What could be more pointless than trying to capture a year in the world, an industry or even a life in 1000 words or less? It is a task surely doomed to failure.
I had been planning - though more than usually distracted by the Sunday Football scores and the near approach of Christmas and the New Year – something less. I had been planning to say some “thank-yous.” But even this, after thinking about it, seemed unlikely to succeed. Aside from being undeniably boring, which is ultimately more impactful – to be named in an Academy Award speech or to be left out?
This has been an extraordinarily good year for Semphonic: a year of growth, new people and new clients. It has been a heady time indeed – with demand for Web Analytics soaring. Major corporations calling us out of the blue and engaging us a few weeks later. Great stuff.
I think back to 2002 when we could spend months trying to sell web analytics to close friends and still not succeed. Back when Joel and I used to joke (though it was true) that we’d made never made a sale to someone we hadn’t already worked with. Back when selling web analytics took the faith of an evangelical and the persistence of a river on a mountain. Back when the only people who had heard of Semphonic (actually 2ndSight as we were called at the time) were our families. And they certainly had no idea what we did (still don’t, of course). It sure is lot better now.
But I have been through this before. Twice.
I was still in school when the personal computer first appeared. I believe I might have been the first person in Fort Wayne, Indiana to own an 8080 microcomputer. That was before the Apple. Before the Radio Shack TRS-80. Before the IBM PC. When my micro-computer broke (which was often) I had to load it in my Father’s car and have my older brother drive me up to Chicago where there was a small company with someone who could fix it.
To program computers back then was to be on the cusp of a new world greater and more mysterious than the void of ocean that faced the explorers of Spain and Portugal. It was whole new way of thinking; a true craft around which a new kind of life could be constructed. It was a time when I never met a person who programmed who wasn’t interesting.
That was before it became a career path; before it became just another way to make money; before Information Technology (IT) became nothing more than a fancy way of saying “no”; before the only real programmers in the world lived in India or Russia. As is always the case, the price of victory was the end of revolution.
And, of course, I was here in San Francisco during the Dot Com era. I had friends who struck it rich and friends who struck it poor. Those were exciting times too. The internet turned into a gold rush in ways that that personal computing boom never did. And, of course, the false parts of the edifice collapsed. But the people? The people were genuinely passionate about what they did. And that made them interesting.
So I don’t expect the heady times in our much smaller part of the world to last forever. They don’t.
But I expect to enjoy them while they are here. These times of seemingly limitless opportunity attract the passionate and the smart. They breed interesting people as surely as they attract them. They are, in short, a helluva lot of fun.
And it is always and only people that really matter.
As I said at the beginning, I’m not going to attempt a list of thank-yous. Such a list cannot be even the limited art (or entertainment) that blogging demands. Instead, I will end with a welter of random memories that form just a tiny shard of the essence of a good year. Some things I remember fondly:
Standing in front of so many friends at the opening of X Change. Dinners in New York with Marshall Sponder talking analytics and art. Jesse Gross’ dry wit during Staff lunches. The passion Eric Peterson brings to every conversation. Working with Tim Bush and Heather Spindler again after seven long years. Working with Dennis Bradley at any time - when things went badly wrong early this summer (and it was mostly my fault) he was a rock. Paul Legutko’s continual and seemingly effortless brilliance. I never took a bigger chance than hiring someone whose real specialty was Roman Coinage and I never made a better decision. Talking web analytics with June Dershewitz while ride-sharing to work - beats the hell out of sports talk radio. Building a really special piece of work with Richie Block and Teri Wayne – damn that was fun. Wrapping up X Change and for once getting to talk in the way I like best about the things that matter most to me – about why what we do is, in our own small corner of the world, a quest for truth. And how the truth is always and everywhere an elusive and difficult beast hunted successfully only with care and intelligence.
Thank you all and many, many others. I hope I have repaid at least some of you with that most golden of all coins – good memories.
Thanks Gary! It was great coming out to speak and take part in at Xchange this fall. Looking forward to the next time.
Posted by: Marshall Sponder | December 24, 2007 at 02:25 PM