Kevin Micalizzi

After a minor glitches, the first draft of my updated resume is below.

A couple things to note:

• my goal is to shift the focus of my experience from just technology management to better reflect the broader web management and strategy experience I have
• the formatting is readable, but I’ve had to switch editors and reformat 4 times now, so I’ve given up on going for the truly beautiful layout until a later draft
• I feel like the summary bullets at the top are incomplete. I loosely used Jeremiah Owyang’s web strategy competencies for organizing the summary — does it resonate?
• the objective statement is a first pass — and lacking.  it generally covers what I’m looking for but any advice is greatly appreciated

(the doc is shared with Scribd — use the icon in the upper right to expand viewing area for an easier read)

Please let me know what you think.

Thanks!

-k

**** update 9/10/2008 9:50 am EST ****
Changed objective statement with @jamesrsullivan‘s help from “Attain a leadership position focused on web strategy within an organization that leverages web/online as a core tool to further business objectives.” to “Lead cutting-edge web organization with focus on strategy, in a company that embraces innovation.”  Scribd gave an error on the upload of the revision — had to post it all over again.  Sorry for anyone who saw an error on the embedded doc.

As I’m working through my resume re-write mapping my work experience to the web strategy competencies, I’m trying to be careful how I state my role in the events/projects/initiatives I reference.  I want to avoid exaggerating my work.  Not sure if it stems from my personal standard of ethics or because I’m under-valuing the work I did. Either way, I don’t plan to join the 30% or so of people who over-exaggerate on their resume.

So to keep my ego in check (or to boost it), I’m IM-ing friends and former co-workers to get their perspectives.  Not sure if there is a better way to approach this — it makes the whole process much more time consuming.

The tool I’m most frequently asked for in this job hunt is my resume.  Though I haven’t fully decided what’s next for me, continuing in the web strategy space is a reasonable place to keep looking.

My current resume emphasizes technical leadership with less focus on the strategy side.  The result has been many calls for more hardcore web engineering roles, which isn’t the best use of my talents.  To get the right focus, I’m currently going through a number of sites to find key areas of focus.  Here are the posts I went through:

• The Three Spheres of Web Strategy (Jeremiah Owyang)
• Letters to the Editor: Career Pathing to a Web Strategy Role (Jeremiah Owyang)
• The POST Method: A Systematic Approach to Social Strategy (Josh Bernoff)
• What is a Web Strategist? (Jeremiah Owyang)
• A Complete List of the Many Forms of Web Marketing for 2008 (Jeremiah Owyang)
• The Three Web Activities: Task, Project, and Business Programs (Jeremiah Owyang)

I’m sure there are many resources I’ve missed (and it’s very Forrester focused), if you have any good ones, please let me know.  I started out looking to build a list of competencies, but for the most part Jeremiah Owyang’s three spheres post is a great way to segment and he’s covered the majority.  I’ve started adding notes to each.

Community

• User experience (UX)/usability — understand the core concepts and how to apply, test, measure
• information architecture — a large part of my roles since 1997-ish
• social media skills — typically a more active listener than contributor, but working on it
• customer support — where I started my career and a person area of focus throughout career
• community marketing/marketing/product marketing — mostly helped with execution and measurement, though participated in the creation of several campaigns
• ability to listen and be empathetic — a personal strength

Business

• Marketing — understand the core concepts and have participated in the definition of campaigns as well as supporting execution
• advertising — an area requiring more development
• media — strong understanding
• management — 8 years experience
• measurement — understand core concepts and have applied in measuring efforts
• ability to evangelize internally — a personal mission
• process management — a personal passion
• resource management — 8 years experience
• obtain objectives — developed some, extracted the rest
• product development/product management — experience in creating customer-facing sites and applications
• savvy in political maneuvering — develop strong personal network within each organization
• understand the direction and strategy of the company — central to roles for several years
• manage external constituents — managed vendors, consultants, etc.

Technology

• Software Development — strong experience
• Web Development — strong experience
• Web Architecture — strong experience
• Industry Trends — always working to keep current
• experiments with web technology, but understands how to extrapolate and harness a tool — a large part of my passion for the web

My notes on each probably don’t help with my next step — but it’s nice to look at the competencies in relation to how I feel I measure.  Now to start mapping specific experiences to these competencies. More to come soon….

Typically, I take very few risks.  I was taught that you never leave a job unless you already have the next one lined up  Recently I realized my career wasn’t going where I wanted. So, I left my job at the beginning of July….

…and I didn’t have a new job lined up yet.

It was a big move for me, but I felt I needed to step out of the mix to get a better perspective.  I’ve never been good at sitting still.  So, I’m on the hunt for my next adventure.

As conventional wisdom recommends, I reached out to other professionals, my “network.”  I’ve worked with many talented people over the years, so there’s no lack of people to talk with.  I even went to a “Tweetup” near Boston last week and met some great people who were very open to helping me. It amazes me how many people are willing to help.  Everything goes well until we get to the question:

what do you want to do?

Truth is, I’m not sure.

I know it’s hard to find my next great role if I can’t articulate what I want. I’ve been working on the web for a long time. When I started in 1995, it was all about what we could do with the technology. I spent a few years writing applications and supporting web environments. In 2000 I moved into management. Initially responsible just for web engineering, but with increasing exposure and work on the marketing side of the house over the next 8 years.

I’ve seen the move from technology driving business to business driving technology. It’s a good change — I’ve seen too many projects cost a lot of money with little to no return for the business.

My career has also been moving from a focus on technology to business, but I’m not sure where it should go next. Should I go after another web strategy role? make the move to product management for an online product/service?  is there something I haven’t thought of yet?

I haven’t found my answer yet, I’ll try to keep you updated as I sort this out.

The software is set up, so the only thing left to do is to start posting to my blog.

I’m still not sure exactly what I want to focus on, but I’m sure it will evolve over time.

-k