DR1665 is Brian Driggs

Hi. My name is Brian Driggs. I live in Phoenix, Arizona, work in knowledge management for a Fortune 500 by day, and run Gearbox Magazine by night. DR1665 has been my online handle for as long as I can remember. This is my story. I bet we have something in common. How can I help you?

The Short Version
If there are 7 billion people in the world and each of us is one-in-a-million, I figure there must be at least 6,999 other people out there who exist in the grey area where automotive, knowledge management, social media marketing, and journalism overlap like I do. We’ve got a lot of work to do, and I’d like us to help each other get it done better. Let’s run the status quo wide open without any oil in the pan.

The Long Version
I’ve always been interested in cars. My earliest memory involves being hit in the face with a HotWheels dump truck (I dropped it from arm’s length while lying in bed). Eventually, I would be racing Matchbox cars around the Petunias in the planter on the front porch in Dearborn, Michgan, and carving mountain grades for my HotWheels into the sides of a large hole I hand-dug into the dirt beside the house in El Paso, Texas.

Soon I was taking pride in being able to recognize just about any car I saw on the road; by the headlights, by the tail lights, by the shapes of the fenders and pillars. I wanted a Datsun 200SX. I wanted a VW Rabbit with those sweet sawblade wheels. I wanted an E30 BMW. I wanted a Pontiac Grand Prix. (Eventually owning said Pontiac would cure me of that last one.)

In the summer of 1996, I walked into a Jeep-Eagle dealership in Wichita, Kansas to order a ’97 Wrangler. I walked out with a ’97 Eagle Talon. “Daisy,” as I called her, introduced me to the joy of automobiles. An $1100 quote to replace a head gasket from the dealership lead to my building a race engine with friends I’d met online in a Phoenix back yard.

Work Experience
Upon getting my degree in Technical Management from DeVry University in 2006, I set out in pursuit of the lucrative “good job” promised by many a high school guidance counselor and college recruiter. Several thousand phone calls later, I realized recruiting in the water/wastewater engineering sector in the Carolinas (from Scottsdale, Arizona) was not my cup of tea.

Follow your passion.
Contrary to popular belief, being into cars doesn’t necessarily mean every gearhead wants to sell or repair them. After a little research, I stumbled upon a highly-regarded management trainee program with Enterprise Rent-A-Car. I shaved off my goatee, bought a couple hundred dollars worth of suits and ties for the office, only to find myself hastily washing cars behind a tired building in downtown Mesa, Arizona.

Three months later, I was “slinging parts for Harry,” working in aftermarket sales for a dot-com. It seemed I’d found the perfect fit! I spent my days talking to gearheads from all over the country about performance goals and helping them select the parts they need to do the job right. Unfortunately, nearly a year later, it became apparent management wasn’t forwarding customer payments to suppliers. I left immediately.

It was about this time I got to thinking about how the thing I enjoyed most about automotive culture wasn’t the cars, but the people who build and use them. Off the clock, I had built one online automotive community, was offered and administrator position on another, moderated a couple others, and was promoted to “Wiseman” on a fifth.

I decided to shift gears and pursue a community development coordinator position with a larger social network. I was willing to turn a blind eye to the lead generation and advertising activities because I believed in the power of online communities to positively impact peoples’ lives (still do), but when I was told by new management not to participate in the communities I was developing, I knew it wasn’t the place for me.

I spent the summer of 2009 helping a very dear friend with a small electro-mechanical engineering shop. It felt good to be back behind a soldering iron, assembling surface mount “circuit boards,” running errands, delivering products, picking up materials, and repairing and selling an old Mitsubishi he simply did not have time to deal with himself.

Discovering your passion.
Everything changed one evening on my own front porch. A friend was visiting and sharing some of the problems her team was facing at work. She asked me a question about building websites, then another, then another. Looking back, it was basically an interview.

Something clicked.

That was the day it all made sense. Cars are the common thread running through my life. Social media are the go-to tools in my toolbox. Two plus years later, I’m working in Knowledge Management for Apollo Group, parent of University of Phoenix, Western International University, and more. My focus is developing communities of practice behind the firewall; encouraging people to share their knowledge and expertise with one another in order that we might build the future together.

In a nutshell.
Over a decade spent in the online community space has made me a strong believer in social learning and community development. To me, true success is helping others to be successful and have chosen work-life parallel over work-life balance as a path to that success.

“The person who says it is impossible should not interrupt the person doing it.”

“First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win.”

[DISCLAIMER: My thoughts here are my own and should not be construed to represent - even speculatively - the views of Apollo Group, it's owners, subsidiaries, partners or clients in any way, shape or form. Let's keep it real. This site is about you and I sharing ideas and discussing what matters to US, personally.]