Posted on September 14, 2007 at 10:40 AM in @earthlink
Note: The below is an archived entry from Earthling, formerly EarthLink's official blog. The blog itself has been decommissioned and is no longer updated, and comments are trackbacks are no longer accepted.
How the heck do you follow up a restructuring announcement on a corporate blog? A Friday heh list didn’t quite seem right on the heels of such a weighty announcement, and I’ve been struggling with that question and what to talk about next. Nothing seemed quite right, so I stepped away from Earthling for a while. As I return today, I thought it might be useful to give you a brief rundown of answers to questions that you may have about the current state of things:
Were you personally impacted by the restructuring?
Yes, I was. I will be moving on from EarthLink in a few months, but will continue to help out the product teams in the meantime.
What are the plans for this blog?
I’ll be making a last couple of entries in the next few weeks and wrapping things up. As far as what the company’s plans are for how to handle that transition, as those decisions are made I will include them in those final entries.
What is EarthLink's focus now?
In plain but broad English, we're focusing our attention on how we can best serve our current user base. Teams are starting to meet within the new structure, and the executive team is working on next steps as far as the bigger picture.
How will the products and services you offer change?
Nothing to say about this yet, as the product teams and leadership are currently getting together to work through any necessary changes. Our core offerings should remain unchanged, but there may be some adjustments as we evaluate our portfolio of products with slightly newer eyes.
What is happening with Wi-Fi?
As I wrote last week, despite misinterpretations in the press, our current networks continue to operate and we continue to explore new models for Municipal Wi-Fi deployments. Glenn Fleishman of Wi-Fi Networking News explored the topic in greater depth in an interview with EarthLink CEO Rolla Huff recently.
How has it been since the restructuring as an employee?
Everyone will react to this question differently, and large scale change within any company will bring with it some growing pains. For me, it's been a little chaotic, and I'm looking forward to things settling in to a new routine. In addition to offering severance and transition assistance, the company has done some nice things to help impacted employees get their next position, like rounding up a list of all of the firms, agencies, and companies that have contacted EarthLink about possible hires and sending it our way.
If you have any additional questions, drop me a line and I'll do my best to get them answered. But bear in mind that as we work through the company transition, we're not ready to entertain conversations about future directions or next steps yet.
Comments
Well old friend, you've allowed people to catch a human glimpse of what made EarthLink cool, i'm looking forward to seeing your next moves.
Posted by chris holland | September 14, 2007 11:05 AM
I'm sorry to hear that you were affected, and hope that you're moving on to bigger and better things!
Posted by shanna | September 14, 2007 12:17 PM
Thank you for the update. We sure want to know what is going on. Wifi all across New Orleans was always be the dream. Hope that Earthlink can find a way forward.
Posted by Alan Gutierrez | September 14, 2007 12:53 PM
Transitions are always hard for the employees and for the customer base. Loss of customers is always a concern and paying attention to the existing base is as useful as trying to expand.
In your posting above it was interesting to read the following comment:
"we're focusing our attention on how we can best serve our current user base."
I zeroed in on this because there are probably going to be clusters of customers who are no longer served correctly within certain dialing area codes.
On example is the difficulty that we are experiencing in the West with dial up numbers in the (541) area codes that are now showing up as International usage on billing along huge usage charges for local number usage. Calls to the off shore support folks who admit that there is a database problem but they cannot fix those types of errors only leads me to believe that it may be time to move on. Huge charges on what was an unlimited usage $21.95/month for years that cannot be corrected are not going to keep consumers.
Good luck in your new job.
Posted by Tom Goodwin | September 14, 2007 2:09 PM
Hey Dave - I know this is a tough post to write. "Were you personally impacted by the restructuring? Yes, I was." You should be commended for your professionalism and dignity during what I can only imagine is a challenging time. You've are a great friend, a wonderful spokesperson of a big company, and a leading edge blogger. You're going to do great, and I really hope Earthlink will too. As Alan mentioned above, we love our Wifi here in NOLA. Talk to you soon. - Chris
Posted by Chris Schultz | September 14, 2007 7:16 PM
As one of the first to go from EarthLink last December I definately can feel what my friends at EarthLink are feeling. I don't wish a loss of job upon anyone. Good luck to you all all our other friends who are looking for a new position. It's not easy being let go just before the holiday season.
Posted by Dave Kelly | September 15, 2007 2:23 AM
Hey, maybe Earthlink should've listened to all those cancelling customers when EL started the address bar search hijack scam! You had hundreds of complaints in your blog comments but just kept up the corporate shill act instead of storming into the Presidents office with a fistful of irate customer comments. Oh well, lack of managerial courage always comes back to haunt you.
Posted by Odkin | September 20, 2007 2:48 AM
Do you think Earthlink is positioning to sell to the highest bidder?
Thanks
Posted by John Cooper | September 20, 2007 11:25 AM
Chris: Thanks for all of your help and support while you were at EarthLink and since. Keep inviting me to your alpha tests!
Shanna: Thanks. I will keep tracking the heh, btw.
Alan and Chris: I'm so glad our paths first crossed as a result of my work with Earthling.
Tom and Dave: Thanks for your insights and kind words.
John: I don't comment on those kind of questions on Earthling, and consider them out of bounds according to my ground rules.
Odkin: We did listen, and participated in the discussion. As we rolled that service out to a larger group of our users, those user comments helped us troubleshoot issues, fine-tune the service, and we also got opt-out servers out to those who wanted them and a knowledge base article about how to use them. 100% of the commenters may not have gotten what they asked for, but that back-and-forth was very valuable and it did actively feed back into our rollout process.
Posted by Dave C. | September 21, 2007 2:27 PM