that are also incredible like Sarah, Shawn, Jenn, Keelan and Leisha… to people that I haven’t met yet cause I’ve only been here 6 hours… who are also, I’m completely confident, rawkstars.
2. We’re doing fab work for some incredibly interesting clients. I’m not sure what the kosherness is on naming them, so I’ll just say that our clients are high end companies we’re doing leading edge work for, as well as folk you may never hear of where we’re able to grow and redefine their business. It’s just flat out cool.
3. I get to learn. Let’s face it, doing new stuff is 3 parts scary and 105 parts just wicked exciting. Doing it in an industry you’ve only worked with tangentially (even if you’ve won gobs of awards and spoken at events in said industry) is even cooler. Getting to learn about marketing, branding and PR from some of the coolest and most knowledgeable people in Canada (if not the entire industry)? Teh hawtness.

This is my first time in a “job” in, like, 6 years. It’s my first time with a “real” desk and an office, well, evar. It’s my first time taking on a senior role in a company I didn’t start, or where I didn’t work my way up through the ranks. But more important than that, it’s my first time working in such a dynamic environment where the team, clients and work are all nsync (see what I did there? #boybandaddict).

Today is Day 1. It was a great day (and it’s nowhere near done). I’m hopped up on something better than redbull: energy and excitement. They should bottle this shit.

PS: HUGE thanks to @jpetersen for helping me fix blog issues to get this up! Total great guy! Here’s his details in case you ever need help

Every year,  the panel submissions and voting for SxSW sneak up on me. Normally I don’t have time to submit a panel idea, so I’ve only really been able to speak once when I was selected last-minute. This year, I decided to be different,  and proactively reached out to some folk well before the deadline to put together panels that:

1. I’d go to even if I wasn’t speaking (which is saying something, cause I only go to about 3 panels per conference)
2. Were different from the “normal” panels you see at conferences
3. Have people I respect/admire/care about on the panels
4. Challenge assumptions
5. Provide value

Most of the normal  things I’d speak on, were taken out by point 1/2. And most  of the fluffy ideas that I’d normal brainstorm on were  taken out by points 4-5.  But point 3 is ultimately what drove the discussions.

My Panels

When I pinged Lu, Patrick and Dave about doing panels with them  individually (or vice versa on Dave, maybe), as well as a few others, it was because I ultimately wanted to be on panels with them. And what we talked about, I felt, should be a meshing of our experiences.

As a result, the opening call with Lu was basically shooting the shit for half an hour,  before realizing we were going through similar types of transitions. Both from  different extremes, but both basically looking to find balance, bliss. And so Ditch  the Old to Build Your Dream Life was born. It was deadsimple to brainstorm Chris and Erin would be  perfect. Both people I love,  respect, admire, look up to, etc.

Similar discussions happened with Dave, leading to F#$% Keeping it Simple. Being a mobile guy, Dave wanted to talk about how too simple in mobile was limiting the potential of the device. I wanted to focus on  how simplicity in startups is as much a curse as a helper. It’s a crutch  people use to put ideas down, instead of thinking outside the box and trying to do stuff right.

That said, I’ll freely admit that much of the brainstorming for the session with Patrick around How to Recover from  a Brand Collapsee was Patrick’s idea. Patrick’s been running communities for ages, is wicked smart and I’ve  known him since before either of us could just say the name of our company and not have to go into elevator pitches everytime we introduced ourselves. Patrick’s recent post on How to Recover from Social Media Failure  (paraphrased) is a great example of his thought leadership in this space.

And, well, the last panel  I submitted is still quasi confidential. Some folk are aware my wife and I split awhile ago, and that I now have a girlfriend.  Very few folk know who she is because we’re being fairly incognito about the whole thing. But the interesting thing that folk always love when we tell our story in person is that we met on Twitter. So we found a few other folk who had as well and put together Twitter and Dating in 140 Characters or Less.

So those are the panels I’m hoping to land this year. Each of these is unique for me, and challenging, and I know that I’ll learn.

Toronto Panels

In addition to my panels, I want to encourage folk from Toronto to vote for panels from folk from Toronto. The Canadian invasion last year (powered by #canLIT) was in full force last year, but we weren’t organized enough to have a significant number of panels. That should change. While there are lots of high profile wicked smart people like David  Crow, Joey DeVilla, Saul Colt,  etc in Toronto, there are way more wicked smart people who don’t yet have the profile they deserve. So, hop up and vote for your local talent!

Kev Richard (a fellow mobster) put together an amazing list of Toronto panels. Click through and send him a thanks, follow him on Twitter, etc. Here’s his list:

1. F#$% Keeping it Simple presented by Dave Coleman, Saul Colt and Jeremy Wright
2. Community Management : Future Skills You’ll Need to Know presented by Saul Colt
3. Tweet Your Way to Your Next Job presented by Saul Colt
4. Putting a Fork in The 30 Second Spot with panelist Andrew Lane
5. Life After Wii Fit: Geeks On Fitness presented by Wesley Hodgson
6. Make Me a Damn Good Manager! presented by Andre Gaulin
7. Millionaire or Artist? How About Both? with panelist Amrita Chandra
8. Distributed Micro-Patronage: The Future of Getting Paid: presented by Josh Newman
9. Building Blocks of a New Economy For Music: presented by David Dufresne
10. Colour Trends -Palettes to Pick for 2010 presented by Paige Dzenis
11. Brilliant Second Acts You Must Steal Tricks From presented by Jaime Woo
12. How to Recover From a Brand Collapse panelist Jeremy Wright
13. Twitter and Dating in 140 Characters or Less presented by Jeremy Wright and special guest!
14. Ditch the Old to Build Your Dream Life with panelist Jeremy Wright
15. Gaming’s Final Frontier- Moving Towards Monetization & Improving Experience presented by Troy Ross
16. Passionate People: The Key Ingredient to Social Media Success: with panelists Meghan Warby , James Topham and Ryan Taylor
17. A Different Documentary : Online Story Telling and Social Change presented by Boyd Niel
18. Documentary Games: Playing with the Truth presented by Tony Walsh
19. Multi-Platform Storytelling with panelist Andrew Lane
20. SXSW SARS with panelist Jay Goldman
21. We are Family: Web Applications Band Together Now! presented by Sunir Shah
22. How to be a Customer Support Rockstar presented by Grace Antonio
23. Experimental Design:Your User Interface is Your Laboratory presented by Mike McDerment
24. Exploiting Chaos– How to Spark Innovation During Times of Change presented by Jeremy Gutsche
25. News 2.0 – How Old Media Companies Are Inventing New Models presented by Maggie Fox with panelists Laura Conway, Mathew Ingram, and Candice Faktor.

Friends

In addition, I’d like to highlight Brandon Eley’s panel ideas,  and encourage you to vote for him as well:

• Marketing By Design: Practical Advice For Better Conversions
• How To Pitch Social Media To Your Clients

So There

SxSW Panel Voting ends on Friday, so if you’re interested  in voting,  don’t put it off.  Vote now. For mine, for local ones,  for your friends. Hell, search for great terms and support the wide  base of submissions that are in for this year.

Ever since announcing my resignation as CEO of b5media I’ve had a tonne of email. Well, less than I did while I worked at b5 (cause I don’t get the mountain of internal email), but a lot of email specifically addressed to me that asks for a specific response. I’ve managed to answer most of these (one of my todos is to get my inbox empty for Wednesday) in the midst of my “workcation”, but realized that it might be easier to post a bit publicly, and then refer the simpler questions to this post.

Not to  be antisocial, but at some point you get tired of answering “so, are you sad?” (no, I won’t answer that in any detail here, cause it should be obvious … no, and yes, at the same time).

In the spirit of openness, and efficiency, and just of, y’know, getting back in the habit of blogging, here are some common questions and my deep, thoughtful, wise answers:

Q: So… What’s Next?

This is the question I, understandably, get  asked the most. The short answer is “I don’t know”. The medium answer is “I’ll be running netmobs and doing consulting for clients while I find the right fit… which could end up being netmobs“. The long answer is “I’m talking to companies, agencies, startups, etc about finding the right fit, but I’m in no hurry”.

Ultimately I figure I have 3 options right now (outside of the “do another startup” one, which I’ll answer in a sec): a) join a larger corporation in a senior strategic role (a friend suggested “EVP Social Media” or similar), b) join a midsized, profitable, agency or startup either for a finite period (to help them reach Goal X) or permanently or c) join a media company or startup, likely in the US, in a senior role around BD/media/social media/product development/etc.

At this point, I come back from my “workcation” on Tuesday, I have a bunch of lunches/meetings/coffees, and I’ll have a better idea by the end of the month. Right now I’m listening, talking, strategizinng and figuring out not just what I want or where I can add the most value, but where I fit.

That could be netmobs, it could be a “regular job”, it could be in a VC firm or it could be something totally random. Which is why I’m taking some time, listening, hanging out and helping folk when and where I cna.

Q: Are You Going to Do Another Startup?

Kind of related to the above question, some folk want to know if I’m going to do another startup. Especially after the oddly skewed WSJ article made it sound like the issue was some kind of inability to hack it in the startup world.

Granted, I was pretty tired (any job where you work 80+hrs/week without taking breaks for months/years will burn you out), and things do need to change in the startup world around helping CEOs finding balance (especially in Canada where we tend to eat our own young), but the issue around b5 was pretty simple: I was working too much, I had been at it too long, and I lacked perspective because of the huge amount of history there (none of it bad, but history nonetheless).

So I made a clean break so I could reboot. The last 4-6 weeks have basically been the equivalent of rebooting and putting more RAM into a Windows machine that’s been  running 24/7 for 4 years. I feel good, I feel very fresh, and you could install some hawt new apps on me and I’d purr and be happy. As long as I remember to reboot on a more regular basis, I should be good.

Does that mean I’m going to do another startup? Probably not right away. Probably not about to start another media/software/internet business in the near future. I’ll probably play around with ideas. I’ll definitely continue to build out netmobs, which as an agency is kind of like a startup. And one of those things might turn into a Real Business. But I won’t be looking to place my life, passions and livelihood completely on the line at this point by starting or joining a startup that isn’t profitable.

Q: Are You Still Involved at b5media?

Yes and no. I’m no longer involved operationally, which means if you want to know a) if b5 is doing something, b) when b5 is doing something, c) why b5 isn’t doing something, d) etc… I won’t know or speculate, but I can introduce you to the person who will know and may or may not tell you (heh). However I’m still a founder, shareholder and board member, which means I get to have input, watch my baby grow and try and stay out of the way. Not a bad deal really!

Q: What Would You Have Done Differently?

I know a lot of folk write those kinds of long, reflective posts immediately upon leaving a startup. Might gut says it’s a way to decompress, make a clean break, reflect, etc. For me, though, I don’t have the necessary distance or perspective to put together a list of 5, 10 or 100 things I’d have done  differently, that I learned, etc. Ask me again in a year and you’ll likely get a useful and coherent answer.

Bonus Q: You Got Divorced?

I don’t talk about personal things in this kind of public way very often, but I did mention a new girlfriend in my leaving post so folk asked about my marriage… and suffice to say that I’m no longer married, but that (see: girlfriend) I’m not single either. So, David, please stop sending me topless pictures of yourself.

Drive-by Thankyous

Before I head back to my hermit-like last few days of my workcation,  though, I do want to thank a few folk who’ve helped me over the last few months through this transition.Some of it has been simple encouragement, some has been outright advice, all have been incredible, incredible friends.

I’m sure I’ll forget people, so I’ll also just say a generic “thank you” to anyone who was helpful, supportive, caring or even just gave me a swift kick in the pants. I hope to see you all at BWE, SxSW or in a random airport/bar/marina.

• Reem
• Merlene
• Aaron
• Erika
• Rachel
• Rick
• Micah
• Brad
• Ted
• My dad
• My mom
• Dan
• Paige
• Lee
• Jay
• David