First, an update on what the hell I’ve been up to. In case you need a refresher, last year I left SEOmoz and joined 10e20, a social media marketing firm. I worked there for several months as the Director of Social Media Marketing (and for the umpteenth time, no, I did not relocate to New York; I worked out of my house in Seattle). During my brief stint there, I fell in love with the team and was blown away by their professionalism and support for one another. I worked on some really interesting client campaigns and projects and learned even more about social media marketing than I had when I started.

However, the longer I spent doing client work, the more I realized that it wasn’t what I wanted to do long-term as a career. I wanted to focus more on Internet projects that could make me money. After struggling with what to do for a while, I decided to leave 10e20 and joined a startup Internet media company called So Much Smoke. I guess you could call me an in-house SEO, but my official title is Director of Marketing and Community Relations, and I don’t really think of myself as an SEO any more; rather, I incorporate the skills I learned from my SEO position at SEOmoz and my social media marketing stint at 10e20 towards building and marketing websites. I fancy myself simply a “marketer” now, with no modifier inserted before it.

So Much Smoke is a tiny team (we currently have four people, including myself) based near Denver, Colorado. I still work remotely out of Seattle but fly back and forth once a month or so. It’s really exciting to be back in the startup environment — the feeling of wearing multiple hats and working hard to get a project off the ground is something I’ve missed, and I’m happy and fortunate to get to experience it again. It was a bit of a risk for me to move into this position, but at this stage in my career I was willing to give up some things in exchange for more creative freedom, responsibility, and the potential to earn a lot of money if our projects succeed (and I’m counting on them doing exactly that!).

Speaking of projects, our first endeavor is a comparison website called This or That, which we launched about a month or so ago. Check it out — it’s still a wee bit rough around the edges and we have a few bugs to fix and features to implement, but overall I’m very excited about what we have in store for the site. We’re going to roll out some great content in the coming weeks, so keep your eye out for that.

As for my former employers, they both appear to be doing very well despite having a huge, gaping, Becca-shaped void in their company. SEOmoz has a butt-ton of new employees and a lot of the old ones have left so I barely know anyone there anymore, but they’ve recently moved offices and have fancy new digs downtown, and from what I hear, they’re going to roll out some new PRO stuff soon. 10e20 made a monster announcement this week — they’ve joined forces with Brent Csutoras, Inc. and Search and Social to create a full-service agency called BlueGlass. They’re also putting on their first conference next month. I’m so thrilled for Chris, Danielle, and the rest of the 10e20 team, as well as Brent and the guys at Search and Social. They’ve created a formidable team of extremely talented, hard-working people, and I know they’ll be immensely successful.

As for my personal life, I’m training for my first full Ironman race, Ironman Canada, which will take place at the end of August. Nowadays my days consist of exercising and working, although I try to squeeze in some lazy videogame time and some movie watching. I still chronicle my training efforts over at Mediocre Athlete, so check it out if you’re interested in reading about the latest blisters and chafe marks.

So to summarize, TL;DR I worked at SEOmoz, then at 10e20, now I work for an Internet media company, created This or That, and am training for an Ironman. Tune in for the next blog post (I promise there will be at least one more before the end of the year!) and prepare for the biggest comeback since Mickey Rourke…only in blog form.

• Does Social Media Need “Directing”? — here’s where I pull a ballsy move and ponder whether 10e20 even needed to hire me in the first place (spoiler alert: they did, and I’m glad)
• Donation Fail: How Los Angeles Screwed Itself with Michael Jackson’s Donation Website (catchy title, I know) — I talk about how the city of Los Angeles tried to pay for Michael Jackson’s lavish memorial by (sort of) setting up a donation website and massively failing because of continuous down time
• My New Assistant Isn’t Pulling His Weight — it’s the requisite “look how awesome my boss’s dog is” post
• Twitter for Businesses: Is There Really a “Right” Strategy? — I analyze a few different types of business profiles on Twitter and unveil 10e20′s new Twitter profile (follow them!)

Okay, I’m done shamelessly pimping my posts. I’ll still post here a few times a week and have a couple to publish in the next couple days. Until then, I’ve decided to celebrate my new job by sporting the “Chris Winfield begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting coif” all this week. Enjoy!

Visual nightmare courtesy of Darren Slatten (who else?)

Anyway, welcome to Fresh Edge, owned by me and contributed to by friends of mine (because you can’t spell nepotism without…nepot).