Well, we are officially going to brand the new firm BluWater Consulting. After giving the whole idea some serious consideration, BWC is the better choice. The name has a good sound to it, it is not as common as Endeavor and it is pretty universal.
The branding effort, the real work, is being done by our very own Angela Kernan. She is helping me address every detail, and she is really good at keeping me focused on the decisions needed.
In most cases, we’ll be dropping the wave design and go for a more clean look. The color standards will stay the same. Looking forward to having this done as well. Still there is a ton of copy to write, designs to be done and sites to be upgraded.
The rest of the merger items continue to move along. The first phase of the technical aspects of the merger are complete. Still need to move everyone over to the BluWater domain and get our phone system upgraded…man I miss our unified communications system. Jim tells me it is coming soon though.
It has been interesting to hear the various takes on the merger. What I am most amazed is that a small group of employees focused on one negative aspect and had a real hard time understanding the positive impact and the bigger picture. Regardless of the opinions, the merger was the best thing for everyone, its fun and very exciting.
Of course I understand that change is hard, try owning a services business for 10 years. I started the company during the .com mess and now the nation is smack in the middle of a recession. Even though the economic mess will take a few more years to work out, the fundamentals of business remain in place. Sure, businesses are feeling tremendous pressure on operating capital. In turn, this forces management to do the right thing and manage expenses and profit margins as best as possible. Of course this is over simplifying the problem, but the point here is that all business are being forced to lean up, and become more competitive. We made these changes over a year ago and the merger was another step towards improving our position for the long run. Borrowing an analogy from my favorite sport, running our business is a century ride not a time trial.
