Today is my last day at Accordance, at least as a full-time employee. I’ve been with the company so long I can’t remember exactly when I started, but I do remember that it was around the time Accordance 1.1a was released in April of 1995. That was the version which added support for the tagged Greek Septuagint—heady stuff at the time!
As I look back over the last 25 years, I am amazed at the variety of work I have gotten to do. I started as a part-time module developer, writing macros and scripts to convert electronic texts from publishers into fully functional Accordance resources. Over the years, I also had the opportunity to:
- contribute to the design of the program interface
- help with marketing
- test new features and products
- demonstrate Accordance at conferences like MacWorld Expo and ETS/SBL
- develop the program’s first in-app help system
- develop the new interactive tutorials in Accordance 13
- inaugurate the company blog (almost 14 years ago to the day!)
- lead live training seminars
- produce Accordance’s first video training DVD
- conduct web-based training
- train other module developers and write supporting documentation
- create the data for the interactive Atlas and Timeline
- establish relationships with book publishers, seminaries, and universities
- write original reference works, including the Bible Lands PhotoGuide and the Bible Times PhotoMuseum
- support users of all kinds, from Bible scholars to ministry professionals to lay people
In addition to this wide variety of tasks, I have also gotten to see Accordance grow from a small, family-owned business to one of the top Bible software producers in the world. Best of all, I have had the privilege of working with some incredibly brilliant, creative, and genuinely lovely people. Over the years, I’ve had people look at me and wonder how I landed such a dream job. It has been a dream job, and I know I will miss it.
So why am I leaving? Because I have other dreams I have long wanted to pursue, and it’s time I gave them my full attention. I have just finished writing a little book about marriage that I have been working on for years, and I want to see it published. I have a half-written devotional I need to dust off and finish, and I have other books in me that have been fighting to get out. I also want to take a more active role in teaching the Bible after so many years of getting paid to study it. So as much as it saddens me to say goodbye to my Accordance family and the work I have loved doing, I need to put my hand to a new plow without looking back.
Let me just end this post by saying what a delight it has been to serve and support so many amazing Accordance users over the years. Your encouragement has kept me motivated to work hard for a quarter century, and one of my greatest rewards has been to see the way your eyes light up when I demo some cool new feature or module we’ve been working on. You are this company’s greatest “asset,” and it has been my pleasure to know you.
If you would like to learn more about my new endeavors, I’ll be actively posting news and updates at davidallenlang.com. I also plan to remain active on the Accordance User Forums. After all, I was an Accordance user before I became an Accordance employee, and I plan to remain an enthusiastic Accordance user for many years to come!