lotusmedia 2.0

I would look something like this:

And I would be engaged to this guy (he cleans up nice, too). Make your own!

I’ll post more details later, but I want all 3 of you who read this blog to be the among first to know that I have accepted a full-time job with Aspiration! I’ll start officially in September, but I’ll be in San Francisco most of next week for my first official work event: Extreme Usability. I expect it to be “extreme” for me in both the fun and education departments. (How fun? This is my new boss.)

Here’s a description of my position. I am now soliciting proposals for a better job title.

First, sorry for no posts since Monday. Since I am in the final countdown with my job at Planned Parenthood, I have been running around the country like a chicken with my head cut off. I’m not complaining, though! I’ll have been to five cities in three weeks and every one of them is a treat. Next week I will be in New Orleans and Portland, and then will be back in the office on June 30th for one day to wrap up two-and-a-half year’s work, send my final newsletter, complete the expense report from hell, and send my laptop back to the mothership. It’s going to be an interesting day, and will likely be followed by heavy drinking.

Anyway, I did something new here on lotusmedia.org! In order to facilitate communication with clients and partners, you can now see my online status at any time. Just visit the Contact page, and you will see this icon indicating whether I am online and available to chat:

So I just updated my bio to be less about my job (which ends in 4 weeks), and more about me (and hopefully why people should hire me).

What do you think? Too arrogant? Too subtle? Too long? Too short?

OK, I swear I was going to blog it soon - really. It’s just that there are certain people who deserve to learn about it firsthand before reading it in a public forum or hearing it from someone else. But now that the cat is out of the bag, I can’t keep it to myself any longer…

We’re getting married!

I was going to wait to post this until an official announcment was made to my colleagues, but as usual our leaders are mum about big decisions, so here goes… I found out two weeks ago that I will be laid off from my job on June 30! This is not as bad as it seems.

The real losers in this story are my colleagues and my self-esteem. My career will probably turn out to be the winner. In retrospect, a change was clearly in order. As much as I like what I do at PPFA (and love how I am compensated for it), there are limits to what you can acheive when the decision-makers don’t think your work is all that important.

A great illustration of the problem with my job is the fact that other organizations value my wisdom enough to pay me to lead workshops and presentations, but I couldn’t even get on the agenda at our own conference. Something is wrong with this picture.

So, what’s next for me? Professionally, I have a number of options, and right now I am wide open to the possibilites. I may go back to the nonprofit consulting that I did for 3 years before I had this job, but doing a lot more than web development this time. I may consult for political campaigns to help them be more network-centric, if I can stomach working with mainstream Democrats. I might just get another job, I’ve applied for two so far. Or I might do something else that I haven’t thought of yet. Can I get paid for blogging and speaking at conferences?

Lest I sound bitter about my job, let me say how incredibly fortunate I have been to work for PPFA these past 26 months. I learned a ton about the national political arena, I helped make possible tons of progressive, state-based, political advocacy, and I also had the chance to prove myself and my ideas. I was especially lucky to have a great boss who understood my strengths and weaknessess, was always supportive and constructive, and who really stood up for me in a sometimes-unfriendly workplace.

Next week I will post the good news.

The photo on this post is a mural on the wall of El Centro Latino in Carrboro.