Today’s #FollowFriday needs no introduction. And I’m cheating a little bit because I wrote about her this time last year.

But it’s her birthday today so I figured you wouldn’t mind.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LISA!!

Lisa Gerber is our chief content officer. She runs all of the guest posts here at Spin Sucks, which is no small job. She also began doing client work in January and now leads three of our biggest accounts.

About 18 months ago, I was shopping at Nordstrom (and then Sephora) and I called Lisa. I was venting that I needed some help with content on both Spin Sucks and this new project I wanted to launch (which you now know as Spin Sucks Pro). I told her I needed someone who I really trusted. As I stood on the corner of Michigan and Grand, in the dark, she said, “I’ll do it.”

Um, what? The job was in Chicago and she lives in Idaho.

I’ll do it.

So she packed up and moved to Chicago for nine months. Every month she flew back to Idaho for a week. And I watched her put on her happy face the week she came back from home.

It began to kill me inside a little bit every month. After all, she was my friend first and colleague second.

And then our circumstances changed. I went in to the office one day, after a week of traveling, and found Patti Knight (my work husband) was the only one sitting in our 2,500 square foot space. I decided right then and there some things were going to change.

We went completely virtual and Lisa got to move back home to her husband and dogs. And skiing and ice skating and mountain biking and hiking (lucky girl!).

Now she’s flipped her time. She spends a week a month in Chicago and the rest of the time at home. But, other than missing the occasional glass of wine together, it’s as if she’s still sitting in the office next to mine.

If you don’t already know Lisa, she blogs here every other Wednesday, and you can find her on Twitter, Google+, and she manages (with Molli Megasko) our company Facebook page.

Stop by and tell her happy birthday. It is today!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LISA!!

P.S. Every time I see this photo of Lisa, it makes me laugh. Props to Sean McGinnis for taking it. And that’s our good friend Joe Hackman in the background. Hi Joe!

Gini Dietrich

Gini Dietrich is the founder, CEO, and author of Spin Sucks, host of the Spin Sucks podcast, and author of Spin Sucks (the book). She is the creator of the PESO Model and has crafted a certification for it in partnership with Syracuse University. She has run and grown an agency for the past 15 years. She is co-author of Marketing in the Round, co-host of Inside PR, and co-host of The Agency Leadership podcast.

View all posts by Gini Dietrich