TheBetsy: No Job (dot) Com

Inquisix shut down this week.

That would be my job.

Gone.

I also have a confession:  I totally stole the title of this blog from my good friend Flames.

Amidst losing her lawyer gig during the brouhaha of Internet start-up failures of 2002, Flames sent out a very classy, “No Job Dot Com” email to all her friends and acquaintances informing of her (post-maternity leave) pink slip. She was on the fence about returning to work anyway, but her company’s demise forced the issue and now Flame is a very happy former- lawyer-cum-stay-at-home-mommy.

Hooray!

And then there’s TheBetsy. And Inquisix.

It was an idea before it’s time, Inquisix put  networkers together based on who they wanted to meet — rather than the “who do you know, that knows this person that plays squash with that person, who is the cousin of a person I’d really like to do business with…” We basically cut out the middlemen. We got traction early, but never the zenith needed to go past the start-up stage. The founders moved on, and this week Inquisix was officially closed.

As the Vice President of Marketing & Communications, I was also community manager, chief copywriter, blogger, brand, marketing, social media and PR consultant and strategist… oh, and I swept the floors as well. Hustling to help grow the user base, keep the fires burning and, hopefully, turn a profit. It was hard work and it was exciting. Start-ups always are.

For me, Inquisix was an especially good opportunity. Prior to joining the company, I had put my MBA-honed marketing strategist mind on hold to have children. Out of the workforce for any length of time is tough, but try finding a gig after being out for a couple of years, in a bad economy, and things get decidedly harder.  The arrangement was simple: they needed the help and I needed the stimulus and experience, and it was a great while it lasted. For this, I have truly grateful to Inquisix’s founders Michael Kreppein and Dave Dupre.

So now I write my No Job (dot) com letter. In retrospect, this experience has giving me some insight into myself.

This is what I know, thanks to Inquisix:

• Virtual Offices: I work great in this environment. Arm me with high-speed Internet/Skype/iChat/Twitter and I am a fully operational Death Star.
• Writing and communicating. Some say wordsmith, I say tell ‘em a story that they’d repeat, over and over. You’re reading this, so you probably have a fair idea how good I am.
• Though I pretty much knew this already, you can throw me in the deep end, I’ll be just fine. Social media was not in my marketing vocabulary when I started. Playing around with Twitter I saw the business implications and benefits immediately, now I speak it pretty fluently.
• Go with what works best — if it’s new let’s try it, if it works, let’s keep it. And keeping adding onto our knowledge base. There is no “done” in learning.
• I have the entrepreneurial mind-set : sure my title may be one thing, but if the job needs me to stretch and tap into another skill set let’s do it. It’s actually fun and really rewarding.
• “Good with people” doesn’t come close to describing my client management skills. I make happy customers jealous. If that makes sense.
• Multi-tasking is crap. Or that’s what you get when you multi-task. You pick.
• I’m ready to get back to work. At what yet, I don’t know. I’m interested in finding the right intersection of interesting challenge,  environment, locale and cash. Not necessarily in that order. Working remotely would trump a lot. Mostly because my children are still small, and I like to tuck them in to bed most nights and top their day off with a “story-story.”
• I’m open. Suggestions,  meetings. ideas. I love to talk ideas or opportunities and strategy. Better than a double espresso. And no jitters.  You want to talk to me. You know where to reach me.

To on to the next adventure, and if you have ideas on what that might be, I’d love to talk.

You know I like to talk.