BLAST OFF

My phone buzzed on the bedside table and I reached over to read the text message. “Site launched. Looks awesome.” Even though he’s only an hour north of our corporate headquarters in Cupertino, CA, my web designer often prefers to work through the night. A text message first thing in the morning meant that he’d been up all evening.

I grabbed my iPad and navigated to Qolsys.com. The simple teaser site we had used for the past several months was nothing more than filler content, stock images and generic copy. We specifically wanted to hold back any pictures of the panel and peripherals we’d been producing so we could make a huge splash at ISC West. I flipped through the pages, looking at the exciting images and dynamic content. Carefully checking that the last minutes changes I had given him the night before we’re implemented, and that all the links worked, I snapped my iPad case shut.

“It’s up!” I called out to Ken Arnold, our Director of PR. We were sharing a suite on the 31st floor of the Pallazo hotel, overlooking the las vegas strip. He turned over and looked at his watch. It was 6:00, and we wanted to go work out in the gym before we started our day. “How’s it look?” He asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Perfect.” I said confidently. “What time does the press release go out?” I asked. He sat up and stretched. “Around 2pm.”

We dressed quickly and headed out to the elevator. Dropping rapidly to the 3rd floor, we walked briskly to the fitness center. I was amazed by the vast banks of treadmills and the massive rock climbing wall. Ken headed over to stretch and I hit the weights. It felt good to work my muscles. As I lifted I thought about our company, “Quality of Life Systems” and how we all made extra efforts to have a healthy, active lifestyle. Mike and Dave regularly went running or biking, Ken, who used to work for the San Jose Sharks would often play hockey, and I enjoyed a variety of sports. I thought about how important it was to keep this up, and all the successful companies I had seen whose executives looked… less than active. If we wanted to build a culture around improving the quality of life we all enjoy we’d have to make sure we stayed true to it, no matter how busy we got.

After a good workout I grabbed a pineapple smoothie and headed upstairs. This morning was the unofficial start of the International Security Conference, and while people weren’t supposed to show up until Wednesday, we knew there would be people coming by.  There were still a few tiny things we needed to accomplish in our meeting room to make it 100% ready, and we wanted to use today to train our team on the panel demonstrations we’d be doing over the next few days.