Unconventional Results

You may be wondering what unconventional results are. You may be wondering exactly how Janet Gershen-Siegel has gotten here.

A Quick Biography

Janet Gershen-Siegel has a somewhat unique Social Media Marketing and Community Management background which is reflected in her resume. Her degrees are in Philosophy and Law (yes, she's a lawyer). But she hasn't practiced law in close to 20 years. She fell into IT several years ago when she had already moved to the Brighton section of Boston and was out auditing law firms. At the time, the company (Liberty Mutual) was looking to save travel costs and still have auditing work performed. The department's Business Analyst had left for greener pastures, and she understood Excel. She was tossed a large book on Brio, which is now Hyperion, and was told, "Hey, you can teach yourself this."

Fortunately she was given a few months to teach herself databases. They were her profession for a while. She worked in a number of industries, including financial services, voice recognition and publishing. She generally worked as a report creator and analyst, mainly with Brio/Hyperion in conjunction with Oracle. She had various job titles, like Business Analyst or Reporting Analyst.

In 2002, she was out of work due to 9/11 and the bottom having fallen out of the Financial Services market. A friend contacted her and said, "I'm going to teach myself PHP because I want to build a forums website. I need someone to manage Able2know. Do you want to form an unholy alliance?

She agreed, and Able2know arose from the primordial swamp. It's grown from just those two to over 200,000 members. She goes by jespah there.

In 2007, her weight was out of control (She was 346 lbs. at her highest, and is only 5'6"), and her doctor was saying that at the next checkup, she would be a diabetic or a pre-diabetic. This sufficiently jarred her into action so that she decided, for her New Year's Resolution in 2008, to "treat myself better". This has worked out beyond her wildest expectations as she has currently dropped almost half of her original body weight. This one of those people they list under an "Effects Not Typical" banner. Eating right and exercising are now huge parts of her lifestyle, and being able to continue with both is, actually, a part of any professional decision she will make.

In her most recent employment transition, she has realized that analyzing data is all well and good but she wants to do more. She has experience in teaching and making presentations. She loves to write. She can garner online friends and followers readily. She loves to manage Able2know.

Her conclusion is that what she really wants to be when she grows up is a Social Media Specialist, and do inbound marketing, community management, social networking and all the rest of it full-time. Whether that's as a freelancer or for a specific company, is not yet known. Hence she has been putting herself out there.

And on May 10, 2010, it all paid off. She was hired to be the Director of Social Media and Public Relations for Neuron Robotics, LLC, and two months later was helping that company to present at a TEDxBoston pre-adventure.

If you want to hire her for additional freelance work, including writing, SEO and community management, great. If you just want to read about her trials, that's fine, too. Or you can simply follow her around as she heads to various social media events. Or if you want to talk about diet and exercise, or want to know her secrets, she's happy to tell. So please drop her a line on occasion, as she'd love to hear from you.

This is her journey.