I’m packing. and every 45 seconds I check this timer. I can’t wait to get out Miami. It’s 26°C (80°F) today… In the middle of winter. Why god, why? Time to head north… cold weather, diversity, and crazy nerds.
I’ll be stopping in Kentucky to work with Wendell on all the sites. It looks like we are finally moving to Drupal 7. RTW, Tek Syndicate, and possibly KiM will all be way more functional soon.
As for leaving Tiger… They don’t want me to say much and it wouldn’t be professional to run my mouth. I am going to say a few things because the audience deserves to know. I also believe in truth and transparency.
Things were slowly moving in the right direction. The big deal was that Tiger was in a transition period… and I truly believe they will be a much better company soon. The new CEO is more about the people and I actually believe he will do good things. Transition periods are stressful and living in Miami was stressful. My happiness is really important and I know some of you can see the stress in the videos. The comments on YouTube reflect this. I do admit that I created some of the stress for myself because I argued a lot about the commercials and such. They are totally needed but I love the web audience.
Regarding the commercials… We had a small staff so there wasn’t enough time for me to make good web videos and good commercials. I really wanted to focus on the web and I saw that I would (for now) have to break free to do so. I was getting paid well but in the end I wasn’t happy. I felt that a large part of the audience wasn’t getting what they wanted. This is not to knock Tiger, it’s just to say that we have different ideas and with the limited staff we simply could not put our energies in too many different places. I think that they might begin to focus on the web again soon.
We ended on a good note (after a silly snafu or two with my contracts). The head of HR was extremely nice to me and said they may be in touch. the creative EVP also mentioned that we might work together here and there, but who knows. There were a few people that I had extreme disagreements with (we tried to hug it out but ended up choking each other). The people I was fighting with were not the people at the top. The upper management is actually really cool. I know most people think all executives are greedy and evil but I didn’t get either of those vibes from the people at the top. When I worked at tiger back in 2008 the CEO was more typical but the new CEO really cares about the individuals involved in the company. He also cares about the customers. He told me that he valued user generated content above all.
Well, that’s all I’ll say about that. The future looks good for Tiger. The future looks good for me (uncertainty is my friend, chaos is my ally).
As for RazeTheWorld.com, post questions here about the future.
Leaving Tiger, The Future of RTW, and the Miami Countdown Clock
