What About Bob?
Posted: 04/1999
What About Bob?
you’ve just got to do what you’ve got to do. Isn’t that what we say when we can’t think of
a better reason for doing something? It’s also what we say to others sometimes when we
don’t understand their reasons for doing something. But most of the time, it’s what we say
when people leave and we don’t want them to go.
It’s not that we don’t want them to have new experiences and new challenges. We do.
It’s not that we want to hold them back. We don’t. It’s just that we like having them
around for their friendship, their ideas, their leadership, their guidance, their jokes,
their compassion, their passion, their quirks, etc.
And so it is with this phrase that I send off our group editor, Bob Titsch Jr. By the
time this is published, he’ll have been at his new post as vice president of marketing at
Network One in Atlanta for more than a month.
I am joined by all the editors in wishing Bob the best as he tries his luck
"inside." For Bob, the inner workings of the companies that he’s been writing
about for the past few years have been a constant draw, like a siren to a seaman. His
curiosity soon will be satisfied as he, finally, gets to help build and grow an actual
telephone company.
If it’s much like building a publishing company, or at least the telecom division of a
publishing company, then he’ll do great. Bob didn’t know a whole heck of a lot about
telephony when he came to Virgo in 1993. But that didn’t stop him. Bob has other gifts. He
knows how to talk to people. He talked to me–then a consultant–and many others in the
industry who could help him make heads or tails of what was going on. The calls were
daily, then weekly, then fewer and farther between. He never stopped calling completely,
but the reasons more frequently were social than official. He got it.
I’m not entirely sure he knew that he got it, but he did. In fact, it was Bob that led
PHONE+ to be the leading publication in the resale/agent space. And, it was Bob that
conceived of and developed PHONE+’s sister publication X-CHANGE, which is the
leading trade covering the competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) market. And, it was
Bob that pushed to expand the division yet again with Sounding Board, one of the
first monthlies to cover the nascent Internet telephony market. And it was Bob who threw
the groovy Austin Powers party.
I’m not saying that he didn’t have help to realize these visions. Of course he did. But
the point is that he was an asset to this company. He was an idea man, but he also was a
great writer (when he got around to it), ambassador and friend. Bob, I will miss you. Good
luck.
Khali Henderson
Editor-in-Chief
