are we there yet?

Oh look, here comes another milestone! CVWmedia is turning 35 years old, and I’ve been known to get a little sentimental on these occasions. When we turned the big three-o, I took a look back at all the projects and people that made all this happen, but this time I’m thinking more about the future. To spare you from one of my classic trips down memory lane, I’ll let The Simpsons tell you where my mind is right now.

I’ve always found it healthy and productive for us to regularly ask ourselves, “What’s next?” when we hit milestones. Time isn’t a finite resource that naturally limits the length or depth of our successes and achievements, but becoming stagnant certainly would. Fortunately, we aren’t the types to rest on our laurels.

A big part of my role in the company over the years has been to look at the road ahead and anticipate what may be around the inevitable curves, then ensure we're in a position to adapt accordingly. I’ve got this steering wheel in my hand, so it’s pretty important that I turn it when needed—ideally only when needed—and in the right direction.

I think a common challenge for businesses like ours is knowing when a project is finished—when the answer to, “Are we there yet?” is yes. Balancing the concept of something being finished versus continuing to add more polish to it has always been one of our greatest challenges, perhaps the greatest. Our internal review and revisions processes are extensive and effective, which is one reason our client base tends to be with us long-term. That’s good, but A). we’re perfectionists around here, and B). what a project needs doesn’t always align with what we wish we could do with it. That can affect how and when we reach a stopping point. For that matter, accepting each other’s critiques and revising our work accordingly can require checking your ego at the door. But nothing is done until it’s done right. When that time comes, assuming you had leftover ideas for the project that you haven’t been able to work into it yet, it can be difficult to accept that the work is indeed finished.  

Is it done and done right? Yes? Time to move on. What’s next?

Another challenge is an aspect of business development a lot of companies working in our field either overlook or struggle to fit into busy schedules, which is the need for ongoing incremental growth. While projects do have an end point, business and personal evolution should not. At CVWmedia, our habits reflect this through our internal training, various personal and team development programs, and our internal proof-of-concept R&D projects. Some of our coolest work you’ve never seen has come out of our efforts to improve and evolve, and sometimes those projects end up becoming the basis for some of our more imaginative client projects. In fact, we have some exciting and fresh concepts we’re working on right now that will certainly carry over into whatever’s ahead of us.

And that brings me to my point. We’re turning 35, and that’s rare for any business, but we still have places to go and things to do and people to see. And we are far from a finished product, so on goes the work of becoming a version of ourselves that is never quite complete but always moving in that direction...and I have a pretty good seat for this amazing ride.

Are we there yet? No. Are we there yet? No. Are we there yet? No. Are we there yet? No. Are we there yet? No. Are we there yet? No. Are we there yet? No.