Welcome (and Farewell)

If you’re sitting there at your desk thinking that it would be really cool to be a consultant—like, say, me or one of my mStoner colleagues—I suggest respectfully that you take a moment to think about what it takes for us to do our job well. It’s a lot harder than most people think.

Most of the people on our team have worked at a college or university at some point in their careers, but being a great consultant is about more than being smart and having insights into institutional life and culture. That’s essential, of course (and the more the better).

One needs experience and a broad perspective on the web, marketing, analytics, social media, technology, and the other challenges and issues we deal with every work day (and, let’s be honest, nights and weekends, too). Consultants need to be able to pay attention to detail—and to the big picture. And have a certain level of maturity: we take pride in the fact that none of our team members is a prima donna. We understand that our work isn’t about us, it’s about solving problems for our clients and delivering solutions that help institutions deal with seemingly intractable situations. So many times we have to check our egos, really listen to people, and revise recommendations we’ve made that aren’t exactly right. And I haven’t even mentioned the marketing/sales and everything else we have to do to keep mStoner working.

In short: it’s very hard to find someone who has the right skill set and fit for our small, tightly knit team.

This was all running through my mind when I got one of those calls that everyone hates to get. A valued and important team member telling me he’s moved on. That was Patrick DiMichele informing me he was leaving after six and a half years. My first reaction was, ” Oh [many words redacted], not Patrick! Hes going to be really hard to replace.” My second thought was, “I wonder if Susan Evans would be interested in joining mStoner?”

I’ll make a long story short: she said YES!

So on 12 September, Susan will join us as senior strategist. That means that she’ll lead one of our consulting teams, developing the overall strategy and working with her colleagues to implement it. [Here’s her own announcement].

I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to announce this news. We’ve known Susan (and she’s known us) for years through our work at William & Mary, where she’s led teams that have done some awesome work (and garnered a slew of awards in the process). In her 22 years at William & Mary, she’s worked in IT and communications and led major campus-wide initiatives with many moving parts and multiple political agendas, demonstrating her ability to plan and to build consensus time and again.

We all know Susan well enough to know that she’ll fit right in. Personally, I’m eager for her to join us because I believe she’ll be able to offer insights that will help us do our work even better than we do it now.

I don’t want to close without mad props to Patrick DiMichele. Patrick joined mStoner as a designer and left six and a half years later as senior strategist. The dedication and insights he brought to his projects have made a big difference to many of our clients. I’m glad to see Patrick find new challenges (though I’ll really miss working with him!).