This past February marked a four-year milestone for the Emerson Process Experts blog. At the time, there were not a whole lot of corporate bloggers out in the blogosphere. I’ve had the privilege of working with Deb Franke every step of the way as we successfully navigated the path through the Emerson organization to get the OK to begin the blog. I’ve been the public face of the blog and Deb has been behind the scenes as we’ve partnered to make it successfully grow over the years.
We were helped along the way by important thinkers in social media such as Steve Rubel, who counseled us to try blogging internally, inside the firewall first and prove the value and easy findability of the posts. This guidance was absolutely critical in our journey.
Subsequent Emerson blogs such as ModelingAndControl.com and Emerson Global Life Sciences also have benefitted from Deb’s wisdom and guidance.
Last Friday was Deb’s last day with the Emerson team.
She’s embarking in a new direction as she writes in her most recent post, The Start of a New Adventure. Deb writes:
I’m starting with my life and a business idea to be a freelancer and see what happens. Taking this leap of faith has been a crazy mixture of emotions: feels like equal parts excitement and terror. The interesting thing is that I have a peace that I have never felt before. I believe I am peaceful because I’m listening to my calling. I’m focused on helping others to the best of my ability. I love the idea that I have no idea what I will become and what I can learn from this change.
I know from working with Deb over the past dozen years, that she’ll apply her boundless energy to help many other folks succeed in their business pursuits. I wish Deb the best of success and hope you will too!
Update: It’s a fitting tribute that today this blog is honored with the BtoB Magazine Social Media Awards 2010 in the blog category. I’m honored and I know Deb is too!
