supereric

Saying goodbye to my good friends at Get Satisfaction

That’s a line from a Billie Holiday song I’ve been listening to a lot lately. It’s become the soundtrack to my life in the past few weeks. I love it when I find a song like this that I’ve never heard before and explore all of its nuances, over and over again. Eventually, of course, you run it into the ground and have to remove it from Heavy Rotation and put it up on the Greatest Hits shelf.

It’s entirely possible that I haven’t actually discovered this song for the first time, but that instead it’s the first time I’ve actually really heard it. I’ve listened to a lot of Billie Holiday songs in my life. I’ve gone through some serious Billie Holiday phases. But this song has been standing out to me lately, and for a reason, I think. It’s my subconscious mind reminding me to tell all of the important people in my life that they’re important.

Those people are the people at Get Satisfaction. I’m bidding them a very fond farewell. Today is my last day as their community manager.

Yes, I know: sad and weepy. But it doesn’t have to be. Although I’m departing from their fold, I’m still there for them. We’re totally BFFs.

I started working at Get Satisfaction a few years ago, right after the site launched. We were a very small, very tight-knit group of energetic people doing everything we could to get our new idea noticed: Customer service doesn’t have to suck. It shouldn’t!

Well, that’s not exactly the language we used, but it’s close. We had a lot of big ideas about how customer service was broken and how the convergence of customer service and social networks would lead to a revolution in how companies interact with their customers online. And I think we were right. We were ahead of the curve. It’s happening. You can see it in every utterance of the phrase “social media” that’s spreading like wildfire across the Internet; in every media story about Comcast Frank and in every (dying) free-weekly newspaper story about how resources like Yelp are the best thing for customers since sliced bread — and a potential morass for companies that don’t practice awesome customer service. (Note how the discourse around Yelp is so fervent; that’s a sure sign it’s important.)

Get Satisfaction’s take on community and customer service has been growing steadily, and we have even more ideas about how to fix customer service. But I won’t be part of the “we” of Get Satisfaction after today. Not because I don’t believe in them. I do. A lot. I’m moving on because I’ve been given an amazing opportunity to help Ning grow their Creators network. I’ll be focused on assisting all the people who start Ning communities to grow them and make them dynamic and fun and interesting. I’ve always been a big fan of Ning. They’re doing something similar to Get Satisfaction: spreading powerful online tools to everyone who wants to be heard, get noticed, and maybe even do some good in the world. The folks I’ve met so far at Ning are whip-smart and have impressive pedigrees. I’m honored to become part of their team as senior community manager and apply my skills to their efforts. It’s going to be great. I’m going to grow even more.

The people I’ve worked with at Get Satisfaction have taught me invaluable lessons about start-up life and about how communities can and should work. What makes my leaving bearable is that so many new and talented people have recently joined the Get Satisfaction fold. I feel like I’m handing over everything I sweated and worked on to a new group of folks who can solve all the problems I couldn’t — and make all the things I made even better.

Thank you, Get Satisfaction! And keep going. You’ll be swell. You’ll be great. Did I remember to tell you I adore you?