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Dead Man Walking
 Remember the movie, Dead Man Walking, with Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon? Hands down one of the best movies of all time and a perhaps the best performance ever by Msr. Penn. I was reminded of the movie this morning when I was doing a final debrief with my manager, Patrick Moran. As I was walking out of his office, he jokingly mentioned that I was a "dead man walking." Given that I've mostly wrapped up my loose ends here at Mzinga, Patrick was right to point out that I'm essentially just biding my time until I walk out the door for the last time tomorrow afternoon.
While I'm nearly in need of reforming like Sean Penn was, I have taken some time over the last couple of weeks to reflect on my time here at Mzinga. I've already documented my top 10 experiences at Mzinga so I promise that I won't rehash those moments. However, I would like to thank a bunch of people that have either taught me valuable lessons or made my job easier while I've been here.
I of course am guarenteed to leave a few important people out so I'll apologize for that in advance. To make matters worse, I'm relinquishing the admin rights to this blog in a few hours so if I do omit someone, I can't even come in and remedy the issue (well, I guess I could give them props on my new blog: http://blog.stroutmeister.com or add a note in the comments).
Huge thanks go to:
- Barry Libert and Stephen Marcus for taking a chance on me two and a half years ago when I came over from Fidelity Investments. At the time, Barry was the CEO and Stephen the president of one of Mzinga's predecessor companies, Shared Insights. Along those lines, I'd like to thank Barry in particular for helping me take my game to the next level. During the manythousands of hours Barry and I spent together, he taught me how to:
- Breathe (or in other words, slow down and take my time)
- How to be prescriptive vs. descriptive (otherwise known as "keeping it in a box")
- And most importantly how to think big!
- My colleague Jim Storer who has been a real inspiration to me during my time here. I've learned a tremendous amount about community and social media from Jim -- not to mention how to run a damn fine webinar -- something Jim is a real pro at. Jim has also become one of my best friends during our time together which makes my leaving of Mzinga (and the Boston area) that much harder.
- Shannon DiGregorio AKA "Shuckrietta" for her sense of humor, her passion for sharks (something I share) and her tireless efforts wrangling kittens here at the wranch over the last couple of years. She has been an integral part of everything we've accomplished at Mzinga during our inaugural year.
- Joe Tremonte whom I hired almost two years ago. During that time, Joe has helped hold down the fort on the design front through some crazy and interesting transitions including numerous web site, collateral and logo changes.
- Isaac Hazard and Heather Strout (my sis) for their tireless efforts in helping us get our first dozen sites launched back in the Shared Insights days. Both are true community pros who have helped put the Mzinga strategy group on the map.
- Eve Sangenito, our VP of Marketing here at Mzinga. Eve is not only a savvy marketer but one of the hardest working people I've ever met. She also played the roll of psychiatrist to me on more than one occasion. ;)
- Randy Saari, our head of sales, for teaching me the expression, "fill a need vs. create a need." I now know everything I need to know about selling. Well, maybe not everything...
- Rusty Williams for humoring me with my Twitter and Brightkite activities. Oh, and for doing 10 thousand analyst and press interviews with me over the last several months. He's a true pro!
- Mike "Scooch" Pascucci, our head of moderation who joined Mzinga twice (whether he liked it or not). Mike is one of the funniest guys I know and one of the foremost experts in moderation in the world. That's right, "IN THE WORLD!" He's wicked smaht.
- Rick Faulk (our CEO) and Patrick Moran (our CMO) as two of my favorite leaders at Mzinga. I've known Rick for a couple of years now and he's one of the nicest, calmest and smartest guys I know. I'll truly miss his wry sense of humor. And then there's Patrick, a guy I've only known for a little over a month but whom I've come to truly appreciate. Patrick is not only a great marketer but also a genuinely nice guy. I plan to stay in close touch with him over the coming months so that we can compare notes during our co-journeys as CMO's.
- Robin Rose, Erika Halloran and Gary Bellardino as the crack technology/dev team that kept it altogether during our time at Shared Insights. Along with Jim, Joe, Isaac, Heather, Barry, Stephen, and Shannon, we've been in the trenches together. Along similar lines, I'd also like to thank Gwen Kincaid who not only has been through the trenches but many a times kept us out of the poor house during our Shared Insights days. Oh yeah, she's also very funny.
- Colin Browning, our director of biz/dev and a real friend. We first bonded at one of Bryan Person's Social Media Breakfasts just before Prospero joined forces with Mzinga and then truly became friends during our time in SXSW '08. What I love most about Colin is his creativity - he's the brains behind many of our successful social media efforts including our launch virtual Twitter press release.
- Then of course, our two wonderful product leads (and good friends), Dave Wilkins aka "Wilkinish" and Rachel Happe. Both are brilliant, great bloggers and all around good friends. Fortunately their both active on Twitter (well, at least Rachel still is) so I can at least talk to them semi-regularly.
- And last not but not least, all the great folks down in our Mechanicsburg office and in particular, Allicia Squillace and Jody Petruziello. They are both fun loving, hard working gals and have put in tireless hours learning our new platform and helping our sales team regularly hit their goals!
Just to spice this post up a bit, I thought I'd throw in a few pics from last nights "send off." To see the full set, check out my Flickr feed.
THANK YOU MZINGA!!!
Barry and Aaron
Scooch and Jim
Isaac and Aaron
Erika, Robin and Gwen
Alexa and Mike
Mo, Aaron and Meredith
Steve-o
Aaron and Patrick
Mark and Geoffrey
Aaron and Susan
Barry, Eve and Stephen
Shannon and Eve
Aaron and Eric doing "hook 'em horns"
Derek and Patrick (who looks like he's thinking, "what the hell do I do now?")
Fri, Oct 31 2008
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