What She Said
Earlier this week the SHC Team got together in our conference room for a marketing meeting – in person! It was the first time I’ve had my whole team together in over a year – and it was GREAT!
As any small business owner knows you can never stop marketing…even if you’re in the middle of a pandemic and not sure how to network without coffee meetings and happy hours. So, with vaccination on the horizon, we decided it was time to sit down and talk strategy for the year ahead (that hopefully sometime soon will again include coffee meetings). Ellison prepared an excellent presentation on the do’s and don’ts of proposal writing, strategy and an overview of the marketing and business development process. We laughed, we drank coffee, and we ate breakfast all while doing the mask-up, mask-down dance that has become so familiar over the past year. It was as close to normal as we’ve come in over a year.
As we wrapped up, I found myself thinking about how good it felt to see everyone in the same room. Sure, we all see each other in our weekly office Zoom meeting (which has been a lifesaver over the past year), but it’s different when you share a physical space with someone. Julia’s post from a couple weeks ago generated a lot of conversation about which is better – Zoom or in-person? But I don’t think either is better or worse. In fact, I think both will have a place in our work as we dig out of the pandemic haze. I think that reading a room is nearly impossible in Zoom, but that action-oriented meetings like city council meetings can be held seamlessly (and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the awesomeness of Zooming in my living room instead of fighting traffic in a snowstorm). I learned that we can all adapt to virtual meetings, even people that claim to be technologically incapable. And while virtual meetings can help you feel like you know someone more than a phone call, they still can’t fully replicate the connections you make in-person. So, I’ll echo what Julia said – it’s nice to see people again, and I look forward to seeing more people in 2021. But rest assured, we renewed our Zoom contract so it just might be virtual.
-Jennifer