The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

(This article also appears in Tucows Farm.)

Boss Ross walked up to me last Friday and said “Hey, Joe, do you remember back when you started working here, that you asked why developer relations fell under Research and Innovation and not Marketing?”

“Yeah…what about it?”

“Well, I didn’t have an answer then, but I do now!”

“Huh?”

“What would you say about switching departments? To Marketing?”

At this point, I would have expected a “chest-burster” alien to emerge from Ross and mangle me, after which I would wake up. This did not happen.

Noting my hesitation, he said “Would you have any objections to moving to Marketing?”

I was about to answer when he threw in a little addendum.

“Oh yeah,” he said, “and liking working for me is not a valid objection.”

Well, there goes my only objection.

One of the nicest things about my job is the autonomy. As long as I meet the goals in the Operational Plan that I drew up with Ross, I’ve got pretty much full discretionary power over what I do and how I meet my goals. That’s a latitude that many of us working stiffs don’t get, and that in itself is an amazing motivator and one of the reasons I love my job.

“As long as I get to do programmer things — talking to developers, writing tech stuff, doing some coding and ‘keeping my hands dirty’ in the techie sense — I can’t think of any real objection. And Ken’s [the VP of Marketing] a great guy.”

“Better go talk to him, then.”

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One of the functions of the Research and Innovation department was to identify a need, come up a service to fill that need, do the research, build a prototype version (or buy an existing solution) and help it through the transition into a ready-for-prime-time offering for our customers. Once the service was declared a ready-for-prime-time product, it becomes part of our mainstream product line and is assigned to a product manager.

The way we develop new services has recently changed a little, so the description above doesn’t accurately describe the way we’ve been doing things since last year. However, it’s a reasonably accurate way of describinghow Tucows got into the domain name wholesaling business and how products like Blogware were developed.

It may also accurately describe my position of “Technical Community Development Coordinator”. The TC/DC position, as I like to call it, is essentially another Research and Innovation department project. My job position — essentially developer relations — is still new enough that the first conference on the it was held only this February. I consider it to be like a prototype product; it’s been incubating in Research and Innovation and is now ready for prime time.

So there you have it: as of next Monday, I’ll be fully insinuated into Tucows’ Marketing department, complete with a change of desks to the newer upstairs part of the office and a new boss: Ken Schafer, VP Marketing.

My job focus will remain the same: I’m the developer relations guy, which means making life easier for developers who build on the Tucows platform. I’ll still be making sure that the information and resources that developers need are out there, acting as a bridge between the developer community and Tucows and even cranking out some code. The bonus will be that I’ll have the marketing engine to back me up (and more swag to hand out, too). I’m looking forward to working with Ken, Jacqui, Adam and Scott.

I’ll miss working with Boss Ross, with whom I’ve worked since Bastille Day 2003. He’s the guy who suggested that the company hire me as the developer relations guy and has been a great guy to work with. I couldn’t have made my job what it is today without his help. Although I won’t be reporting to him anymore, I expect that we’ll still be collaborating from time to time on various projects, and I’ve already roped him into a podcast for later this summer.

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Next: Oh crap, I work in…marketing!

Me and David Crow, pictured at the Rails Pub Night in April.

At the last DemoCamp gathering, I thought the biggest glitch was the cantankerous projector in the conference room; that night, it often refused to display what was on the presenter’s laptops. I was wrong: the biggest glitch happened to David Crow.

About twenty minutes prior to the start of the event, it was becoming quite obvious that David wasn’t looking or feeling well. Jay Goldman and I offered to take over the hosting duties.

“You’re not looking so hot,” I remember saying, “Maybe you should go home.”

“I’m thinking more like going to the emergency room,” he said.

“Shit,” I replied, noting that he was beginning to look really flushed. “Someone should go with you.”

Sutha Kamal went with David to the ER, while Jay Goldman and I took over and MC’d the event.

Later that evening, Jay got a call from Sutha and relayed the message to me.

“It was a heart attack,” he said. “He’s all right, but — wow. A heart attack.”

As you can see from the photo above, David doesn’t look like your typical cardiac ward case: he’s young (a relative puppy at 32) and he’s not obese. He neither smokes nor partakes of the Devil’s Dandruff. He doesn’t have a strong family history of heart disease. In the end, although you can mitigate some of the risk factors, there’s always a mathematical chance that you’ll have a heart attack. The best you can do is do what you can to improve your odds and hope that you’re near help should your number come up. As unfortunate that David was for having a heart attack, he was also fortunate for being spitting distance from the row of hospitals on University Avenue.

David’s doing much better now — at least well enough to write a quick blog entry about the experience, complete with ultrasound pictures — and I’m glad. On behalf of myself, Wendy, all your DemoCamp friends and Tucows, we wish you a speedy recovery, David!

(And yes, David, we’ll drop by. Wendy and I have a get-well present for you, and by the power vested in me as Tucows’ developer relations guy, we’ve got a gift for you on behalf of the company to boot!)