So many great comments, but they're going to have to wait. Tomorrow I go in for some minor surgery (belly button hernia) and if I don't finish the main part of my tale today, tomorrow Stevieo will probably show up at my house, duct tape my belly button, and make me sit down in front of my machine. So, rather than that, I'm gonna finish up the tale today and then let you guys comment. I'll start answering stuff again sometime through the weekend.
Where were we? Oh yeah, my job discription ....
I stare at the blank piece of paper, and then look back at the coach, "What do you mean dream job?"
"It simple, what do you do best? You should be doing what you do best."
I look back at the paper for a second, and then write, "Strategic Product Line Development"
I'm a gadget geek to the core of my being. I love widgets and gizmos and even know the difference the two. (Sorry, trade secret.) The technological world out there is incredibly complex and fast moving, HeadRoom is a small company, and our ability to actually do anything meaningful out the is VERY minimal and tricky. We have to find a series of somewhat connected holes within our mission that other people aren't filling.
I'd be spilling too many uncooked beans to talk about this in too much depth, but as an example, some of you have mentioned a DAP. That would be a horrible error for us to pursue. It would put us in competition with Apple and Microsoft, and goodness knows who all else. We're much better off finding a way to embrace those devices and make then sound as good as if we built them without having to invest in a cube farm of programmers to try to do something half (or less) as well as the big boys.
No, it's critical that there's a very clear eye on the strategically sound and continually profitable way forward. An eye that knows how to see the little stepping stones to hop to and from. And that eye is I ... er, me.
Then I wrote down "Strategic Corporate Messaging."
The coach looked at me and said, "What do you mean by that?"
Well, when you bring out products, you have to send messages about them, but that's pretty tactical. There's also strategic messaging where you basically precondition and lead the marketplace by saying things that cause people to think a certain way and become prepared for what's next.
For instance .... this thread.
I'll fess up, this thread is just one long PR effort to make this transition as easy as possible without a lot of people getting their panties in a dangerous knot that we don't want to spend the next year untying. But it's also a simple view of the truth. And it's also me just talking to my friends.
The point, I guess, is that I'm good at talking to people and telling a story about what we're doing.
The coach nodded, "What else?"
I sat for a long time. Almost anything else I could think of needed to be part of the system and more closely under the authority of the new boss.
I didn't say anything for a minute or two as I thought. Then the coach said, "What's yours? What do you need to do that which you do best?"
"The VAN!" I said.
"The van? What?"
I told the coach that if I'm gonna do a lot of messaging and getting our gear in front of writers and enthusiasts that I've got to have the van. Flying gear around is expensive, and luggage and freight handling busts stuff up pretty quickly. I've got the van rigged out for camping and can move gear door to door. I can be on the road FAR cheaper and more effectively if I've got the van to move around with.
He nodded.
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We're now a month or more after the above events, and the van's still in the parking lot. And to the best of my knowledge that strategic stuff is still my job description. It's also stuff you need only once a month.
Day to day I'm working tactically on writing mostly: new manuals, ad copy, web copy, etc. And I'm communicating with folks like Sennheiser and Shure on some product stuff.
But I'm mostly doing it from home, and the daily grind of running HeadRoom is being done by the team at the shop ... which now includes the new boss.
I'll tell you a bit about him this afternoon.
