what I’ve been thinking...

Several years ago (so many that neither Gail nor I can remember exactly how many) we registered the name holdenco.com. We had no idea what we would ever do with it, but it seemed a good idea at the time, and it only cost $75 to do it.

About five years ago, we decided it was time to put something - anything- up on the website, just to say we had one. We had no idea how to do it, what to put up, or even who we thought would look at it. We just thought we should try it. What did we have to lose?

And so I bought a program, sat down and taught myself how to design a web site. I shouldn’t use the word design when I refer to those early days of holdenco.com. Experiment would even be a bit kind. But at least we were trying something.

After about a year, I had learned enough to realize that the program I was using was really not professional enough to do what we wanted the web site to do (or at least what we thought we wanted the web site to do) so I sat down (again) and taught myself another program (again). You would think that it whould be getting easier by this time, but by this point, I had big ideas, and no ability to produce them.

For a few years, we had an adequate website, really an on-line brochure of our lines and our company. Only about a dozen pictures per line. A place to request catalogs, really.

Then, last september, we moved into our new showroom, and at this time, we got DSL for the office and everybody got their own email. This initial transition was resisted a little, claiming that the way they were doing it (printing the emails and faxing a response!) was working just fine. It was only a short time later that I heard the cries of “my email was down for an hour today!” and what a crisis that was. How quickly we all forget.

Anne admits now that it was a full five months working at HOLDEN & CO before she even looked at our web site. But at the time, I guess there was not a lot of reason to look. And now, with the showrooms running full force on-line, the demands are high. We get new samples, and the question immediately comes “when will you have this on-line, Karen?” I try to remind them that just six months ago, practically nothing was on-line.

But such is progress, the higher you raise the expectations, the greater the demand is. Now, we are looking at having complete lines available on-line. Last fall we put together “collections” to order on-line, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Now we will expand this area as well.

It took getting everyone up to speed to make the progress we have. Without Anne, Gail, Rhya and Lisa constantly asking “can you do this?” I would never have done some of the things that have been most successful. Progress is exciting and daunting at the same time. It creates big opportunities and high expectations.

The thrill of growing and learning and expanding keeps reappearing every year I am a part of HOLDEN & CO, and that is why it stays fresh and fun and new for me, and hopefully for our customers as well. Thanks for being a part of out team....

xoxox, Karen