What do x-rays, Ray Romano, and the Tampa Bay Rays have in common?

In a post a while back, I made the point that color really doesn't exist except in our minds. In order to have color in our minds, we have to have light. Put simply, color is light.

Visible light is a small part of a much larger body of energy referred to as the electromagnetic spectrum. This spectrum is comprised of wavelengths of energy with the longest being over one kilometer long, while the shortest wavelength is measured in billionths of a meter (or millionths of a millimeter!). At the long end of the spectrum are radio waves and radar. At the other end of the spectrum where the waves are very short we find cosmic rays, gamma rays, x-rays, Tampa Bay Rays and Ray Romano. Okay, forget those last two. But if it wasn't for a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, we wouldn't be able to see that Florida baseball team, or watch Everybody Loves Raymond. In a very narrow sliver somewhere in the middle of all those rays is a band of wavelengths that excites the retina at the back of our eyes, otherwise known as visible light. And we associate the different wavelengths in this range with different colors. 
 
Meet Roy...
In a small band between roughly 380 nanometers and 700 nanometers (nanometer = billionth of a meter) there stands a house where Roy lives. You will remember Roy from high school art class. Or maybe he was in your physics class. You know, he was always such a colorful character.... Remember he had that strange last name... Roy G. Biv? He had such a range of emotions... One day his face was red with embarrassment, another day he was green with envy, and other times he would seem kind of sad and blue.

Of course Roy G. Biv is how many of us learned the color wheel. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet are the colors you saw as you went around the color wheel. They are also the colors you can see in the electromagnetic spectrum.  

Just outside the visible spectrum next to violet sits ultraviolet (from Latin which means "beyond violet")  energy. Remember the cool posters you had in your bedroom when you were growing up? No, not the posters of Farrah Fawcett or Donny Osmond. I'm talking about the velvet poster of the unicorn jumping over the florescent rainbow. Or maybe it was an Elvis poster (Presley or Costello). The kind that glowed under your black light. The black light bulb produces high energy ultraviolet light. These bulbs are called black lights because you can't see that part of the spectrum. UV brighteners are often added to things like laundry detergents, whitening toothpaste, and paper. They are added to help make products look "whiter than white". The added UV brighteners in paper and even printing inks can make color management challenging at times.

Ultraviolet light is also used in security to help thwart counterfeiters. if you hold a black light up to your driver's license, or any credit card, you will see a glowing UV watermark that was otherwise invisible to you. You can also see a glowing strip running vertically through all US paper currency except a one dollar bill.

On the other end of the visible spectrum and also invisible to the unaided human eye is the infrared (from Latin "infra" for below) range. Some animals can see into both this range and ultraviolet, especially more nocturnal species. Infrared imaging is used in many areas including photography, weather forecasting (IR satellite imagery), astronomy and the military to name a few. Infrared is used in night vision devices to see in dark environments.

Did you know that you can see into the infrared range by using some things that may be around you right now? Try this at your next party. But be warned, this experiment carries a geek factor of 7.2, so expect some backlash in some social situations. Okay, get a remote control and a digital camera. Almost any remote control will work as long as it is not an RF, or radio frequency, remote. Most are not. The digital camera that is on your cell phone will probably work fine. Aim the remote control at the camera lens, and while looking at the LCD screen on the camera, press a button on the remote control. You should see the bright white-purple light at the end of the remote control that is usually invisible to you. The light-sensitive CCD or CMOS chip in the digital camera can see into this part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Cool huh? Okay, it's not that cool, but it illustrates the point.

So the next time you use your remote control to change the channel so you can watch an excellent show like NBC's "The Office", think about how you are putting all that infrared energy to very good use.

Mark

Day one is done with the Photo Plus Expo, the leading event in photography.   Kristina Lee – Backdrop Product Manager, Chris Norris – Lead Developer and I are in New York representing Widen at booth #1848 showcasing Backdrop.

What’s in the name Backdrop?  I can’t tell you how many times today people came up to us and asked “Do you sell Backdrops?”  If we did and that’s what people were looking for, we all would have left the show thinking we sold gold.  Also, no we don’t digitally superimpose you on top of 30 Rock, getting chased by a Rhinoceros on an African Safari or of your children sitting on Santa’s lap at the mall.  (We could… we do have the premedia services expertise to do so.)  That’s not the purpose of Backdrop.  Backdrop by Widen is “behind the scenes” for photography workflow management just as Widen’s other solutions are considered “back office” marketing and creative software.  (Much of the software for content management and structure of digital content is categorized as “back office.”  We’ll accept that.) 

What is meant by “behind the scenes"…you ask?  Basically, we like to think of it like this:  Photographers take photographs, creative people design – and everything in between should be held to minimal duty by automating many of the manual tasks and communication procedures.  The automated workflow takes place courtesy of Backdrop by Widen - a photography approval system working “behind the scenes.”  We understand that everyone has a different workflow and photographers have different ways of doing things with different clients.  That’s why Backdrop is both intelligent and flexible.  The configurable Photoscript is designed to follow your workflow (photographers and commercial clients) all while making things more efficient.  We don’t aim to add any steps to your photography review cycles, but we do help to remove more than a few and make other steps faster. 

So what is Backdrop?  Here’s a few of our rehearsed elevator pitches… Backdrop is a web-based photography routing and approval system… photo asset management and collaboration software… but not software as in “Oh no, I can’t buy anymore software.”  It’s SaaS – which means no installs, no licensing fees, no complicated functionality to learn, no upgrades and nobody gets left out or left alone.  Backdrop allows clients to review photo shoots online.  Can’t make it to the shoot?  Need to review and approve photos in real time?  Backdrop by Widen is there.  Trying to eliminate unnecessary travel?  Backdrop will have you at the shoot without physically being at the shoot. 

Lastly, there’s much to be said about accountability.  Backdrop is intended to let people see and interact with only the files they are supposed to see.  All comments, approvals, requests for reshoots, denials and every other major action is automatically stamped with who did it and when. 

So there’s a little ditty on Backdrop by Widen.  If you’re in the Javits Center area in New York City this Friday or Saturday, feel free to stop by Widen’s booth #1848 for a closer look at Backdrop. 

Are you planning on attending the premier briefing and networking event in digital media management and marketing operations? 

Make sure to stop by the Widen booth #117 to catch the latest in DAM SaaS technology featuring an interactive presentation of the new digital asset Embed Links.  

The event features over 75 talks, case studies, panel sessions and interactive presentations. 

Digital Asset Management Los Angeles 2008
Monday, November 10 and Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Renaissance Hollywood Hotel

Sponsored by Henry Stewart, the event is for everyone involved in production, use or management of rich media and covers:

Digital Entertainment and New Media • Film Production • Exploiting Multimedia Platforms • Brand Management • Marketing (and Advertising) • Digital Rights Management • Ensuring Security • Optimizing Creative Workflows and Empowering Supply Chains • Metadata and Taxonomy Solutions • Latest Developments in Search Strategies • Structuring the Architecture of Systems for Maximum Performance

This is an event that will deliver exactly what it promises – briefings on all the important issues supported by case studies of real world performance.  Digital content management for increased revenue, profits and shareholder value.  Digital asset solutions for cost reduction, more effective marketing, brand management and new product development.

View the Full Program Details

Register Here

Contact Widen to receive $100 off the rate card price.

Watch the video interview with Bryon Zimmerman, CEO of ZDO (www.zeedio.com) – Widen’s newest creative design firm DAM user, talk about how the Widen on-demand digital asset management solution enhances client relationships.  The Widen digital media management platform helps ZDO clients find images and artwork on their own by logging into the web-based DAM system whenever they want to browse jobs or download assets.  Widen digital asset solutions help ZDO project a cutting edge image, which is important to both ZDO and their clients.

Watch the video interview with Bryon Zimmerman, CEO of ZDO (www.zeedio.com) – Widen’s newest creative design firm DAM user, talk about how the Widen on-demand digital asset management solution helps differentiate ZDO from other agencies by providing more value to clients.  Widen helps ZDO provide a highly organized library of everything pertaining to the jobs they are responsible for in working with their clients.  Widen DAM technology helps ZDO reduce project time and increase profit margins by the efficiencies the DAM SaaS solution creates.  The high level service is used internally by ZDO creative and design staff as well as in collaboration with clients. 

If you're an advertising agency or creative design firm...

Are you looking for ways to stand out from other agencies?  I’m sure you have plenty of reasons, but Widen would like to help you add at least one more.

Are you looking for ways to add value to client relationships?  Widen can make it very easy for you with a hosted digital asset management system.

Are you looking to add more revenue streams?  That’s simple… (A little extra coin is always a good thing!)

Are you looking for more time for creative and design and less time spent on tedious tasks? (Of course you are…)

If your clients are asking for global web access to the “brand assets” you’re responsible for, Widen will help you.  If you’re looking for a tool to help you become more organized and efficient while enhancing client relationships and adding revenue, Widen will help you.  Visit www.widen.com/agency to learn more.

View our video testimonials from ZDO about how they were able to differentiate from the competition, add value to client relationships and add new revenue streams with the help of Widen's creative software technology.

Guest blog post from Sean Banahan, Widen Area Sales Director

I recently spoke with a prospective Fortune 500 customer who was going through a formal evaluation of Digital Asset Management software vendors and solutions and was facing an interesting dilemma.  This prospective customer had kick started the evaluation process with the generation and distribution of a formal RFP.  This RFP document had been sent to a number of vendors that had popped up in web searches and inquiries into the DAM space.  The list contained the usual list of players that you would find by doing a simple search for DAM on google. 

The RFP was sent out and vendors were given a couple of weeks to submit a response.  Vendors were not expected to provide any really detailed information on their products because it was assumed that this type of information would be ferreted out in the demonstrations and discussions that would follow the initial proposal.  The problem occurred when only two vendors submitted responses to the RFP within the allotted time.  This prospective customer's purchasing process requires that they review at least three different proposals.  This left the customer scrambling to find out how to address this particular problem.  Should they give more time, should they put the project on hold or go through the effort to get an exception made to an internally established practice? 

While taking efforts to address the issue, the original timeline for a decision came and went.  Then the date when they had hoped to have phase one implemented flew by.  They are still waiting for responses from the remaining DAM vendors today as far as I know.  This really blew my mind.  How can any company trust a vendor as a future partner and service provider who can't even respond to a simple RFP and instead provides lists of weak excuses.  Its not like they were required to provide extremely detailed or extensive information over night.  Are they even doing business?  Maybe they have enough partners as it is.  This customer should start implementing phase one through Widen's on-demand digital media management service.  A basic DAM SaaS solution from Widen would be live and configured within two weeks.  Let the other vendors chase you down and explain why you should give them your business rather than the other way around.

There’s a lot to be said about the clocks on the wall! 

Every now and again we at Widen get the opportunity to see how much of an impact our digital asset management technologies and premedia services have on our customers.  This image was taken in a merchandising room at one of our customer's locations (Adidas Sports Licensed Division).  Things like this really impress upon us that each customer engagement really ends up becoming a partnership of mutual dependability.

Guest Blog Post from Tim Vial, Widen Sales Representative

In the wake of my defeat in Widen’s weekly football game, I found myself wondering what went wrong.  Many of you may be feeling like this in a much more important game. Like in a backyard football game, the team with the most talent doesn’t always win, but rather the team with the best system.  Attacking today’s global market is a lot like this backyard football game.  There are three pieces to the ultimate victory, score points (get your sales team the ball), don’t give up any points (manage all the new “looks” creative is giving you), and last but not least appeal to your fans (marketing).  How the team with the best system (DAM) will always prevail:

As the quarterback (head of your department) you are the decision maker, and the one who needs to start the production.  Each down (selling situation) is different and has certain routes that will yield better results.  You need to get your receivers (sales reps) the ball quickly, efficiently, and with the best chance of success.  Just like with your business, you need to get your sales reps the most up to date information, with the opportunity to be able to tweak it for each specific opportunity without losing brand integrity.  In the mist of all this action, you have blitzing linebackers (deadlines) closing in on you fast.  You need to play like a veteran.

Offense puts fans in the stands but defense wins championships.  On the other side of the ball, you need to keep track of all those other receivers (assets).  The offense is constantly changing their formations, and bringing in fresh, new players.  The key is managing where those receivers are, who is being used the most, and for what purpose.  That will keep you from falling behind.

Like every team in any sport, you’ve got to pay the bills.  Would a fan come and watch your game and spend their hard earned money if you showed them pictures and told stories of the “glory years” that are long and gone?  Getting your team’s fresh, new image out to the public has to be efficient and effective as well.

In the business world you face the same challenges, which can be solved with Widen’s Digital Asset Management’s Software as a Service technology.  Get your branded material out to Sales teams quickly, with the ability to change some specifics for each target audience, but maintaining brand integrity.  Manage all the new materials creative is busy producing, all the while knowing you are using the most up-to-date image, video, or document with version control.  Find the digital material you are looking for quickly with self service access complete with advanced search options, in an organized central repository, with roles and permissions allowing you to decide who uses what.  In addition, full reporting that makes it easy to find out what images are being used, what’s most popular, etc.

Competing against a business with no DAM is like playing a football game against a quarterback that throws back across the field… Easy pickings.  Let a hosted digital asset management system from Widen Enterprises give you all the tools needed for victory, while always having a “coach” there to guide you, and a “trainer” for all the “bumps and bruises”.

DAM Pros 100, DAM Joes 0

This past weekend I was in Lawrence, Kansas attending the CCUMC (Consortium of College and University Media Centers) annual conference.  Widen Enterprises was a Gold Sponsor of the event and took part in the Vendor Showcase on Saturday and was one of the sponsors of the Sunday luncheon.

What did I learn from talking with people at this event?  That IT isn’t making a lot of friends with media staff at colleges and universities.  As one gentlemen said, “IT has us in a bottleneck.”  Server space isn’t available.  Projects given to IT can take months and months and sometimes still never get completed.  IT freaks out about video files eating up storage.

So, is there any hope for escaping this?   Luckily, Widen’s digital asset management application DOES help media staff (and anyone else) avoid issues with IT.  How can this be possible?  Well, our application is a web based DAM system so there is no need to have asset management software loaded on your desktop or university server.  Widen hosts and maintains the system and users only need internet access to search, find, and order digital assets.  All your digital files (images, pdfs, videos, audio, documents) are located on OUR servers – not eating up storage on campus.  Media staff doesn’t have to worry about hardware, software implementation, or upgrades – and best off all – they can avoid IT.

Disclaimer:  No IT staff was harmed in the writing of this blog.

Guest Blog Post from Amanda Jenny, Widen Client Services Assistant, regarding Widen color management and prepress services

Reebok has recently entered into a partnership with Topshop and will launch collections in its London stores. This will be the first time the company has focused on fashion retailing within this area.

Many women find sportswear shops boring and unappealing and Topshop offers the perfect environment to increase sales in this new channel of retailing. The new collections will be promoted by Jamelia (an English R&B singer), which will include a NFL American football range.

Guest Blog Post from Amanda Jenny, Widen Client Services Assistant, regarding Widen color management and prepress services

Reebok International Ltd. has joined forces with women's clothing retailer Limited Too in an effort to reach the "tween-age" girls market.

The partnership calls for Reebok to sell its products in Limited Too's stores, on its web site, and through its catalogue, which is mailed to more than 4 million girls several times per year. The partnership is designed to connect the Reebok brand to trend-setting girls between the ages of seven and fourteen.

"Limited Too is widely considered the retail authority on fashion for 'tween girls," Jan Sharkansky, vice president and general manager of Reebok women's division said in a statement.

DEAR DR. DAM:  I’m Kate and I work for an interactive agency that does email marketing, websites and print collateral for a number of clients.  We have a situation with one particular client in which sales and marketing do not get along.  It’s really pretty silly… the independent salespeople don’t like and don’t use the print collateral that the corporate marketing department creates for them.  The independent salespeople need something more personalized for their customers.  Given the time-sensitive nature of their business, salespeople oftentimes end up whipping up their own sell sheets and brochures.  Of course the marketing team cringes when this happens because the business branding is inconsistent.  Since they are not all part of the same corporate head, it’s difficult to enforce.  If you can help me help my client’s sales and marketing people get along I would be very happy. 

DEAR 'CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG' KATE:  You need to check out Widen’s brand asset management solution – Media Builder, which will help you build your client relationship by helping marketing help sales.  How it works is the marketing department creates templates with certain static content such as your logo and corporate branding.  Marketing provides a library of official product imagery and associated textual content.  They have options to the degree of freedom they want to give salespeople to customize the piece – headlines, main messages, etc.  Each salesperson can build their own brochures on-demand by selecting which products their clients want to see, and then add their contact information.  Sales will be able to customize their collateral for the customer and marketing will be able to protect the brand recognition.  Best of all, you’ll look like a hero for presenting such a solution.  People helping people… it’s a powerful thing.

DEAR DR. DAM:  I’m Sampson, the web marketing manager for the world's leading source of independent news and information about the Olympic movement.  Every day, via the internet and email, we deliver the most up-to-date news on issues affecting the Olympics.  Email subscribers are alerted on developments via e-bulletins each day.  We’re in need of a rich media management system for images and videos used online and for our print magazine.  We currently house 55,000 assets on a local server using a file folder structure, but as you can guess it’s difficult to find assets.  Our #1 pain is the time it takes to locate and convert assets.

DEAR SUBSCRIBERS RULE SAMPSON:  A Widen web based DAM system would suit you nicely.  Even for a small internal workgroup it will help you drastically increase efficiency in providing the most current content to your subscribers.  Widen’s price point is more in the ball park of what you’d want to spend.  You’ll be increasing your subscriber base with the amount of quality interactive content you’ll be able assemble by increasing efficiencies in the management and distribution of this content.

DEAR DR. DAM:  I’m Tom, a 35 year veteran of the travel industry and I’m strongly recommending that state and national departments of tourism take a look at digital asset management systems in their relationships with travel agencies.  This industry is not able to serve the travel agent industry well because they are not using current DAM technology to serve up digital media in an effective way.  This includes all forms of graphics, images, videos and print collateral.  Think of all the travel agents needing images and materials to share in their marketing and sales activities.
 
DEAR TRAVEL AGENT TOM:  Thanks for the tip!  It makes perfect sense.  Travel agencies need access to images and videos for websites and other online marketing channels.  They also need access to print materials and the ability to create their own print collateral at times.  Widen’s DAM SaaS systems with embed code technology would greatly help tourism departments assist travel agents with online marketing activities because they can control and streamline the use of images and videos.  Easy access and effective use of digital media would greatly boost the marketing activities of the tourism industry because the state departments and agencies can work closer together and provide travelers with the compelling content they seek in making travel plans.

DEAR DR. DAM:  I’m Ozzie, the marketing manager for a very small marketing department at an international iron ore supplier based out of Australia.  Our marketing efforts are quite focused, but we have thousands of locations of imagery.  We need a digital asset management system that is easy to use and doesn’t require a lot of specialized training for every day users.  Plus, it helps if it’s easy to administer.  Ideally, our outsourced provider could setup the system without a lot of hidden professional services fees.  Any system we choose needs to scale to accommodate increasing amounts of images and videos, be web based for international accessibility and enable us to quickly transition from our existing desktop/workgroup solution. 

DEAR OUTSOURCED DAM OZZIE:  You’ll be up and running quickly with an easy to use DAM SaaS solution from Widen.  Plus, you’ll love the fact that Widen doesn’t make you feel locked into a system since it’s a month-to-month subscription-based service for their web based DAM system.  That should make you feel more comfortable about their support services since Widen will earn your business every month.  What kind of costs and services am I talking about?  How about: IT infrastructure, critical need bandwidth, storage, upgrades, training, setup, ongoing support and reconfiguration of the system.  Widen rolls this all into the monthly subscription.  Good luck in your decision!

DEAR DR. DAM:  I’m Wayne, the web manager for a hotel management corporation.  We own ten different hotel chains all with their own websites.  In addition to being on our own websites, our images are also used in many advertising, travel, and third-party sites.  Whenever we change an image or use a newer version, I spend countless hours going into every site and updating the content.  After that I have to contact the other third party sites and send them the new image.  Is there any way to streamline this process so I can enjoy this beautiful weather outside?

DEAR WEBSITE WAYNE:  Start learning to golf because more free time is one the way!  With the new DAM SaaS technology of Embed Codes released by Widen, you no longer have the redundant tasks of multiple site updates!  Each image asset in the Widen DAM has its own unique URL that you will copy and paste to all your different websites.  Each time that website is refreshed that image will actually be drawn from your Widen digital asset management system.  So when asset updates are needed, you just log in once to your Widen Collective site and change the image and it’s dynamically changed everywhere.  Don’t forget the sunscreen!

DEAR DR. DAM:  My name is Tony, the training manager for a corporation with headquarters located throughout the US.  We need to have a certain amount of video training tools released on a very aggressive schedule.  I am swamped with trying to get these videos out efficiently and everyone trained in a timely manner.  I’ve tried sending DVDs to each location, but that is time consuming and expensive.  Right now, I’m finding our servers cannot handle 3,000 employees watching a video at the same time, and has very poor quality.  By the time I get all locations to finally watch these videos in a training session online, half of them have already outdated information and I need to do it all over again.  Is there any way out of this vicious cycle?

DEAR TRAINING TROUBLED TONY:  Rest assured help is on the way.  I am prescribing you a DAM SaaS system from Widen.  With Widen video management tools, your employees can all easily view and retrieve your training videos online.  Widen will also store the videos in the highest quality you would like, with full previews available in one click, or instant downloads to your desktop in whatever format each location needs.  The best part is when you see a spike in your bandwidth consumption during your massive training times; you only pay for that spike.  With Widen using the power of cloud computing, you are provided infinite scalability on a pay-for-use model.

Mark Dordel, Quality Assurance

Working in Quality Assurance at Widen means that I work on a team that attempts to unveil most of the faults in the Widen Collective digital asset management software before it is ever released into the wild.  Imagine what would happen to our customer base if Widen did not include QA in the development process.  There would be dogs and cats living together – mass hysteria!  That’s what.

Not really, but our Communications team would be swamped by irate callers and emailers (is that a word?) wondering why they keep running into errors or even worse: incorrect behavior.

Collective is a fairly complex piece of marketing software.  We offer several different applications, most of which interact with each other, and each application’s behavior is dictated by a set of enabled features.  Do not get me wrong, we have some very fine developers in R&D, but ultimately they are human and they sometimes (very rarely) make an error when they code or compile.  That is why I have a job here.

Widen QA is the first line of defense in the battle for customer loyalty and brand perception.  If Collective doesn’t work as advertised, I have not done my job.  My job is not a day to day, Monday through Friday sort of job.  I am always thinking of ways to reveal faults in our software, and critically think about in things I encounter in everyday life.  I am always asking myself: why are things like this or that?  How can this or that be improved?  Why does this or that software return an error when I follow this workflow? 

Think about this, we are immersed in software every day.  You use software every time you use your car, get an X-Ray, pump gas, make a phone call, browse websites, pet your cat (hey, cats are soft)!  Behind all of that software are people performing Quality Assurance (some are obviously much better at this than others).

Quality Assurance, like Software Development is never finished, and at Widen the R&D department operates in a quasi-Agile environment.  This sort of environment always keeps the QA team on its feet.  We are always learning, and always trying to keep a few steps ahead of our customers.

We are Widen QA.

Sarah Cronn, Prepress Apprentice

What does 60 years of Widen mean to me?  In celebrating our 60th anniversary, I would have to say that to me, Widen means change, it means growth, it means advancement.

On July Fourteenth, in this year, Two Thousand and Eight my cohort and I embarked on an incredible journey.  The journey continues with a great many successes, lessons, hard work and laughter.  I am one of the Apprentices to the Prepress Services division at Widen Enterprises.  It is quite exciting to be a part of such an experience as we celebrate Widen's 60th year in the Prepress Industry.  As technology changes, so arise new demands, knowledge and fresh approaches.  Two Apprentices, new to the industry – you cannot get more fresh than that.

Just two and a half months ago we were introduced to the functions of the Premedia Services Division.  We began working in the Digital Photography Studio alongside Widen's photographers.   This entrance gave us a primer into the procedures followed at Widen.  Pouring the foundation for the Widen workflow, we were showed the "hows" and "whys" that enable Widen to thrive supplying high quality marketing communications in a competitive market.

From the studio to the machine.  We began with photography, processing the digital images or passing them onto other departments to work their magic.  The machine became a more integral part of our day, a more important tool to our set of growing skills.  We began working with members of Quality Control, the members of Quality Control would introduce us to our next great adventure, our skill sets expanding.

Skill sets expanding, ah I like the sound of that.  Learning is a great joy of mine, and in an industry like Prepress that attitude is an asset as well.  With the many developments in technology over the past 60 years (even 10 years), openness to change and acceptance of the "new" and the "now" are a must. Acceptance becomes practice, practice becomes proficiency.  I think of it as variety, as they say, it is "the spice of life".  Learning new techniques I can apply to my set of skills impacting my work day as well as my personal work gives me that variety I strive for.  Only two and a half months in and I look at all I have learned, the small details, the bigger themes and I know there is much more to come.

The journey continues… I look forward to the new territory thus far unrevealed to me at Widen.  To me, Widen will continue to mean advancement, as I learn and progress, Widen will continue to mean change as it grows to meet the ever volatile market it has thrived in for the past 60 years.