Getting Back In The Ring

Well, it's been three months since I left Red Hat to take a little time off before finding my next challenge. It hasn't really been "time off" per se, since I've been real busy hosting an exchange student from Switzerland, visiting nine colleges with my daughter, also enjoying time off with my wife and son, completely redoing the landscaping around my house, reestablishing old friendships, working out regularly (down 15 pounds), and working with a few open source companies in an advisory capacity on the side.

But, as I stated in my "Purposeful Risk-Taking" post, I wasn't planning on taking too much time off since I wanted to reinvest my experience in another open source endeavor.

So Monday May 19th will mark my first official day at Ringside Networks where I'll be handling Product Management and Marketing; operating at the intersection of our technology, the market, and our customers.

As I've said many times in the past, I look for jobs that enable me to love what I do and who I do it with.

As far as loving what I do, Ringside Networks is focused on the business of the social web and bringing the power of social applications directly to corporate websites and business applications. This is a fast-moving market area and an exciting opportunity. My "Focus on Meaningful Website Traffic" post is just the first of many blogs to come about this emerging market. So, I've clearly got "love what I do" covered.

How about "who I do it with"? Well, I feel privileged to be joining a team of folks that I've worked with in the past at Bluestone/HP and JBoss/Red Hat. While each of us will have our own areas of responsibility, we know what it takes to work as a team and move forward together as a company. We all firmly believe that teamwork, execution, and respect for employees, customers, partners, and community is the way to win in the market.

So, I'm getting back in the ring with Ringside Networks!

If you'd like to have a Ringside seat, I suggest you become a Friend of Ringside and sign up for the Ringside Networks newsletter so we can keep you abreast of all the action as this really cool market area heats up.