Update: Be sure to read these comments from an earlier entry.
“Ah, the unofficial investor relations department,” said a Barry
White-like voice approaching my desk. Since Barry White is not wont to
hang out at the Tucows offices, I had to assume it Greg Weir,
Kahuna of the Content division.
“I know why the investors are commenting on your blog.,” he said. “Go to Raging Bull and check out the Tucows discussion.”
I did just that and suddenly, the cryptic remark in this comment
— “I’ve posted your link someplace else where Tucow [sic] investors gather
in their dark hole where no one listens” — made sense. A couple of the
most recent postings linked directly to my Mark Cuban posting, which resulted in the interesting comment thread.
I passed the news along to Elliot, who responded. It’s kind of amusing
and flattering that the investors consider me a guy with an inside
track with the high-muckity-mucks…
Figure 1. An example of high muckity-mucks in an organization.
…and doubly so that the CEO and investors are having a conversation via my blog.
But hey, communication is what blogs are for, and if it’s good for the
company, good for our customers and good for our investors, that’s cool
by me.
For those investors who are curious about who I am and what my role in the company is, here’s a quick run-down:
I work in the Research and Innovation department, of which “Boss Ross”
Rader is the Director. I hold the longest job title in the company: Technical Community Development Coordinator
(sixteen syllables, one short of a haiku), and my broad mandate is to
build a community of developers, encourage them to build applications
on the Tucows platform. and be the Tucows “goodwill ambassador” to the
developers. Simply put, I’m a programmer who also likes to “shake hands
and kiss babies”, as they say in political campaigns. While I do have
an interest in the “suit” aspects of the company — and really, any
employee who doesn’t look at least occasionally to such issues in their
company is casting their fate to the winds — it’s not my area of
expertise or influence. My primary value to the company is as a
technologist with wide interests, an ability to communicate, a sizable
readership and “mad accordion skillz”.
I just happen to be an enthusiastic employee with a blog.
After reading the comments on Raging Bull, it dawned on me that I had now crossed into Scoble Country. For those of you, Robert Scoble
is a technical evangelist at Microsoft. While his primary
responsibility is to talk to developers, people come to him about all
sorts of non-technical issues concerning Microsoft, and he often
comments on them on his personal blog, which like mine is not an official company organ.
At the same time, Elliot passed by my desk, and I said, taking inspiration from the Diesel Sweeties punch line, “I am ten ninjas”…
This is available as a T-shirt from the Diesel Sweeties web comic site. Click to see the order page.
“Hey, Elliot! I have a new mantra for this year: I am Ten Scobles!“
He got a laugh out of that.
