You are making history every day.
Unless you’re Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, the world at large probably won’t notice every move you make, but what you and your employees do has an impact.
If you do well, somewhere down the road you’ll celebrate a significant milestone – 10 years or 20 years of serving customers, for example. You might decide to publish a book or a video or maybe a multimedia presentation about what you and your team have accomplished. Maybe you’ll show some slides at a special dinner or just reminisce at a company picnic about what it was like back in the day.
Will you have the information you need?
You will if you start planning now for that special day and documenting your company history while it’s fresh. It doesn’t even have to be difficult or expensive. You probably already have much of your recent history saved in digital form.
Here are some things to consider if you want to document your company’s unique story:
- Get employees’ input. They’re helping you make history and many will be happy to help document it, particularly on special occasions like retirements and anniversaries. Ask them to reminisce on video or audio recording or by writing up a few memories.
- Save PDF files of ads, brochures and other marketing materials. Make sure they’re created in a way that is searchable.
- Tags. Tags are free. Learn how to use them and tag your documents, photos and videos so you can find bits of information easily years from now.
- Business information that you consider important enough to put in a newsletter or news release is significant enough to keep for future reference. Save those searchable files and others – all tagged, of course – and back them up with your other business files. (Consider setting up a free or low-cost wiki to organize your information.)
- Using Facebook or MySpace page in your marketing efforts? It’s a good idea to write and polish that information in your word-processing program before you post it for the world to see. Tag and save those files as your social media marketing archives, noting when and where you published the information.
- Your own website, blog, podcasts and other communications should be great sources of information. Be sure to include links to media coverage about your business as well as to your own archived news releases.
- Subscribe to relevant RSS feeds and set up alerts to help you monitor what’s being said about your business. You may want to keep some of that information, too.
Even if you ultimately decide not to put your history in book form, you’ll have a valuable record of what happened and when, and how you and your employees served your customers and community.
B.J. Smith wrote about the most recent 25 years of Rockwell Collins history in the corporation’s book 75 Years of Innovation (due out in July 2010) and co-authored a history of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with Susan Davis Smith.
FORT COLLINS, COLO. — My friend’s idea to invite several of our elementary school classmates to raft the Cache La Poudre River near here sounded like a winner, so I quickly claimed “dibs” on the movie rights.
I was sure it had screenplay written all over it — maybe “Deliverance” meets “City Slickers” meets “The Big Chill,” minus the dead people, I hoped. At the very least, I thought, it might make for a fun little everyman adventure story.
The cast: L.A. lawyer Matt Heartney; former prosecutor turned defense attorney Dan Quinn, our Fort Collins host; Minneapolis auto parts distributor vice president Rick “Sam” Streff, and me, expedition scribe and the only one of the group still living in Iowa.
The location: The ice-cold, rampaging Cache La Poudre (POO-dur) as it cascades down the Front Range of the Rockies, the first Colorado river to carry the federal “Wild and Scenic” designation.
Because most of us were novices, Quinn scheduled a guided descent with A Wanderlust Adventure, one of a handful companies with U.S. Forest Service permits for guided rafting on the river. We would be joined by the three Quinn sons: Colin, 20, and 16-year-old twins Brian and Devin.
The 12-mile section of river we would descend had just the right hint of danger — Class III, IV and IV+ rapids — and plenty of speed, thanks to the still strong runoff from June snowmelt higher in the mountains. The water rushing by, our guide told us later, had been snow and ice just six hours before.
We scouted several miles of the river by car both days before the main event. The road running down the canyon offers numerous spots to pull over and watch the rafters and kayakers go by. Just looking at the Class V and even some of the Class IV sections is enough to give a body second thoughts about actually getting in the raft.
As it turned out, we not only got in the raft, but in keeping with the competitive nature of outdoor adventurers, we laid claim to at least two semi-historic firsts in less than 48 hours — an impromptu, leisurely, personal first ascent of Arthur’s Rock and our long-awaited descent of the wild Cache La Poudre.
Trek to Arthur’s Rock
The day before the rafting expedition, we recorded the first ascent of 7,000-foot Arthur’s Rock in Lory State Park by three St. Theresa School graduates (Heartney, Quinn and Smith) accompanied by Heartney’s 9-year-old son, Matt, and 12-year-old daughter, Katie, without the use of supplemental oxygen (although I could have used a hit or two), and only water and a few snacks for provisions.
The promise of Oreos at the summit kept the youngsters going along the 1.7-mile trail as we gained roughly 1,500 feet in elevation. The adults’ reward from the wind-blown rock was a breathtaking view of Horsetooth Reservoir and Fort Collins just beyond that.
Contrary to what Quinn told us the night before, this hike is rated “moderate to difficult” rather than “easy.” Take good, comfortable hiking shoes, sunblock, drinking water and a hat, and be on the lookout for rattlesnakes. There are magnificent views all along the way and plenty of shady spots for resting. Quinn, who has summited 14,200-foot Long’s Peak, grudgingly agreed that technically we could claim to have “bagged a peak” with our conquering of Arthur’s Rock.
First descent by four
Quinns
The peak having been bagged and Streff finally having arrived from Minnesota , the following day we achieved the first documented descent of the Cache La Poudre River by four St. Theresa School classmates in a raft containing four guys named Quinn.
The start of our descent of “The Poudre” was delayed a couple of hours by an earlier rafting party that showed up late. Still, we had plenty of time to get suitably equipped with life vests, helmets and other gear provided by the rafting company. Streff was the only one who opted for the $10 wetsuit rental, but we all followed the guides’ advice to avoid cotton T-shirts, which dry slowly and therefore hold icy water against the skin way too long.
From our assembly point in a restaurant parking lot, we were bused up the canyon with 16 other thrill-seekers and four 14-foot rubber rafts. The guides seemed to be enjoying themselves, but the rest of us were quiet for most of the half-hour drive, enjoying the passing scenery and maybe imagining the dangers (Just how wild is this river?) that awaited us.
After a few minutes of basic instruction from our personal river guide, 30-year-old Blake Hill, our crew of eight hit the water. Almost immediately, we were in trouble. Sprinkled among Hill’s shouted paddling instructions — “All forward! … Right side, go hard! … Left side back one time!” — we suddenly heard a technical term he had left out of his briefing: “We’re screwed, guys.”
This apparently is guide-speak for “We are fetched up on a rock and some or all of us are in imminent danger of going for a swim.”
Somehow, we managed to slide gently free of the menacing rock, however, and headed downriver for a nice, relaxing float trip frequently interrupted by frantic paddling over falls, down rapids and through narrow, perilous chutes with names like The Maw of Death, Liquid Thunder, Cardiac Corner, Killer Bridge and Mishawaka Falls.
Otherwise known as “The Mish,” Mishawaka Falls was the Class IV+ part of the ride. Class V is the roughest you’re allowed to raft. You don’t want to think about what a Class VI can do to you. (A saloon/nightclub/hangout called “The Mish,” on the road right by the falls, is a haven for modern-day hippies and young folks, who park helter-skelter up and down the sides of the two-lane waiting for the live entertainment to start, sometimes pitching tents within inches of the highway.)
You can simulate some of the physical sensations of a river ride like the “Blast of Whitewater” right in your own home. Sit naked on the edge of your bathtub with your feet in about an inch of ice water. Use a broom for your paddle. With one hand firmly on the end of the broomstick, put your other hand down near the business end of the broom and lean outside the tub to try to sweep the floor. Every minute or so, have someone throw a trashcan or two of ice water in your face. With gusto. Repeat for 2 ½ hours. Try not to fall out of the tub.
Paddling in the air
What you can’t simulate is the exhilaration of paddling furiously through the rapids as the raft bounces and twists and crashes through waves that smash and break over the bow and slap you hard in the face and sometimes knock the wind out of you. You have to experience the momentary panic of trying to paddle only to see that you are too far above the water to reach it and you are waving uselessly at the air for a moment until you crash back down again, certain that you’re going over the side.
You have to whoop with child-like glee when the peaceful-sounding Pine View Falls surprises you with wave after wave of ice water blasts and you emerge downstream laughing and smiling and wanting to go back and do that one again. Then you thank your lucky stars that Heartney kept his cool amid the watery chaos and saw the vicious mosquito just before it pierced your leg. (Mine wasn’t the only life he “saved” on the river that day; others were similarly menaced by the buzzing little blood suckers.)
Finally, in a rare calm spot on the river, you “paddle high-five” the rest of your crew and clamber out of the raft and up the bank for a congratulatory handshake with the guide, who tells you what a great job you did. You suspect that he tells everyone the same thing, but you give him the benefit of the doubt, along with a big tip, and you will enjoy the moment and feel for a time as if you are a teen-ager again and that you can do anything.
OK, so it wasn’t action-adventure screenplay material. There was no violence other than what the river and the skeeters did to us, and there was no sex (none that I witnessed, anyway). The only dead people were the ones in the drowned-kayaker stories that guide Hill told us along the way.
We were there a week too early for the Colorado Brewers’ Festival but we found some beer anyway and were well entertained with plenty of music from our high school and college days. We drank some toasts to dear, departed classmates, with both Catholic and Protestant Irish whisky. We even toasted some who didn’t have such convincing excuses for not attending.
They know who they are, and we know they will be there next time if they can.
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Five spring rides READ
¦ an article for Radish Magazine
Abbe Center's special anniversary section (Pages 9 and 10) READ
¦ two of several articles for Gazette Communications
People, places make Iowa great READ
¦ one of dozens of articles for iowa.com
Special section commemorating Rockwell Collins' 75th anniversary READ
¦ several articles written for Gazette Communications
Cape Verde hopes to be the "next Caribbean" READ
¦ first published in The Des Moines Register, October 2008
Bicycling Safely in Traffic READ
¦ for the Iowa Bicycle Coalition
Install Bike Parking to Encourage Cycling READ
¦ for the Iowa Bicycle Coalition
