My grandmother always used to tell me that as we age time seems to go by more quickly. Of course, I was in my mid-20's and thought she was off her rocker. By the way, I'd never tell her that to her face. I'd always agree with whatever she said. She may have only come in at 5'1" (on a really good day) and 100 pounds, but she could've kicked my ass five ways to Sunday. Anyway, it turns out that once again grandma is right... Time does fly as you age...
I woke up this morning and realized that I have been in Austin for exactly one year. Crazy, right? Hard to believe that a year ago yesterday I started the 21 hour trek down from Cleveland with just my clothes, some electronics, a few books and only a few pieces of furniture stuffed in the back of my car. Not only was I starting a brand new job with
WCG, but I was basically beginning a brand new life in a city where I knew
MAYBE 10 people. Whenever I'm speaking to a group of students or young professionals I always encourage them to look for the most challenging job even if it means moving away from their friends and family. After a year of being here, I can now truly appreciate how terrifying those words most seem to those kids...and that's realizing I have more experience than most of them.
YIKES!
After you get over that initial period of feeling totally alone and terrified you begin to truly appreciate why you've made the move you've made. Suffice it to say that it didn't happen in the first week, first month or even the first six months. As is the case with everything in life this kind of move is a process. Over the holiday break I had an opportunity to go home (to Cleveland) and enjoy time with the family. I absolutely love spending time with them. However, at some point during the trip I realized that Cleveland was no longer home. It is my hometown, sure, but it isn't the place that I identify as home anymore. I don't know what caused it to click in my head, but now everytime I leave town for work or pleasure I miss being in Austin. Before you make any jokes about the weather (though it is amazing - 75 and sunny today) this has a lot more to do with the people and the area than that.
Instead of going on and on with introspection, I figured it might be more interesting to talk about what I know now that I didn't know before moving here...
First...about the area....
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The marketing talent in Austin is incredible. I'll admit that when I first typed that line I said "social media." However, I knew how my friend Kyle Flaherty would react to that so I changed it to marketing. I'll save whether social belongs in marketing or another communications discipline for another post. Before I made the jump to Austin I had heard rumblings about how great the marketing/technology scenes were here, but that was mostly through the grapevine. After being here for a year I can now attest that it is 100% true. In addition to having a large corporate presence from heavyweights like Google, Whole Foods, Facebook, Dell and AMD, Austin is also home to some seriously talented professionals. We're talking about people like Aaron Strout, Kyle Flaherty, Tim Walker, Bryan Person, Tim Hayden, Richard Binhammer, Andy Sernovitz, Peter Kim, Virginia Miracle, Lionel Menchaca, Susan Beebe, Bob Pearson, Greg Matthews, Colin Foster, Aaron Brazell, Spike Jones, Stephanie Wonderlin, Brendan Lewis, Sydney Owen (even though she's now leaving us) etc... etc... etc... How's that for a who's who? I'll go to war with that crew any day of the week.
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The people are nicer than you think. Before making the move I had visited Austin a few times and knew how nice the people were down here. What I didn't fully appreciate was just HOW nice these people are. Trust me...when you are moving to a new city the last thing you need to be surrounded by are people who are cranky with life. There might be people here like that, but I've not met them yet.
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The BBQ really IS that good. I think this statement kind of speaks for itself so I'll just move on...
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SXSWi is a better event than people give it credit for. I wasn't sure what to expect of SXSW now that I was living here. I'll say that it is definitely unfairly trashed as an event. Is the quality of the panels as high as it could be? No. Are there good speakers? ABSOLUTELY. Is it the definitive networking event of the year? 100% no doubt. Are there plenty of brands here to network with during the event if you're an agency? 100% no doubt, and if you believe otherwise you're a flat out idiot.
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Traffic sucks - Again, if you live here or have visited here you know the traffic is horrific. It's almost ridiculous seeing as how this city isn't that big. Anyway, that's one downside to an otherwise glorious place.
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The weather. It's supposed to be 75 and sunny for a week. In February. I can leave it at that I think.
Finally...what have I learned about myself...
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Comfortable tackling any challenge. No, that's not meant to be an arrogant assholic statement. I truly believe that after making this move, taking on a new job and then trying to write a book at the same time I can tackle just about anything. If I hadn't made the move would I know what I know about myself now? Probably not.
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Still plenty of growing to do. There are things over the last year that I didn't handle as well as I could have, and I know it. There are people who are a million times smarter than I am in this area and in this field that I can learn PLENTY from. I'm looking at all of the people I listed above as a great starting point for that continued learning.
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We're on the front lines of the social media revolution, but there's still a ways to go. You can't go anywhere in this city without overhearing someone talking about social networks. The enthusiasm is great. However, even though we're on the front lines in this city (I'd argue we're second behind Silicon Valley in this field) we still have a significant job ahead of us in terms of educating on how to use this stuff within large enterprise. It's nowhere NEAR deep enough.
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I don't hate UT sports as much as I thought. Don't get me wrong I think Mack Brown is still terribly overrated. Rick Barnes likely falls into the same camp. However, the people here genuinely love their UT sports and that's something I can admire. Plus, they throw an AMAZING tailgate party. :)
There's probably more I could talk about but this post is ridiculously long as it is...Don't the "experts" say no more than 500 words? Well, that's shot to hell. Anyway, thank you Austin (and the people I've listed above and then some) for an amazing year. Here's hoping for plenty more where that came from!
