A Farewell To Freeman

Tomorrow, we say "so long" to Mark Freeman, our Diplomatic Relations Manager, as he heads off to the Masters of Digital Media Program.

Mark has already written a very eloquent final post, and now we have to prepare for life without him here in the office. And so in reality show fashion, I thought it would be fitting if we take a look back at Mark's history here at Strutta. 

Remember 5 Questions with Mark Freeman, when we were first getting to know him? 

And then there was of course the now famous lip dub video, ably directed by Mark himself, in which he makes a cameo: 

Office Lip Dub - Blister in the Sun, by Strutta.com from Jordan Behan on Vimeo

Or perhaps you recall the time that he let it all hang out in our happy dance video: 

Mark, already an accomplished documentarian and philanthropist,  originally came to Strutta after to responding to an ad I posted looking for someone to sort through the entire catalog of YouTube videos, hunting for the best stuff in obscure categories. I knew that such a task would require a certain sense of both humor and detachment. While it may have sounded like a fun and easy job on the surface, it was anything but. Pouring through 1000's of often mind-numbing online video content in search of the gems is considerably more daunting than it sounds, but in the face of this difficulty, Mark flourished. He parsed the good from the bad, the popular from the mundane and was able to plot the resulting data onto spreadsheets that help us put everything in context. Along the way, he served as our de facto translator of (seemingly) all of the Asian languages, including all comments and blog coverage from the far east that we have received. And before you ask, yes, he responds in Japanese and Korean. 

But Mark wasn't done. In his second act at Strutta, he served as the single point of accountability for QA on the site, and later embarked on an extensive research project that involved all manners of online promotions, sweepstakes and social media submission contests. Again, he was able to compile his findings into digestible packets that we could make sense of. 

But before he left us, he surprised us with yet another skill. He's been cranking out Photoshop mock-ups for potential clients for the past two weeks, and the feedback from the resulting work has been overwhelmingly positive. 

I don't mean to lay it on TOO thick, but as Mark departs us to pursue higher education (what could be higher education than 8 months of steady YouTube watching? I mean, SRSLY) it seemed only fitting to send him off with a fitting tribute; one that is representative of the anguish we'll feel when we gaze at his empty chair. 

Oh. No wait. I see Maura has already gone over and staked a claim on his desk and chair, and has even started some sketches to decorate what will be her new space. I think she likes the view from there. 

Stiil, Mark, you'll be missed.