It's been a while. Let's catch up.

I haven't written a blog for six months. Can't say I've been really busy, just really lazy. Let me sum up the last six months:

June 8, 2006: Quit job at mobileStorm to take AE job at HydraMedia. Why? It's a long story going back to my days at InfoSearch Media. I was being paid way below industry averages for a promise of long term financial windfall. ISM promised and promised and never came through, leaving me with some money in the bank, life-time friendships, yet a bad taste in my mouth. While I find the CEO of mobileStorm way more likeable, and more trustworthy than my old boss, I couldn't put myself through another roller coaster ride of being underpaid and hoping things work out. So when my friend at Hydra offered me twice as much money to work for them, it was a no-brainer decision. Plus, my commute from Venice to Beverly Hills was much more convenient than my 50 minute ordeal to and from downtown Hollywood.

June 29, 2006: Hydra fires three badass Account Executives... I'm one of them. My longing for financial independence since being promised the pie in the sky at ISM gets me in trouble. Logging in every day to Hydra's system to check on my campaigns' status I realize that a lot of their publishers are making money hand over fist for doing little more than pressing their "Send" button every day. I say to the AE next to me one day, "I should get a list and run some of these campaigns." Might sound like a conflict of interest, but nowhere in the terms of my employment contract did it say I can't become a publisher on the network. The AE to my right, whom I said this to in turn IMs the AE to my left, and before you know it the three of us are conversing on how we can make this happen. So far, no wrong doing has been made. Little did I know, the two gentlemen I thought I was entering an honest relationship with were scheming to tap into Hydra's suppression list to build our subscriber list. Word got out that the three of us were planning on being a publisher (you know who you are you bastard), which again wouldn't have been a problem, but upon further investigation found the plot of the other two to use the company's internal list and it was assumed that I was apart of this and the three of us were let go. In a matter of minutes I was unemployed with hardly any money in the bank, and no prospects for another job.

July 2006: Spent the first week of unemployment feeling sorry for myself and drinking myself into a coma every day. Luckily my girlfriend is a wine & spirit distributor so this binge cost me nothing out of pocket. Once I regained my sense of self worth and clarity I jumped on the job search wagon. It is extremely hard to find the right job for me. Very few openings in Los Angeles for a mid-Senior level leader like myself. I've been in the online space for over four years and had very few contacts to show for it. Goddamn you, Infosearch Media! Why'd you have to screw over the 450 solid clients and relationships I worked so hard to build? Now I look bad and have only a limited number of contacts in the industry.

August 11, 2006: I have two offers to ponder. The first offer is from Intermix Media, aka Fox Interactive, aka MySpace as an Online Media Buyer. While the salary and bonus structure wasn't extremely lucrative, it was an opportunity to rebuild my rolodex, learn some very useful marketing tactics, and begin to brand myself as a "go-to" guy in the industry. The other offer was from Eforce Media which coincidentally was started by several former Intermix guys. Their offer was very flattering and financially rewarding. Another plus was their office was not only in a cool spot on Main Street in Santa Monica, but I could ride my bike and save gas money. With dollar signs in my eyes, I accepted Eforce's offer to start on August 22nd.

August 23, 2006: One day into my employment at Eforce I realized I made a mistake as this was not the opportunity I planned on. I won't go on a rant about how I was treated (since you asked, it was like being a freshman, aka plebe, at the Naval Academy), nor will I talk about the quality of the product. By accepting this job, I went against one of my core criteria in what I'm looking for... high quality of life. You can be making a five figure income every month, but if you have to force yourself to get out of bed every day and have to go across the street to do two double shots of Kettle One just to get through an afternoon, you're in the wrong job. Hence my decision on...

September 1, 2006: Literally dragged myself into the office at 10:00 am as I was hungover from the Foo Fighters acoustic concert at the Pantages the night before. I walked straight into my boss' office to quit but he was in a meeting. Rather than hang around my cube where I feel about as comfortable as Allen Iverson in Philly, I wrote a very cordial resignation letter via email and walked out. To my amazement, I received an email to my personal Yahoo account from their VP telling me how sad everyone is to see me go and if there was anything they could do to change my mind. I stayed professional and told them I was firm on my decision. As relieved as I was to not have to go to that job anymore, it then dawned on me that I was unemployed and without money once again. I crossed my fingers and tried to get my Intermix offer re-sended. Of course they had to be smug and act like they didn't want me since I turned them down. It was a good thing I had a friend in there on my side who convinced them that I was serious about taking the offer and they would be remissed to not hire me.

September 21, 2006: First day of Autumn. The leaves are so beautiful Everyone in LA knows there is no such thing as Autumn. I officially am re-offered the Online Media Buyer position at Intermix and accept to start on October 2nd.

October 2, 2006: So much for training. I'm thrown into the deep end to see if I can swim. If there is one major strength that I'm proud of, it's that I do not get flustered in stressful situations. I manage to negotiate a few deals with some partners Intermix hasn't worked with in a while and they become rather profitable.

October 31, 2006: The Fox calendar ends on 10/30 and the results are in from my first month. I not only hit my goal for the month, I beat it by 240%.

November 6-8, 2006: My entire team, sans myself, is off to NYC for adTech. Had I taken Intermix's offer over Eforce's back in August, they would've budgeted for me to go. Yet another dagger in my belly for that dumb ass decision. Since every decision maker in the industry is at this show either speaking or getting hammered, there is literally zero work for me to do. I spend the three days at the office perfecting my dart game (Need a triple 20? Give me a call.), and finishing my first attempt at a screenplay. If you're curious, the script is about online dating. I'm doing my best to make it a nice twist of "Must Love Dogs," "40 Year Old Virgin," and "Swingers."

December 4, 2006: The Fox calendar ended on 12/3 and the results are in from my second month. I once again blow out my goal by 180%.


So that pretty much sums up the last six months of my professional life. Why am I back to writing today? One of my best friends has been in town for the past two weekends. Since he left town last year to start his own company, we usually just get blown out when he visits. This latest visit was the first time since he left that I've been in a position to fully appreciate what he does and how he does it.

Tom and I met at an Infosearch Media recruitment event. I saw a hungry and likeable guy that I wanted on the team and made the recommendation to hire him. He made his presence known early and often to say the least. We became friends shortly after since he actually moved in with a close friend of mine and I got to know him outside of the office. As one of the main people at Infosearch, I had a lot of respect. Mostly because I was Employee # 6 and my numbers were decent. Tom came in and earned it easily (well, he made it look easy.) One of ISM's biggest faults ( make that one of ISM's CEO's biggest faults) was not respecting his workers. The ones on the front lines not only need to be heard from, but actions needs to be taken to show that you heard them. Tom saw opportunities for multiple revenue streams for the company that were ignored and essentially laughed at. While I understood the importance of what Tom was saying, I was on my way out and really didn't care whether they listened to him or not. I had an idea for the next big thing in social networking and that was going to be my ticket. Tom's idea may have been wonderful, but I'd still be making money for someone else. I'm not going to get into the many mistakes I made that led to the downfall of my idea. The biggest mistake I made was the same mistake the former CEO of ISM made... I didn't listen to Tom. Here was an opportunity to work with a guy that is so fired up to succeed and more importantly enjoy life, and I plugged my ears. I'm very thankful for the job I have right now because of everything I'm learning. I also keep learning from my errors. That's the silver lining I need to focus on