Well I did it, after seven years I decided to leave Mercury. It was a sad day for me yesterday as I headed to the airport after saying good bye (I managed to hold it together until I got to my car).

It has been quite a journey for me… I started as an intern in the Marketing Department (Yay Chris Smith). During this time, Raj put together a Geekend [1] and since all of my roomies were going I went as well. This weekend I worked on a splash tutorial for Solution Express (soon to be Contori) with Chris Morace. After that Chris brought me into R&D as an interface designer.

Through my seven years I got to work with a ton of great developers and I really started to understand (with lots-o-help from Chris and Scott) where I could provide value for a web application. I went through a role naming crisis over the years [2] – Graphic Designer (nope) –> Visual Owner aka V.O. (cute, but maybe too cute?) –> Interaction Designer (Yup, its all the rage!).

Chain Link became Kintana – Kintana was purchased by Mercury – and I continued to work on ITG. I learned a lot… here are a few highlights

1. A picture really is worth a thousand words – when in doubt mock it up!
2. Being nice to people will get you more (Josh and Mark this one is for you) – you don’t know how many additions I got put into the product by asking nicely [3]
3. Validation is the key to making me do anything – I pretty much work for validation (and a paycheck I suppose)
4. Working with friends is hard at times, but it is so worth it, especially if you get to have beers after work
5. There are some crazy talented people out there – I was privileged to work with them
6. There is no better way to bond than over a few beers!

So what’s next for me?
Well I am going to be working part time for JotSpot (its all the rage too!) and then I am going to do some contracting work (for Mercury for a while). I am excited for the move to Jot to be in a smaller company and to have a consumer audience (Good Bye IT!)

Why did I do it?
Many reasons, but really I was hoping for diversity of work and more time to do my Mandy projects. I realized that I needed to actually build time into my schedule instead of trying to work on the weekends – so I now have the best of both worlds.

I won’t miss Mercury the company, but I will miss Mercury the people – I will continue to woo you all to Boulder! So be prepared. 🙂

[1]: A Geekend is a weekend where you woo developers to work all day and night by giving them caffeine and snacks (and beer, which is why I went) – it works surprisingly well.

[2]: Don’t all great artists go through this?

[3]: those little smileys in your emails work wonders as well! 🙂