From Filtrbox to Vodka Shots

I will start this off by saying... Yes, if you are looking at my blog and thinking, 'wow this guy never writes' then you are halfway correct. It is true, that yes I do not typically set aside specific time out of my day/week/month/etc to write blog posts. It is great and I am by no means downplaying blogs, I just have a hard time sitting and thinking of what to write. This is why I typically only write a longer post when there is a significant change in mylife, the rest of the time, I find everyday occurrences are sufficient in 140 characters or less. So with that said... now you can probably guess that I am writing about a significant change that does not fit into my tweets or facebook status.

[If you don't have time] to read all the details right now-

The abridged made-for-tv version of this post is that after much consideration I have decided to pursue a new career that will allow me to further my skills and experiences in field sales and marketing. There you have it.

[If you do have more than 30 seconds], please continue reading.

It all started in September 2009, when I moved from Burlington, VT to Boulder, CO to work for a small startup company called Filtrbox, that offered a social media monitoring software.

Just when I was beginning to feel settled-in and adjusting to life in Boulder, Filtrbox was acquired by Jive Software in January 2010.

Jive Software is a leader in the social business software for the enterprise. The small Boulder-based startup social media monitoring software was a perfect fit to integrate into Jive's collaborative online communities. The new acquisition provided an opportunity for the software giant to connect employees and customers with social web engagement.

At Filtrbox, I was part of a two man sales team. We tag-teamed deals and wore many hats, including sales, customer service, training, consulting, support, and the list goes on. After the acquisition by Jive Software, we became part of a larger team. My new role in sales support allowed me to work directly with the inside reps and field reps. This gave me great insight into how things work with enterprise based software.

I worked with some of the best individuals in the enterprise software sales industry. Throughout my time at Filtrbox and Jive, I have learned not only about how enterprises work, but about technology and social software. The experience was unmatchable compared to any I have been exposed to. I would not trade these experiences for anything. With that said, everyone comes to a point in their life where they are ready to take the next step. For some, that next step might be into a new role within the same company. For others it might be a similar role at a new company. And for some, it might even be a completely new and different role.

Recently, I have accepted a position with a local Boulder spirits company, 303 Vodka. This is very significant change from supporting an enterprise software sales team.

303 Vodka will allow me to further my career with a different role as a Field Sales Representative. This position will allow me to have face-to-face interaction with clients, which caters better to my outgoing personality.

Also, since 303Vodka is a family-owned local Boulder, CO business, and I will be assisting in spreading the brand virally throughout Colorado. I am very excited for this new sales and marketing opportunity promoting a local brand, and will be using the knowledge, skills and experiences I have learned in

the past year.

This is a significant change not only in my career, but in my daily life. It is a bittersweet change, as I am an advocate for Jive Software and all that it stands for. However, I saw a new opportunity calling my name and decided to take it. I think 303Vodka will be a great change that will allow me to be out in the field, interacting with people face-to-face on a daily basis, and I look forward to be part of another successful company!

With that said, I am closing out this week as my final week with Jive Software. Next week marks the start of my new career with 303VODKA.

Buckle your backpack, Tie your boots

What if you could go to a place where the sun shined 300 days out of the year? A place covered with 2 feet of snow before Halloween and somehow miraculously a week later you found yourself wearing shorts and dripping sweat, that's right all of a sudden its 74 degrees in November. A place where 90% of the population is physically fit, and goes running, hiking, biking, climbing, skiing and snowboarding on a regular basis. Maybe this does not fit the description of your ideal place, but for me, this is my Utopia.

Well, the reality is YOU CAN go to that place. You can go to any place you want. Too many people I know are stuck in dead end jobs in a gray boring place they don't enjoy. Growing up in Vermont was awesome, I could not have asked for any other place to be a kid. Vermont is a great place and I would never trade my experiences there. However, as people change and grow up, it is good to experience living in other places. Most people do this when they move away for college. I ended up staying in Vermont and attending Champlain College. Champlain gave me a great experience to shine and grow as a person, but at the same time I also felt like I was not experiencing other places the way other people my age were at the time.

A few months after graduating I decided that I really needed a change. I needed to experience life outside of Vermont. It's not that I wasn't happy or didn't like the beautiful city of Burlington, it was that I wanted to explore and find new places, meet new people, and climb over new hurdles. Burlington is a small place. I found myself running into people I knew everywhere I went, even desolate gas stations in the middle of nowhere.

Moving to Boulder was a big step for me. I had never lived outside of a 7-8 mile radius within the confines of the Burlington, VT area. In September 2009 I found myself in Boulder, living a new life, new job, making new friends, and embracing a new lifestyle. I have been here for nearly 5 months now and have neglected to write about it. Recently I came into contact with several people who are avid bloggers, they read, write, repeat all the time. I was never really a reader or writer. I am more of a talker, I love meeting new people and talking to them. Live conversations are how I typically like expressing myself. This is probably why I haven't gotten around to publishing this blog post for so long. I actually wrote the first paragraph on November 11, then saved it and forgot about it. Right around that time things were really starting to pick up for me in Boulder. I was making a lot of new friends, shortly after I became a member of the Boulder Snowboarding Group, which has brought me an awesome growing group of friends that I can ride with on the weekends.

Last night I attended Ignite Boulder 8. For those of you who aren't as familiar, it's a night of presentations on a variety of topics, each presenter gets 5 minutes to present their topic with slides automatically advancing every 20 seconds. Watching some of these presentations amazed me. But what was even better, was meeting all the other people who attended. These are normal people like me, with similar stories of moving to Colorado. People who love "geeking out" and talking about social media for hours on end. People who love the outdoors and relaxed lifestyle. It was great to connect with people who know what it is like to have that deep drive to find and explore new places.

At last I did it, I buckled up my backpack, tied my boots and began my adventure. So maybe my adventure differs from yours, but for me, this is my Utopia.