My Tribute to Visionary: Celebrating 25 Years in Business
As you may all know by now, we are celebrating our 25th anniversary here at Visionary and while we’ve actually been in business for 26 years now, we’re just getting around to toasting to our latest milestone accomplishment! Established in 1992, Visionary has been helping develop and create tools for the World Wide Web before it was truly worldwide. What started as a dream from our President and fearless leader, David Safris, now can be easily interpreted as a successful entrepreneurial venture into the website design, development and digital marketing realms.
While we are an office of 32 people, Visionary boosts their ideas off of collaboration and the simple notion that everyone deserves to be heard. Having only been a part of this team for 8 short weeks, I’ve come to feel more and more integrated into the creative happenings just by simply listening and being present. Visionary provides optimal service to clients of all sizes with various industrial backgrounds on a local, national and global scale. I’m fortunate enough to have the responsibility of writing content based on the new creations our team comes up with, sites they launch and tools they invent or build upon to make things more streamlined.
I thought it may be fitting to provide a list of 25 facts about the last 25 years to help put things into perspective for how time has changed and how we can have an impact on the next 25.
25 Facts about ‘25’ years ago (1992):
- Neil Papworth sent the first text message ever saying, “Merry Christmas” but it had to be typed by a PC as phones weren’t so advanced.
- The cost for a Super Bowl ad was $850,000 which is now over $5,000,000.
- Top song: Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.”
- The World’s population was: 5,391,000,000 which is now approximately 7,605,116,000.
- The IBM Simon was released – a touchscreen mobile phone that is considered to be the first type of smartphone.
- 1992 was the last year that both the Winter and Summer Olympic games shared the same year.
- The first JPEG file format was created to store photographic data.
- USA launched their Space Shuttle Endeavor successfully.
- AT&T released a video telephone for $1,499.
- Windows 3.1 was released by Microsoft.
- Average cost of a new car: $16,950 which is now over $32,000.
- Mall of America opened in Bloomington, Minnesota.
- Super Mario Kart was released to the US – (and the course of humankind was changed forever.)
- IBM debuted their first “ThinkPad” laptop weighing 7.6 pounds but costing a hefty $4,350.
- Johnny Carson passed the microphone over to Jay Leno as host of The Tonight Show.
- CD sales surpassed audio cassette tapes for the first time.
- Snapple came out with their new advertisement campaign with the slogan “Made from the best stuff on Earth.”
- The Silence of the Lambs won Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
- NBA champions: Chicago Bulls.
- Super Bowl champions: Washington Redskins.
- Time’s Person of the Year: Bill Clinton.
- TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) is introduced and expanded beyond academia and military use.
- Top movie quote: “You can’t handle the truth!” – Jack Nicholson, in A Few Good Men.
- The Super Soaker water gun was the top Christmas season gift.
- Faxing documents was predominantly the most commonly used for electronic communication since email was not used until 1995.
Google defines the term 'visionary' as: "Thinking about or planning the future with imagination or wisdom. A person with original ideas about what the future will or could be like." I had asked co-workers to come up with words or ways they would use to define 'visionary' and here is what we came up with:
- Charitable
- Forward thinking
- Building tools for our clients that help them to be successful
- Being creatively innovative
- Creating the latest, greatest thing
- Perceptive
- Knowledgeable
- Inventive
- Always five steps ahead
- Proactive, not reactive
- Design-oriented
- Idealizing futuristic solutions
Not bad, right? So with all of this being said, let’s toast in honor of the hard work, sacrifice and collaboration that has made the last 25 years a success with the clients, support staff and leaders that all share ownership in this milestone celebration. *(I promise it's just water in my desk mug...we'll toast with the good stuff at our anniversary celebration dinner!)*
To me, since day one of working here, I have found no better quote to sum up the talented group of people surrounding me on a daily basis than this one:
“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things - they push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
Happy Birthday, Visionary! Thanks for bringing me along for the ride and for allowing me to be a part of the smartest group of 'misfits' I've ever met. Cheers to the next 25 years of changing the world! *(No pressure!)
Today and always, be Visionary.
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