2009 - Year for Change

"The year of Change" seems to be everyone's motto this year. What amazes me is that people are claiming this to be the latest and greatest idea ever. Well isn't change something that occurs everyday? Isn't change something that should be occruing in your business everyday? Isn't change the only thing guaranteed not to change?

As I've been writing the annual "State of Procedo" address for our internal staff this past week, I looked back on the address from a year ago. In that was our "year of change" commentary. Focusing not only on the good points of the previous year, but how we can make the upcoming year that much better learning from our past mistakes that surrounded the negative items from the previous year.

It will be yet again the common theme for this year's address. You can only advance if you are able to learn from your past mistakes and leverage that going forward to make the change a positive change going forward.

Looking back wasn't 2008 a year of amazing change as well? The stock market CHANGED a LOT in 2008, but people are not jumping up and down excited for how it changed. The employment markets have changed, those standing in the unemployment lines and the stock market are not cheering this either.

So let's make sure when we focus on "the year of change" that we're actually focusing on positive and proper change to move forward and advance. Just like our customers are always changing their archive applications or storage, we move their Data Forward, the goal for 2009 has to be to have a Positive Year of Change, not just another 2008.

Change is inevitable, you must work to make it positive change, to move forward, to advance....

2009 - Walk to cure diabetes...

I normally don't post too many personal items, however as I mentioned in an earlier post regarding how technology should be advancing the betterment of the cause that it is working towards. We're at the time of year that the Juvenille Diabetes Research Foundation holds its Walk for a Cure at the Mall of America. As mentioned in my earlier post, my daughter Destin was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in October of 2006. We have been participating in the walk and fund-raising activites since her diagnosis. 

Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes, is a devastating, often deadly disease that affects millions of people--a large and growing percentage of them children. Many people think type 1 diabetes can be controlled by insulin. While insulin does keep people with type 1 diabetes alive, it is NOT a cure. Aside from the daily challenges of living with type 1 diabetes, there are many severe, often fatal, complications caused by the disease.

The good news, though, is that a cure for type 1 diabetes is within reach. In fact, JDRF funding and leadership is associated with most major scientific breakthroughs in type 1 diabetes research to date. And JDRF funds a major portion of all type 1 diabetes research worldwide, more than any other charity.

On a personal note, an update on Destin. We continue with our day to day challenges living with Type 1 Diabetes, but as of this past summer, life with Diabetes did change and did become quite a bit more manageable. As I previously posted Destin decided she was finally ready for the insulin pump, and we made the leap. Life has not been the same since. What amazing technology. She wears the OmniPod, which is a tubeless, wireless, remotely controlled disposable pump that she wears for 3 days at a time and changes. It's waterproof, and pretty much "kidproof", and has really freed her up to be a kid again in so many ways. Her numbers have been so much better as was her first A1C at her first quarterly checkup after starting the pump! The doctors couldn't have been happier with her progress! 

With your help, life changing technologies and cures CAN be a reality. That is why we ask all of you for your help in donations as well as participation at the walk! My wife Liana and I have made it our personal goal to do what we can to allow our daughter to have a normal life and just "be a kid".

Please visit Destin's Walk Web page if you would like to donate online or see how close we are at reaching our goal:

http://walk.jdrf.org/walker.cfm?id=87239062

Follow this link to make a donation:

http://walk.jdrf.org/support.cfm?id=87239062

Thank You Everyone