- Brian Morrissey

NEW YORK Critical Mass vp of experience design David Armano is leaving the agency to take a senior position with Dachis Corp., a social media consulting firm set up by Razorfish founder Jeffrey Dachis.
 
Armano (pictured) spent nearly two years at Critical Mass in Chicago. He became widely known in the industry through his blog, Logic + Emotion, and popular Twitter account. Through those outlets and speaking engagements, Armano has become a prime advocate for companies to raise their use of social media to connect with consumers.
 
In an interview, Armano said he hopes to put that belief into action at Dachis, where he will work in social business design. The idea behind the enterprise, which has also hired former Forrester Research analyst Peter Kim, is to help businesses adjust to the challenges of social media through a mix of software and services. It's a similar model Dachis used to build Razorfish when the onset of the Internet presented similar challenges for corporations seeking to reach their constituencies.
 
"We're not going to be doing viral-type things for sure," Armano said. "I like to solve problems and this is a big problem to solve."
 
Dachis is well financed, as Austin Ventures has agreed to devote up to $50 million to the creation of the company.

Jeffrey Dachis founded Razorfish in 1995, grew it to one of the largest Internet shops and took it public. Following the dot-com bust that humbled Razorfish and its brethren, he left the company in 2001. He subsequently co-founded digital design firm Bond Art & Science.
 
Armano will relocate from Chicago to Austin, Texas, where Dachis is headquartered.
 
Prior to joining Critical Mass, Armano served for two years at Digitas. He began his marketing career at Agency.com, where he worked for six years.
 
The challenges facing companies are mostly in the realm of design, Armano said, and that will enable him to draw on his prior experience to help them rethink organization models to foster better collaboration between employees and facilitate communications with customers.
 
"Companies have systems and they either work or they don't," he said. "System design is about looking at a holistic system and figuring out what can be solved."