Change, New Challenges, Shazam! The Future

“The only constant is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.”
— Isaac Asimov

Over the past year, I’ve lived a lot with the future world in mind. With planing for the next step. I made some big life changes in the last six months and even more in the last year. Not all of it’s gone smoothly or without struggle, but for the most part I’m happy and had some great successes.

One of the most exciting things, currently, is how my role at SEOmoz is evolving. I work on a badass, fast-growing marketing team at SEOmoz, and with rapid growth, comes changes. Or in the not-so eloquently put, I worked three different roles on the team and needed to par down my role while still having room for growth. Which meant I had some soul-seeking to do.

Luckily, SEOmoz has been bringing in some awesome personal growth coaches (for everyone, I am not that special), which helped me think a lot about what I fear in my career path and what I value. They smartly combined these talks with it being review time around the Mozplex.

The following is what I found while diving in the rabbit hole of my brain.

Me and my little conundrum

the_legend_of_lucinina_by_cannibal_cartoonist
Yep, that is basically me. I was a cowboy, vampire, astronaut, princess. All those things and more.

My Values: Altruism, Communication, Community, Creativity, Diversity, Excitement, Learning, Personal Excellence, Respect, and Responsibility

Current roles: Doing roles for social, content, and marcomm positions. And whatever else gets thrown my way.

Things I currently do that strongly reflect my values:

  • Writing
  • Event throwing with a higher mission (GeekGirlCon, MozCon, etc.)
  • Cooking
  • Analysis of comics and TV shows
  • Sharing online
  • Doing anything that’s thrown my way

Things I need to focus on to better align my values with what I do:

  • Focus
  • Develop at least 6 month with a small routine
  • Take more time for myself
  • Take more time for brainstorming
  • Par down responsibilities so I have time
  • Be better at keeping in touch with people (mostly personal)

Top 3 Most Important SEOmoz Career Things:

  • MozCon (creative)
  • Writing
  • Growing with the Community/Industry

MozCon is event throwing with a higher mission. It encompasses all my values. Also allows me to flex my higher-level editor skills by helping very talented people improve what they do, and we’re building long-term relationships.

Writing is my lifelong passion and the only consistent want in my life since I could spell my and my cat’s name. (I’m sure my mom and grandma kept the chronicles of our adventures.) Mozzy writing tasks (present/future): Community voice docs, community origin story, webinars/podcasts, higher-level editing, guest blogs, more regular blog contributions.

Growing with the Community/Industry. One of my biggest fears is that I will fall behind; it’s one thing to say something stupid, but another thing to be completely out-of-touch. One of my biggest joys is discovering and learning new things alongside the community. The entire reason that I got into inbound marketing/didn’t drop out to work at a bookstore was because of the SEOmoz blog. Mozzy tasks: stepping up on social, conferences as a community rep, and going to Mozcations and fostering .

Truths I’ve learned:

  • I don’t know what I’m going to do in my post-SEOmoz career. Which is pretty far in the future as I’m very committed to the Moz-vision. But my next adventure’s likely it will be in a different field. (Not because I don’t love web marketing, but because I couldn’t think of a better place to be in our field. We are the cutting edge.)
  • My coworkers — and my friends and my family — think I’m nuts (in a TAGFEE and loving way) for not wanting to par down stuff.
  • I’m not going to become a typewriter repair person in a world of computers.
  • At my heart, I’m an inbound marketer who’s looking for what’s next on the web. This is the biggest pain point when considering a marcomm-type role.
  • I need to take more time to brainstorm as my production is better when I’ve brain crunched first.

Transitions:

  • Shape up email program to divide and conquer between others on my team.
  • Work on Community-specific voice and origin documents.
  • Continue to work on unifying Moz voice across company and work with teams for copy needs for until someone’s hired for that role.
  • Level up and expand off-site social media. Figure out what our social team needs as we grow.
  • Take specific time just for writing tasks.
  • Webinars — make them be better.
  • Focus back on tasks.

My newly defined roles:

Social strategy & management (FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, YT, etc.)
We’ve done a lot of management, but not a lot of pushing innovation.

Community & voice standards and continuity
Beyond just “do, don’t do”

Community events & webinars
Content curation and working with speakers for MozCon, MozCations, webinars, etc.

There’s a ton of work ahead of me to fully transition into my new role. Much of it has already started and is in the works. Transition is exciting and scary all at the same time. I want what I’m doing to be an amazing contribution for my team, SEOmoz as a whole, and the larger community. I also want to be able to do some of those things I miss doing. (Like blogging.) Like my self-reflection period, this is an important six months ahead of me, and I’m ready to soar.

*Yes, even if I can’t be a dragon-slaying, starship captain who writes award-winning comic books and novels and moonlights as a TV show runner who’s working on solving global warming while teaching everyone about privilege and hugging every cat.

2 Replies to “Change, New Challenges, Shazam! The Future”

  1. Your evolving role at SEOmoz sounds awesome, Erica, but let’s make one thing clear: you’ll always be a dragon-slaying, starship captain (what, no Time Lord?) to me.

    Cheers on all your growth and success! 🙂

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