Joe Chernov’s last day at BzzAgent is tomorrow.

As  our VP of Communications, Joe has had such an incredible impact on this business, it’s hard to put it down on paper.  Joe joined this company to do PR, first as a contractor and then as a full timer.   And PR was his sole focus for 3.5 years – during a stint that the business that was truly a PR juggernaut.  (2008 was especially crazed with hits with CBS, and a book release.)

But when our VP of Marketing left in early 2009, a vacuum was created in marketing and we asked Joe to fill it – which he did, admirably.  But Joe’s career plan was never marketing. It was always PR.  We talked throughout, and ultimately he let me know that he was going to return to his PR roots elsewhere.  As much as I didn’t want to lose a member of the BzzAgent family, Joe’s been such a meaningful contributor that I didn’t want to get in his way.

People who know Joe, know that his capabilities with words are unparalleled.  Daily duties called for him to wear dozens of hats, including writing press releases, copyediting my articles, manage external relationships, and creating clear internal communications.  And often, he would make the most complicated situation clear by his knack for delivering pithy proverbs…or analogies…or allegories…or metaphors…approprisims…or whatever they may be called (Joe would probably know).  A few weeks back I started keeping a list of these so people could get a flavor.  Note that he’d toss these out off-the-cuff, spur-of-the-moment, without so much blinking an eye.  Here’s a handful.

• Put me in coach, I don’t need a helmet…leads to concussions sometimes
• [a non profit org] are separatists — they are the Montreal of associations
• The shorter the hair, the more frequent the cut.  (to illustrate a counter intuitive outcome)
• Getting ready for the birth of a baby is like Christmas shopping, you are never really done…
• When elephants fight, the grass loses.
• When you let the bull out of the barn, you’re responsible for all the damage the bull does.
• What’s the sound of one hand clapping?

Any staffers have others to add to the list?

Anyway, Joe…thanks for all that you did for BzzAgent.

We’ll truly miss you, and remember – if you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 11:33 am and is filed under Making BzzAgent Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. The permalink to this post is http://blog.bzzagent.com/?p=1372.