Back in the early 90’s I worked for a “fruit company” based out of Cupertino, California and managed services for products like mice, keyboards and drives. While I liked what I did from day to day, it wasn’t hard to resign and head to Boston once my grandma got sick.  This was new beginning for me with no job on the horizon…. 

A few months into my new life in Boston, I met with an old friend who offered me a position at a startup company who hadn’t even shipped a product yet!  Come on it will be fun he said.  You know the computer part so the video part will come later.  Easily persuaded, I said yes.  So as employee # 8, I started my new career as a support manager of a team of 1.  Yes 1.   I was placed in this little cubicle right in the middle of the engineering team… all 4 of them.  

Once the Beta product started shipping the technical calls started to come in droves.  Remember… back then most in the business were from the linear world so a computer was a whole new way of life.  Some of the early calls where like:

What’s a clip?   What does field double mean?    How do I export a piece of media?   How do I import a piece of media?

Once the product shipped, with EDL capabilities and a whopping 4 effects, the calls got a tad more advanced ( and a little more scary for "marianna")   

My dissolve is going to fast, what do I do?   I exported my EDL and all the timecode is off, what did I do wrong?   I have a deadline in 30 min and the video is stuttering... help??????

Many times during the early years you would see me standing on my chair, headset on, chirping at the engineers for an answer while the customer was on hold.  Never having been in the industry, I was learning just like they were - we called it the "sink or swim" approach. After 6 months or so of more than 75 calls a day, I was able to hire some great people (the audio guy Keith, Mac guru Tom, effects wizard Larry and more) and created a team that rocked the industry and provided the best service of it’s time.   

By 1997 we felt the need to communicate to more people across the internet and engage them in a “group” like manner.  That started off a grass roots effort  where many of us ( manufacturers and customers alike) created one of the first online chat forum/list services for this industry “ the IMUG”.   IMUG stands for International Media Users Group and is a loose collection of hundreds of digital media producers around the world. Subscribers to the IMUG mailing list use a diverse range of digital tools, some members are editors others are content creators, designers, directors, or compositors. No matter what their production background everyone was welcome. The IMUG email list has been quoted as "the coolest collection of digital professionals around".   

Each year the leaders of IMUG organize a REELFEST where members send in clips which are edited together and shown during the annual NAB Motion Ball. 

In 1998, the IMUG presented me with there first Vincent Award.  The Vincent Award is given to the individual, individuals, company or group that IMUG members feel has done the most for the User community each year. In 1999, the award was presented to our own Rob Russo. 

While I am no longer directly involved with the IMUG, I am proud to say that 17 years later I still love this industry and many of the folks I still work with and respect today.