Andy, the house pro?

[rutt]

Maybe this is a FAQ, but I don't know the answer. Andy, do you work for smugmug? If you are the house pro, what does that mean? Has this changed recently?

If its none of my business, just say so. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who is curious.

[Mike Lane]

Originally Posted by rutt

Maybe this is a FAQ, but I don't know the answer. Andy, do you work for smugmug? If you are the house pro, what does that mean? Has this changed recently?

If its none of my business, just say so. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who is curious.

Andy confirmed this to be the case a couple of weeks ago

I didn't write his job title but it appears to be the pro wrangler. The guy that takes care of the pros. Sounds like fun, I hear we pros are easy to deal with.

You may or may not have noticed that Andy is now the author of http://blogs.smugmug.com/pros/ too.

[windoze]

Originally Posted by rutt

Maybe this is a FAQ, but I don't know the answer. Andy, do you work for smugmug? If you are the house pro, what does that mean? Has this changed recently?

If its none of my business, just say so. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who is curious.

i thought he worked for Zagats Restaurant Division.....

troy

[DoctorIt]

I thought he invented the internet.

[StevenV]

hey, I noticed that he had started using 'we'

[Andy]

Hi rutt, and everyone, thanks for posting!

Yep. I'm full-time on the SmugMug team now. No, it's not a big secret - I've even posted about it several times when asked over the past month or two.

I started as a customer in early 2003 - not long after Onethumb and Baldy opened up the joint. I was a convert from another service, I needed a styling place with no-ads, no viewer-needs-to-sign-up-or-register etc, to put my full-size files, have unlimited storage, get prints, and share my photos. It wasn't long after signing up that I became a pro subscriber, and started styling my site, and selling via SmugMug. Baldy helped me personally then, and we developed a relationship right from the start - he was eager to hear from me why I joined, why I'm staying, and what would I like in the future? This continued, throughout 2003 - and SmugMug started growing really fast then also. In December, Baldy asked if I'd take on a role as Moderator of a new forum he was starting, and help get things going - we launched Dgrin on December 12, 2003 (Hey, we're nearly starting our 3rd year at Dgrin!!). Dgrin started slow, but methodical, and we got to 1500 members or so in our first year and now we're over 5000 members as we end our second - very cool!

In 2004 Baldy and Onethumb asked if I'd become a member of the advisory board for SmugMug, helping them out with various issues, with the photography community, etc - of course I said, "sure!"

Now in the Fall of 2005, some things fell into place perfectly for me, and for SmugMug, and I started working full-time for the company in October of this year. I'm absolutely thrilled to be able to be part of this team. We're growing like crazy, in all parts of the business -- standard subscribers, as well as Power & Pro. And we expect it to continue. Onethumb has said before on Dgrin, we're not big on job titles around here - it's a family business and EVERYone helps out in all sorts of different ways. One part of my job is to look after our pros, make sure that we're providing great service with the features we've got, and that Onethumb and the engineers are developing features that Pros want and need. Another part is to teach, educate, and serve - I do that through Dgrin, blogs, conversations, one-on-one instruction, and of course by answering help mail. If a customer of a pro writes us and has a complaint about the color of her prints, we'll be reviewing the order - and usually providing color-correction and brand new prints the same day.

Of course, another part of my job is to help us get more customers: pro, power, and standard. And so I spend lots of my time on that, too.

I've admired everyone here at SmugMug for three years - and now to be working with them, well it's really a dream job come true, I get to work everyday in a job where I'm absolutely passionate about the input and the output - PHOTOGRAPHY - about everything that we do, really! How lucky am I? I'm 23 years in business and I've not once ever been part of such a team dedicated to success: Onethumb, Baldy, Toni, JT, Ben, Mark, Anne, Markham, Robin, John, Dustin, and a brand-new guy to work with Onethumb on the hardware side of things..starting soon! ..there's nobody here who says things like "that's not in my job description..." we just do it - whatever it is, to get the job done, to make the customer (our pro, our pro's customer, our power users, and our standard users!) happy.

I'm grateful to Onethumb, Baldy, and everyone, for the opportunity to be part of this team

[DavidTO]

I, personally, am very opposed to Andy's new responsibilities and position. He has become annoyingly polite, patient and helpful. I really much preferred his former, edgier, surlier self. You know, the Andy that made the ARQG possible. His useable quotes have slowed down to a trickle.

Harumph.

[Mitchell]

Andy,

Thank you for clarifying your present position with the company. It was a point of confusion for myself (and I'm sure many others). It is just good policy to have this information out in the open.

Best of luck!

[DavidTO]

My case in point. Traffic has plummeted on the ARQG since Andy's new and "improved" attitude.

[dragon300zx]

Originally Posted by DavidTO

I, personally, am very opposed to Andy's new responsibilities and position. He has become annoyingly polite, patient and helpful. I really much preferred his former, edgier, surlier self. You know, the Andy that made the ARQG possible. His useable quotes have slowed down to a trickle.

Harumph.

I agree. After all andy has to much work as it is. Eating at all those restaurants, traveling the world, buying new camera's without a champagne room at b&h, buying blue boxes for his wife, working at his "real job", taking pictures, eating at all those restaurants (listed twice as it takes up so much time), working out so he can still fit on the planes after all the eating..... How can he have time to be nice, and supportive.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by DavidTO

I, personally, am very opposed to Andy's new responsibilities and position. He has become annoyingly polite, patient and helpful. I really much preferred his former, edgier, surlier self. You know, the Andy that made the ARQG possible. His useable quotes have slowed down to a trickle.

Harumph.

You just have to look harder, that's all

[DavidTO]

Originally Posted by Andy

You just have to look harder, that's all

It's a trickle, my friend, a trickle.