Yikes – it’s been three months since I’ve added anything at all to this site. That’s mostly because I’ve been swamped with my new job. Here’s the latest news:
- It’s now been close to three months since I started at Organic. It’s been a great experience so far – lots of really smart folks and challenging work to boot. I’ve been keeping busy with Bank of America projects, and it’s definitely an interesting time in history to be thinking about financial services. I’ve had to take a few trips to Boston and Charlotte to meet with clients, so that’s been fun as well.
- Ice hockey season is over at Lasker Rink in Central Park. We lost last night in the semi-finals in an overtime heartbreaker. Now I need to sign up for kung-fu lessons to keep in shape for the off-season. Or maybe I’ll just get back on track with surfing out at Rockaway Beach.
- We’re thinking about planning a vacation in June. I’m considering Alaska and Ecuador, but right now the front-runner is a big road trip up the Maine coast and then a ferry to Nova Scotia. I’ve always wanted to check out the Atlantic Provinces of Canada, so this might be my opportunity to do it. Plus, I can avoid getting on an airplane and I can bring my dog Champ along.
- The Prospect Park cormorant has been making appearances on the north side of the lake.
- I’ve been taking guitar lessons the last few weeks. I actually think it’s harder than pedal steel.
So the big news here is that, after a joyous six months of working on personal projects and freelancing (at Euro RSCG and MCD Partners), I’ll be starting a new job on January 5th. I’ll be joining Organic, one of the original Silicon Alley interactive agencies (and current Omnicom company), as Director of Strategy. It’s a pure account planning role, where my key responsibility will be to provide consumer insights to our creatives in order to deliver effective client work. The day-to-day will consist of a whole lot of talking to consumers, as well as research, writing, and presentations on digital media.
I’m honestly very excited to start. Organic is a great company (with a great blog), and I think this role will be a really challenging opportunity for me. I’ll probably be working mostly on Bank of America to start, with some new business work thrown in as well.
I finally launched the site for Figure Four Media, a new side project focusing on web video distribution, strategy, and production. We’re still working through a few things (getting the blog working, for example), but you should be able to get the idea.
Our goal is to do high quality branded content, with a full set of web tools like RSS, comments, sharing/emailing/embedding, as well as integration with the big video sites like YouTube, etc.
Last Tuesday (April 8th) I officially turned another year older. The day itself was pretty uneventful, but on Sunday Emily took me to see Tracy Morgan do stand-up at a midtown comedy club.
Anyway, I think this is going to be my year! I’m finally going to graduate from the NYU MBA program (in August), so we could see a return of the old Lefty by the time fall rolls around. Watch out!
I’ve been a bit neglectful of posting here over the last month, as I’ve been focused on getting a huge project out the door at work. Lately, though, I’ve been thinking about the upcoming year and all the big decisions that need to be made. There are a lot of things happening next year, and all of them are going to require some thinking:
1. In February the aforementioned project will launch, so I’ll need to figure out what to do afterwards. I can stay the course, or I can more seriously pursue the online video project that most of my posts lately have been hinting at. We’re also going to take a vacation in March and I need to decide where to go. The contenders right now are: snowboarding in upstate NY or VT, snowboarding and visiting friends in Portland, visiting the state of Michoacan in Mexico, or perhaps just finding a nice tropical beach to surf in Costa Rica.
2. I’ll be graduating from Stern, most likely in the August. The program has been taking up pretty much all my free time over the last two years, and finishing will be a real transition point. It will free up a lot of time and mental energy for me, and I think also open some opportunities to go in different directions.
3. Related to both the above, I need to decide where to live. I’ve been back in NYC for 13 years now (after spending my childhood here), and the pace can take a toll. My wife and I have been talking a lot lately about moving out to the Pacific Northwest, and now that my school obligations are wrapping up, we’ll have the opportunity to do so. But leaving NYC won’t be an easy decision - I’ve got a lifetime of friends, relationships, family, and experiences here. At the same time, the call of life in a more manageable city, and the adventure of new surroundings, is very strong.
I am pleased to announce that after a blissful two and a half year engagement, Emily and I are getting married this Sunday. We’re going to have a small private ceremony right here in Brooklyn, USA (just us and our parents.) Then it’s off to Phoenicia, NY for the last week of August where we will go tubing on the Esopus and eat lots of pancakes.
I’ll post pictures to Flickr after the blessed event.
If you didn’t know it, the good folks at the Kaufmann Foundation are launching Entrepreneurship Week USA this week (February 24-March 3). They’ve got a big event out in Stanford to kick the week off, but us East Coasters have some options to participate as well. On Monday in DC they are hosting a conference on entrepreneurship in public policy (including the effects of legislation on immigration, healthcare, and education.) And in New York on Tuesday, they are holding a networking event at NYU Stern to connect young entrepreneurs with potential mentors.
