Last Friday marked my final day as an Engauge employee. Starting this week, I'll be working with The DeMoss Group as their new Director of Digital and Social Media.

Moving on from Engauge was a very hard career move. After all, why leave a job you love? The work was good but my coworkers were even better. The people I had the privilege to sit around made Mondays feel more like Friday. Going out to TAP for a final happy hour Friday after work made me realize why the culture at Engauge is what made it an attractive place to work in the first place. We worked hard during the week but the in-betweens like ping pong, beer cart themes, food truck Thursdays, collaborating out the "Board of Man," and our recent Engauge Olympics made the hard work seem more bearable when you have fun with the people you're in the trenches with.

Not only were my coworkers fun but also insanely smart. I learned a lot just in my first few months working there and our social team really fed off of each other's knowledge. I had the opportunity to work with some of the largest brands in the country, help "Shape Young Minds" with @ChadATL at local universities and present first-to-market Pinterest ideas with @juliacantor (which led to a collaborative DIG team project "Rick Rolling" Pinterest). Some of my biggest opportunities always came with the support of all the people around me. Even outside the office, my Engauge co-workers were my first friends in Atlanta after moving here from Chicago. They invited me to events, pizza clubs

and even made a killer Android-theme cake for me prior to my wedding last year. Definitely more of a family unit than just people that coexisted on projects.

I'm really looking forward to the new challenge with The DeMoss Group this week. Working with nonprofits and causes is something that has always interested me and their niche in that field seemed like a unique challenge I couldn't pass up. While they are a PR firm and I have very little traditional PR experience, there will definitely be a learning curve and a few workdays that will be out of my comfort zone. However, getting out of my comfort zone is the only way to really grow and learn.

Also, working across the street from my wife for a while will be a nice perk. Going from long distance to being able to have lunches together will be a nice change in one year for the both of us.

I can't wait to see where this next chapter takes me and catching up with my Engauge friends at AiMA events, pizza clubs and the coffee shop meetups to come. Being the small town that Atlanta is, I'm sure I'll be working with most of those folks in some capacity again before its all said and done.