Monday, September 15, 2008

Reflecting in the Airport

Well, I am sitting in the Indianapolis airport waiting to board a plane that is running a bit behind. I find my thoughts picking up where they left off last night as I lay in bed trying to fall asleep.

I was thinking, and am thinking about the transition from what I have done for the past 11 years to what I am doing now - in my career and in my personal life. From media producer in both video and radio to advertising and marketing to entrepreneur and now as someone who is responsible, in large part with my partners, for the day to day direction, sustainability and successful growth of a company.

During this thought process I realized I am making - and to a great degree have made the transformation from full fledged, 24-7 marketing professional to full fledged, 24-7 business owner. It is bitter sweet as I think about my craft as a successful marketer - over the past 8 plus years I have been fortunate enough to work with some good business models and strategically leverage solid brand positioning, a focus on sales and a strong work ethic into some solid results. I am finding myself using these skills, but not as often. Those skills are being sidelined a bit by the learning and utilization of newly honed skills. Finance, day to day management, both of personnel and of assets and other resources and, yes, even some sales.

Now in what has become my third start up venture with one constant business partner, one new business partner, some new investors and thank God my lovely wife of eight years still putting up with me, I am seeing yet again more fantastic results yet I am in a different role and am enjoying it tremendously.

This still leaves me sitting here going to a Web 2.0 conference in New York City and trying to figure out my schedule. Do I attend the marketing presentations, the landscape presentations (I am a big fan of innovation no matter what my role is - I am an innovation addict), the more business focused presentations, or even the design presentations? I can take a lot of knowledge back to the design team if I attend that last category.

I think deep down I have a little bit of all those things in me - whether they are used daily or just accessed occasionally.

Part of me misses the day to day challenge of the true thorough marketing task, but the reality is I really enjoy learning and expanding my thought process and excitement to innovate and help The Basement succeed beyond the marketing task.

I guess I will leave it at that. My inner marketer will not rest easy, I am sure it will rare its head when needed.

I have been thinking of a new series for this blog though. And yeah it is marketing focused - possibly discussing the different categories of marketers and even entrepreneurs I have seen over the years, and which ones have proven out to be most successful. Not sure I can elaborate yet, but that topic could probably have its own book - probably already does.

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