“Constantly scanning the peripheral, always motivated by the desire not to miss opportunities.” Linda Stone
I remember the day I met him. He gazed up at me with those beautiful clear blue eyes, welcomed me with a glimpse of the Cheshire cat grin I would come to know well, and made a joke about my role at the Credit Union. It was clear that David was bright. Very, very bright. And he was funny.
I remember the last time we spoke, three days before he left. David emailed me following yet another of our sprawling conversations to let me know that we had spoken for 43 minutes and 27 seconds. He advised me that at his 9-5 EST grid (???!) $250/hr for on-call/off-site support, I owed him sushi and a Sapporo. I replied that I paid for tech support in rubles so the Sapporo might be a stretch. At either rate, it would have been a bargain.
David was a passionate and gifted teacher. Always kind. Always generous. And he had a way with words. Sometimes he’d email or tweet me and I’d have no clue what he was talking about. One day, catching my tweet of a song from blipfm, David tweeted back, “Spotify, silly wabbit…It’s the new black.” Say what?
We sparred with words and ideas. I’m the communications girl – it drives me nuts when I can’t understand someone. David drove me nuts frequently. His job description was “new media, technology, innovation and education” – I wanted his job! He described what he did as “figuring out where new “stuff” fit in with the older “stuff.” David didn’t research or network, he was “cool-hunting” in the CU system for “crowd-powered innovation”. God I had to run fast to keep up with him.
We first collaborated on an email presi for staff. We designed a cool broadsheet of email tips and David created a Keynote injected with neat graphics, cool video and lots of humour. That was the first time I got in trouble at work. Note to self: not everyone wants to know what LMFAO means.
I was determined to bring in the best communications tools and David was committed to ensuring we had the latest in Social Media, Web 2.0, and Open Source apps, and we were all going to work in Wikis. This proved a challenge. “Why is it,” he asked, “that when the wagon is broken and the wheels are square, peeps still try to push it uphill through the mud?” David had a gift for slinging a really good metaphor.
David was passionate about bringing “social/nu-media/network-ing” to the Credit Union. He saw change coming in the industry, and he was determined to make some of our own. He wanted to “empower the Gen-Y/next generation to become captains of the CU movement.” He was always trying to figure out where ideas can meet application.
But the world rarely moved fast enough for David. Communicating with him was like being at the epicentre of a tornado. Some chose to run for cover and dodge the fallout of scattered flotsam and jetsam. Their loss. I scrabbled to grab all that I could and there was always more to grab than I could hold onto – so more sushi, more Sapporo.
What’s the ROI of “pure win and awesome.” Where’s David? What’s a meme again?! He’s here… I catch fleeting glimpses of him from the periphery of my vision – he’s just outside of my grasp.
Gonna miss you, my friend.
Created by Oliver Swainson for the Marketing Dept.
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