Have you ever reached a point in your career when you realized you needed a change? I had that realization sometime back in 2004. I had been designing cell phones for Motorola for about 10 years when it hit me. The feeling had actually been building for a while, but it finally became clear to me that I needed to get out of the engineering field and into something else.
To help in the discovery of that “something else” I decided to obtain an MBA. In the midst of my part-time MBA program I started to take a real interest in the field of marketing, perhaps because of the many ways it differed from engineering. After graduating in June 2008 I experienced a number of starts and stops as I tried to figure out what kind of marketing job I wanted to do and I how I would go about obtaining such a job. Having a full time job at Motorola did not make this task any easier.
I knew I had a passion for marketing, but narrowing that down into a specific discipline within the field was a little bit tricky for me. Fast forward to earlier this year when I decided that I wanted to focus on digital marketing (or internet/online/inbound marketing, whichever term you prefer). So for the past few months I have tried to immerse myself in the world of digital marketing. It’s been a very interesting, albeit short, journey so far; but my hope is that it will continue for a long time to come and that one day I can look back on my new career choice and view it as a change for the better.
Oh and just so you know, by choosing ANY form of marketing as a new career path, I am as my fellow engineers like to say, going over to the dark side.
Due to financial hardships, this past Friday the AVP Tour announced that it was suspending all operations for the rest of 2010. More details can be found here.
This comes as sad news to beach volleyball fans all across the country. Since its inception in the early 1980s the AVP has been home for some of the best beach volleyball players in the world. Throughout the years Olympic medal winners such as Karch Kiraly, Misty May-Treanor, Kerri Walsh, Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser got to showcase their talents at AVP events all across the U.S.
The events themselves were great because most times there would be at least 10 matches going on simultaneously. And unless you were watching a match on the stadium court you could sit within a few feet of the action. It was this type of accessibility that made it really easy to spend an entire day in the sun watching matches. What really made it cool was when at the end of the day you realized that you had been watching some of the best players in the world up close and personal.
I have been following the AVP since 2002 when I first started playing beach volleyball. Because of a series of injuries I have not been able to play as much as I have wanted the last few years. Fortunately, I was always able to get my volleyball fix by following the AVP. Every year I looked forward to the Chicago event and this year was no exception. Unfortunately, the Chicago tour stop was scheduled for the last weekend of August and thus will not occur due to the sudden suspension of AVP operations.
While the AVP’s demise is a frustrating development for many beach volleyball fans, surely we will all find new activities to occupy our time. But what about the players on the tour? Only the best teams will be able to continue playing professionally. Those that do will have to play exclusively in FIVB events held overseas. The majority of the players on the tour, however, will see their dream of playing professional volleyball come to an end. I can only imagine what kind of impact this will have on all of their lives.
Beach volleyball players are a passionate bunch, so I have little doubt that the AVP will someday resume operations. No one knows when and in what form the league will resurface, but the fans will be ready when it does, I can assure you.
Here’s to hoping that the AVP can resurrect itself in time for a 2011 season. Until then I will view every old match I can dig up on AVP.com or YouTube in order to recapture a little bit of the excitement the AVP tour always provided.