My first business relationship in Boone was with the Mountain Times, back when they still had an office on Depot St. I met their website developer at a coffee shop I was managing, and he mentioned that they were struggling to implement new technology into their workflow. He setup a meeting with their publisher, and I started helping them through the transition from light boards to digital layout. While it was a job, it was always more than that to me. I learned how people were working and felt a compulsion to help streamline their work and get them home on time. The layout team had been working until after midnight some nights to get the paper ready for print, but with technology we were able to get them home for dinner.

As I began to build relationships with more clients, I continued to learn the details of how people worked and how we could make their lives easier. I started with better collaborative tools like Microsoft Exchange, easier remote work with Remote Desktop and RemoteApp, and more organized file storage. As these things moved to the cloud, I learned Office 365 and how it could make those things even easier for people. While I had begun to add some staff, I was still out there working with people one-on-one to learn how these tools could help them, refining our Solution the whole time.

As we have grown, I don’t have the capacity to see every one of our users, but our staff does. Our install team will bring me back observations and suggestions when they see people struggle with technology. We constantly evolve our Solution as time goes by, keeping on top of the latest advancements in Windows Server, Office 365, and Azure. While there are common threads that everyone can use, we also analyze each client’s particular workflow and help modernize and refine their individual processes.

Our annual meeting is the time that we sit with each client’s management team and make sure that what we’ve recommended is working. It’s also a time for me personally to see how our Solution is changing the way they work, for better or for worse, and tweak the formula for them. But it’s also a time when I get to see if people in our community are thriving, just getting by, or struggling.

We in the High Country have been through a lot in the past couple of months. I’ve spoken to clients who have employees that have lost their homes due to mud slides and flood waters. I have clients who nearly lost their entire business and have friends that did. But the resiliency of the people up here is unmatched. While we’ve taken a punch to the face, we’re just staggered, not down. And I’m glad to come out of each of our meetings knowing that our businesses are strong and will be here for a long time to come.

-Nate