Author: Brad Lindemann

I returned from my first short term mission trip on Saturday, July 19 at 2 pm.  See previous post for background.  The trip went off without a hitch, other than the virus I apparently contracted from one of the 250 new friends I made on the flight home.  You know you’ve traveled a long way when you have three meals on the same plane.  End to end, it was a 36 hour marathon each way.

Our work site destination was the Matipane Village in the Limpopo Province of northeastern South Africa.  While there, we were very comfortably accommodated by owner/couple Bootlap and Dalene at their Magnab Safari Lodge.  Not exactly roughing it.  My purpose here is not to give you the day-to-day details of our “work camp”.  Instead, I want to provide you with a general overview of what we did and then try to capture the essence of how the overall experience has impacted me…at least thus far.

But first, you should know that our original destination was to have been Zimbabwe.  Given the political unrest and violence in that country, we were diverted to South Africa, the first of four African countries that Horizon International operates within, including Uganda and Zambia.  Out of concern for the safety of Horizon personnel in Zimbabwe, I must be short on details here.  But, suffice it to say, the situation in Zimbabwe is far worse than what’s being depicted by the mainstream media.  Some of the sponsored orphans have not only lost their parents, but their Horizon caregivers as well.

Our work camp was focused upon light construction and painting within a property in Matipane recently given to Horizon by a Catholic charity.  Imagine a third world 4H fair type of facility and you get the idea.  The site had served as a city market and agricultural gathering place.  There are many small structures formally used to house livestock and farm produce.  Given our small group of six people, our two main projects were to convert one small building into a library, while creating a storage room within another building for equipment and supplies related to the fledgling sewing
operation that provides work for the young women of the village.  We made lots of wooden shelves and did quite a bit of painting. The Horizon workers and orphans seemed to truly appreciate what we did for them.

The single greatest impression this trip made upon me was in illuminating the fine line between hope and hopelessness.  For $35 per month, Horizon sponsored orphans receive a hot meal every weekday along with a weekly bag of groceries and maize meal to take home with them.  They also receive minor medical care, school fees and spiritual guidance.  All of this for a mere $35 per month!

I couldn’t help but make comparisons between the Horizon kids and the average kid within our own Indianapolis Public School System.  Is it possible that these South African orphans have a better shot at “making it” than do those trapped within our decrepit inner-city schools and violent neighborhoods?  This begs a question that I am still pondering –how do I determine the level of time, money and resources to allocate to charitable causes around the world versus those in my own backyard?

Our daily commute from the lodge took us through several rural villages via the backroads.  I was struck by the number of villagers constantly walking along the dirt road.  I felt badly that anyone we passed along the way received a coat of red dust from the very dry and dusty roadway.  Adult males were notably missing, while women everywhere were fast about their daily chores.  It was rare to see a woman walking without carrying something atop her head.  This was often an incredibly large batch of firewood constantly being gathered from the fields.  The strength of their necks and shoulders must rival that of the Colts’ offensive linemen.

Unlike our football fields, however, grass was virtually non-existent.  It was red dirt as far as the eye could see.  The women took great pains to neatly sweep the dirt surrounding their homes.  We created alot of saw dust at our work site, something that I saw as far preferable to the red dirt that it fell upon.  Not so.  One of the Horizon workers politely gave us a broom and dustpan to clean up our “mess”.  I found the dirt and dust to be quite oppressive.  Sometimes while driving through the villages I felt overwhelmed by the magnitude of the challenges these forgotten people are facing. Sometimes it seemed hopeless, but then I’d look into the bright eyes and big smile of a Horizon kid and hope would abound once again.  Imagine how big those smiles will be when we install the real grass soccer field we’re planning?

So, was this trip the life-changing experience that so many promised it would be?  I truly think it was, but only time will tell.  Time will tell if I will actually shift more of the focus of my life from accumulating to serving.  Time will tell if my African experience will motivate me to re-double my efforts to help the many suffering just a few miles from home.  Time will tell if Ambassador Missions will make the kind of significant difference it’s capable of if all teammates and constituents catch our vision for changing the world.  For me, time will tell.  What about you?

If you’ve never been on a short term mission trip, I would urge you to consider doing so as soon as possible.  It will wreck you…and that’s a good thing.  To learn more about upcoming opportunities with Horizon International, contact them directly .  I would also encourage you to consider sponsoring one or more Horizon orphans for $35 a month.  Where else can you provide so much hope for such a small investment?

The Horizon meal is often the only meal for these orphans

Horizon kids love getting their pictures taken

A little library opens up BIG possibilities

After my wife and I reluctantly agreed to accompany our fifth and final child on his senior class trip to Cancun at Spring Break, I vowed that our next trip abroad would be missional in nature.  Shortly thereafter, my good friend, Bob Pearson, founder of Horizon International, invited us to accompany him and a small group of supporters to Zimbabwe in July.  Severe knee problems prevented Elaine from signing up, while severe political unrest in Zimbabwe forced us to redirect our trip to South Africa.  We fly out in the morning.

Horizon International is an HIV/AIDS orphan relief organization that brings help and hope to the hundreds of thousands of African children who have lost their parents to the AIDS pandemic.  They are in the midst of one of the greatest human tragedies in the history of mankind.  And, they’re making a very real and positive difference in the lives of these kids.

To my shame, this is my first ever mission trip.  Excuses were easy to come by while raising five children and building a business.  But, the time has come and I sincerely hope this will be the first of many such trips to also include the other six members of our family and our grandchildren.  In recent years, I’ve coined the phrase, “you cannot have a perspective that you’ve never had“.  I’m told by those who have gone before me that a trip like this will give me a new perspective that is truly life-changing.   My pastor says it will wreck me…in a good way.  I say, bring it on!

Am I nervous?  Yes, I am, on two fronts.  I’m nervous about those I’m leaving behind –family, friends and business associates.  I will miss many and, no doubt, be constantly curious as to the worldly entanglements left behind that took over half a century to create.  I’m also nervous about what South Africa has in store for us.  Can we truly make a meaningful difference in two short weeks?  What about health and safety concerns?  Will I never want to leave or never want to go back again?  Yes, I’m nervous…and that’s a good thing.

I don’t think I’ll be blog-enabled while on the trip, so I’ll look forward to sharing the highlights of my great adventure with you upon my return on July 19.  So, as my soon-to-be South African friends would say, tutaonana (until next time)…

My wife, Elaine, and I just returned from a fabulous trip to Ireland, Scotland and England with my Taylor University MBA class.  It was a “for credit” study tour, but spouses were welcomed, so we jumped at the chance to take our first trip to Europe (I guess life truly does begin after fifty).  As a class requirement, I’ll be documenting the trip in a journal over the next several weeks (not in this blog).  However, I did want to share the highlights of our last night in London and then juxtapose that lovely evening with the publisher’s rant that appeared in the Indianapolis Business Journal while we were away.

Having been traveling for twelve days, we were tired and not wanting to venture far from our hotel for our last meal before heading for Heathrow in the morning.  The recommended restaurant was full, so on the way back to the hotel we stumbled into Romanos , a hole-in-the-wall Italian joint.  When I asked our server for a recommendation from the very short wine list, he said, “the cheap ones are on the top and the expensive ones are on the bottom”.  Duh!  The ladies next to us came to the rescue by attesting to the excellent quality of the house red.  As we finished our toast to a great trip, the gentleman at the table on the other side of us asked what part of the States we were from.  From there, the gods of serendipity took over and we ended our trip with a truly magical evening and some wonderful new friends –Herman and Mardie.

Roughly twenty years our senior, Herman and Mardie were as full of life as the thousands of young, overpaid members of the millennial generation jamming the famous red buses of London.  Herman is a retired music industry executive who sold his London-based business a few years back.  His close friend and former business partner, Sir George Martin, was the producer for an obscure rock band out of Liverpool –The Beatles.   With this revelation, Elaine and I silently twisted and shouted inside, but I can assure you that it was not our new friends’ close affiliation with British royalty that we found most attractive.  It was their zest for life and their obvious joy in sharing it with others that brought “good day, sunshine” to our table that evening.

When Herman learned that I was a fifty-one year old graduate student, you would have thought his only child had just received the Nobel Prize.  If he said, “good for you!” once he said it five times…each time more enthusiastically.  He assured me I was on the right track so long as I was pursuing my passions.  He said whatever money we’d need would follow, but to never do anything for the money.  And, he said to be sure to do everything I was passionate about so long as I was able.  This philosophy led Herman to become mayor of Aspen, Colorado in the early 1990’s, his one and only foray into politics.

We soon learned that in the process of living a very full life, Herman had acquired some very strong opinions about many things…opinions that I didn’t necessarily agree with.  On matters of religion and politics, we differed greatly.  He a Jew…me a Christian.  He a Democrat…me a Republican.  He a Bush basher…me a Bush supporter.  It mattered not.  Why focus upon our differences when we had so many interesting and important things in common?

I loved his thoughts on sales people and the way he corrected me when I referred to Jesus as a salesman.  “Oh no”, he said, “Jesus was the product.  Peter, Paul and Mary were the salesmen”.  Huh?  I thought they were a folk group during the heyday of Herman’s career.   Whenever he’d make one of these quips that Mardie had, no doubt, heard hundreds of times before, she’d roll her eyes, but not dismissively.  There was an eternal sparkle in Mardie’s eyes whenever she looked at Herman.  Their lifelong love for one another verily oozed from their pores.  What a wonderful inspiration they were to Elaine and me.

Our evening with Herman and Mardie stands in stark contrast to the op-ed piece appearing in the October 22-28 edition of the Indianapolis Business Journal.  In this piece, IBJ Publisher Mickey Maurer, a man I hold in very high regard, attacks the newly formed Indiana Christian Chamber of Commerce saying they are “espousing the venom of exclusivity”, while exhorting the Indianapolis business community to “spurn these enterprises and affiliate with organizations that promote good business practices without regard to religious beliefs”.  It’s clear from other statements made in the article that Mr. Maurer uncharacteristically failed to do his homework on this well-meaning, upstart organization.

I am not a member of the Indiana Christian Chamber of Commerce nor am I likely to become one.  But, I am a committed Christian business owner who fully supports the rights of other like-minded business people to participate in such an organization.  Mr. Maurer’s remarks, though poorly researched, highlight the unavoidable fact that some will see such an organization as discriminatory.  Knowing many of those involved, I know their motives to be pure and their intentions to be anything but divisive, as Mr. Maurer’s mean-spirited remarks most definitely were.  Had he sat down with the organization’s founders before attacking the keyboard, I think he would have found much less to attack them for.  It’s not too late, Mickey…I’m pretty sure that’s what my new friend, Herman, would do.

I first met S. Frank Mattox in the band room at Hazelwood Junior High School in New Albany, Indiana –our hometown.   We were 12 years old.  I last saw him at the Ocean Air Restaurant in downtown Indianapolis about a year ago.  We were fifty then.  So, the bookends that marked the beginning and end of our life together –from blowing our trumpets in little girls’ ears to pontificating in our usual politically incorrect fashion over a fine meal, were not unlike many of the exciting chapters in between.  Whenever Frank and I got together, there was always plenty of hot air to go around.

According to John Eldredge, author of the runaway best-seller, Wild At Heart, the secret of a man’s soul is revealed by three innate and very powerful desires for:

1. A battle to fight
2. A beauty to rescue
3. An adventure to live

Eldredge writes, “Life is not a problem to be solved; it is an adventure to be lived.  That’s the nature of it and has been since the beginning when God set the dangerous stage for this high-stakes drama and called the whole wild enterprise good.  He rigged the world in such a way that it only works when we embrace risk as the theme of our lives…”

I’ve known few men who pursued “adventures to live” as passionately and successfully as did one Shrewsbury Franklin Mattox –my best friend for many years, my partner in high adventure (and the occasional petty crime).  In reflecting over our friendship of four decades, I came to realize how dull life could have been, but for the always open invitation to join Frank’s great adventure.

I used to introduce Frank as my co-partner in crime –my accomplice in nine of the ten worst things I had ever done.  Truth told, I thought I was giving him a much undeserved benefit of the doubt on #10.  However, in reflecting upon my life with Frank, I realized that the true highlights were not bad things at all, but rather wonderful adventures that not only defined our friendship, but did much to define who I am as a man today.

Perhaps one day, I’ll chronicle the details of my great adventures with Frank.  For now, I want to pay tribute to my best friend for being there when I:

• Rode my first motorcycle
• Cooked my first steak on an open fire
• Shot my first goose on the coldest day of my life
• Rode a horse faster than I ever have since
• Became a daytime fisherman and nighttime cat burglar
• Got the dirtiest, smelliest and most refreshed I’ve ever been…all in the same day
• Did the dumbest, strangest, coolest and most dangerous things I’ve ever done…all on different days
• Worked the hardest I’ve ever worked, then enjoyed the sweetest reward I’ve ever received…a cool cup of the best water I’ve ever tasted from a Canadian stream

Continuing with Eldredge, God “rigged the world in such a way that it only works when we embrace risk as the theme of our lives, which is to say, only when we live by faith.  A man just won’t be happy until he’s got adventure in his work, in his love and in his spiritual life.”

Few who knew Frank would describe him as a “man of faith”, but all who knew him know that he embraced life as a wonderful adventure to be lived to the fullest.  Eldredge’s writings have helped me see that Frank’s unquenchable thirst for adventure was actually his way of living a life of faith…the kind of life we were all meant to live.  The Bible has much to say about faith, but the distilled essence can be found in two simple verses:

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see…And without faith it is impossible to please God…” (Hebrews 11:1,6)

Admittedly, I am writing this more for myself than for anyone who might stumble into this blog.  It seems a much needed step in the grieving process –a process that is still getting harder, rather than easier, every day.  Although we often went a year without seeing each other, whenever Frank and I did get together, it was as if time had stood still since last we met.  Yet, of course it hadn’t.

I wish we had spent more time being real with one another about today and less time reminiscing about yesterday.  We could have done so much more to help one another through the many difficult times that we were experiencing.   Looking back, I think we tended to reach out after a crisis had passed rather than in the midst of it.  Perhaps this was because neither of us wanted to appear weak to the other?  An apparent downside to the profound respect each had for the other.

Advice?  Cherish your friends.  Reach out to them in joy and in sadness…in good times and bad.  Let them know you care about them even when you wonder if they care about you.  Hearts are not bound by time and distance.  Don’t let anything come between your heart and the hearts of your friends.  In this day of email, instant messaging, cell phones and text messaging there’s just no excuse for losing touch with your friends.  So, don’t make excuses…make your friends’ day by reaching out to them.

S. Frank Mattox was a prominant attorney in New Albany, Indiana.  He died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack on October 6, 2007.  His obituary appeared in the New Albany Tribune on October 9.

Session 4 – Marcus Buckingham

Last week the Ambassador Solutions Leadership Team attended the Leadership Summit produced by the Willow Creek Association. Before giving you the highlights of my favorite session, let me encourage you to mark your calendars NOW for next year’s event on August 7-9. This is without question the best value in leadership training available anywhere…period. See for yourself.

Marcus Buckingham, author of GO Put Your Strengths To Work, captivated the North American live satellite audience of over seventy thousand by encouraging us to focus upon leveraging our strengths versus improving our weaknesses. He builds a strong case (pun intended) for strengths-based parenting, education, training and management –starting with a very revealing Gallup poll.

When Gallup asked what would be more important to their future success –improving weaknesses or leveraging strengths, the vast majority of those polled chose improving weaknesses. The U.S. had the highest strengths response at 41%, while Japan and China were lowest at 24%. So, around the world, roughly two out of three people believe that their future success will be primarily determined by their ability to overcome their weaknesses. “Wrong!”, says Buckingham, while going on to explode the three myths that he claims cause most people to be so misguided.

Myth #1: Personality changes as you grow

The data overwhelmingly supports the fact that human personalities are remarkably stable over time, with distinctive traits that last a lifetime appearing very early in life. Hence, a very competitive six-year-old will inevitably be a very competitive adult. As they grow older, people simply become more of who they truly are.

Myth #2: You grow most in your weaknesses

To focus upon growing in your weak areas of life is tantamount to ignoring who you are (your strengths) in hopes of becoming who you aren’t (your weaknesses). When Shaq went from the Magic to the Lakers, he was told to quit worrying about his free throws and to focus upon being the most dominate player in the paint to ever play basketball. The result? Three NBA championships for the Lakers. Three scoring titles for Shaq. And amazingly, a twenty point improvement in his free throw percentage. Hmm, so when Shaq focused upon his strengths, his weaknesses improved.

Myth #3: A great team member puts their strengths aside for the good of the team

Not! A team becomes great when its members bring their very best to the fore, knowing other teammates will make up for their weaknesses. A hidden strength is a squandered opportunity.

To discover one’s strengths, Buckingham suggests looking to activities that you do well, look forward to, lose track of time while doing and feel uniquely fulfilled afterwards. He summarized his strengths-based philosophy with a new twist on a familiar organizational cliche:

People’s strengths are our greatest asset

I now hope you’ll join me in reading GO Put Your Strengths To Work and marking your calendar for the Leadership Summit 2008 from August 7-9. Lead on!

One of our twelve Values In Action at Ambassador Solutions is Learn Continuously:

We believe in lifeflong learning for teammates and clients alike. We consider “teaching our teammates/clients to fish” (rather than fostering an unhealthy dependency upon us) to be an important part of the work we do.

We memorialized these Values In Action within our strategic plan that we finalized last summer. Little did I know how soon I would be personally putting “Learn Continuously” into action. In January, I began the fulfillment of a lifelong dream by enrolling in the Taylor University MBA program. Now halfway through the second quarter, I’m pleased to say that continuous learning has indeed been taking place…albeit slowly at times. It’s been a rigorous yet rewarding experience.

I’ll be graduating next spring just before our fifth and final child graduates from high school. What fun! For those of you who have considered continuing your own formal education, I would encourage you to go for it. There’s a program out there to meet just about any need, schedule or budget.

Whether or not you pursue additional formal education, I hope you will pursue being a lifelong learner. May you too know the joy of hearing your children ask, “Hey Dad, shouldn’t you be doing your homework instead of watching TV?”

About a month ago, I started experiencing some annoying irritation in my left eye.  A few days later, I noticed that I could not close my left eye without also closing my right one.  Then I realized that the left side of my face was slightly numb.  Fearing a possible stroke, I drove myself to the Emergency Room, because my wife was knocked out from pain killers following oral surgery earlier in the day.  When it rains it pours.

When I described my symptoms to the ER receptionist, I was whisked straight into a room without even stopping at the triage desk…not a good sign.  Mind you, as the father of five children, I’m no stranger to emergency rooms.  However, I’m very much a stranger to playing the patient role within them.  This bizarre role reversal was not lost on my two oldest sons who showed up with puzzled looks on their faces asking, “What’s going on, Pop?”  I muttered something about my face being frozen and told them there was nothing to worry about.  But, they were clearly worried, as was I.

Five hours later I went home with an inconclusive diagnosis, but quite relieved that stroke had been ruled out.  The ER doctor mentioned the possibility of something called Bell’s Palsy and referred me to a neurologist.  Things were really looking up until he mentioned a suspicious shadow on my CAT-scan.  He was sure the neurologist would want to take a closer look at that.  Until he did, I was left to wonder just how suspicious that pesky shadow really was.

I am pleased to report that the pesky shadow must have been a few run-away brain cells headed for the door to premature memory loss.  The MRI showed nothing to be concerned about.  The preliminary diagnosis of Bell’s Palsy was spot on and, the best news of all, 98% of the symptoms are already gone.  But, the entire experience has left me with some lingering thoughts perhaps worthy of rumination.

Having never lost any bodily function in my fifty years, I must say that my brief and extremely mild handicap pulled me up short in several ways.  I was humbled and mildly embarrassed that I could no longer wink, whistle, smile, kiss, brush my teeth, eat, drink, read or even swim in a normal manner, if at all.  As I’m writing this, I have just realized that my whistler has been fully restored.  Oh the joy of puckering!  I can’t wait to get home to see if I still have to hold my lips together when rinsing my mouth out after brushing my teeth, lest the water uncontrollably spurt out.  I was amazed at how many every day activities were impeded by one little malfunctioning facial nerve.

I was also amazed at the wonder of the human body…”how marvelous are they works”.  Who but the creator God could have imagined, much less created, such awe-inspiring creatures?  There will never be a more amazing invention than that of the human body.  From our DNA to our hang nails, our bodies are so gloriously complex that even the slightest malfunction can wreak havoc until we’ve either healed or adjusted…both of which we have equally amazing capacities to do.

The Old Testament character, Job, understood something of what I’m trying to say.  This from the Book of Job, chapter 12:

My touch of the palsy also got me thinking about the state of our healthcare system.  Had I shown up in a doctor’s office twenty years ago, the doctor would have given me a quick Bell’s Palsy diagnosis and told me to come back in three months if it didn’t go away.  No tests.  No scans.  No prescriptions.  Nothing but time to heal a condition that, even today, no one truly knows the cause of.

In my case, the total bill will exceed $7,000 primarily due to the precautionary CAT-scan and MRI.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful for a healthcare system that is second to none.  And, I’m certainly relieved to know that I’m tumor free, shadows be danged.  I’m just wondering where we draw the line on precautionary medical procedures.  MRI’s have been a particular pet peeve of mine over the years, having seen so many of these expensive procedures performed for questionable reasons.

What do you think?  Is human life truly priceless and therefore there’s no such thing as a budget when it comes to preserving it?  I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

BREAKING NEWS!  I guess the guys at Wellpoint had the same pet peeve I did.  This article is about a company they just bought to help them control patient imaging expenses.

No Small Feet

Babies’ feet?  What could babies’ feet possibly have to do with the re-branding

of Ambassador Consulting?  As it turned out, they had everything to do with some of the early-on inspiration provided by our advertising agency.  They cited the Saturn automobile company as a case study.  By focusing upon the people who drive the cars they’re selling, Saturn hasrevolutionized the way cars are sold.  In the Saturn brochure we found more pictures of people than cars.  Our favorite was a picture of two pairs of bare feet – father’s and baby’s.  This inspired us to become the “Saturn” of the IT consulting business.  Hence, our branding battle cry became, “We’ve otta have babies’ feet.”

Fully inspired, we set about the difficult task of re-branding our eleven-year-old company.  First, we needed a positioning statement.  This is the main message that we want to continually send to the marketplace regarding who we are and what we do.  Ours was that Ambassador is a solutions company, as opposed to an IT staff augmentation firm.  The key ingredient in this transformation is our people, so we wanted the positioning statement to reflect this.  How’d we do?

Solutions.  Powered by people.

Next we focused upon the company name – Ambassador Consulting.  We explained to our ad agency the rich heritage and deep meaning behind the word “ambassador.”  While many firms within our industry, in an effort to distance themselves from their past, have changed their names, we felt very passionately about retaining ours.  So, our creative guys came back with a recommendation to drop the word “consult
ing” from the company name.  Their argument went as follows:  a) it’s a generic word that doesn’t really buy you anything; b) it’s a limiting word, as some of what Ambassador does in the future might not be consulting, per se; c) it’s a neutral word, at best, with negative connotations in many people’s minds; d) it’s excess baggage to deal with from a design and layout viewpoint; e) it’s easier to brand a single word name.  So, we took back all those things we said about creative types and dropped “consulting” from our name:

ambassador
Solutions.  Powered by people.

By this time, we’d gone through more than a few brain cells we couldn’t afford to lose and were just getting to the tough stuff – the trademark.  We wanted a mark that captured the essence of the two primary words in our positioning statement – solutions and people.  We wanted something very unique that would really stand out from the crowd.  We quickly learned that anything within the arch, orbit, spheroid, trajectory genre would put us in the “me too” category.  Most importantly, we didn’t want form without function.  A cool graphic that meant nothing wasn’t going to cut it.

After cooking hundreds of ideas back at the creative ranch and presenting a half dozen or so to us, those creative guys were starting to get a little frustrated with us IT guys.  At one point, they tried to foist an asterisk off as a trademark, making a trip to Pottery Barn to pick up an asterisk paperweight in a creative (albeit lame, sorry guys) attempt to close the deal.  Unique?  I don’t think so.  Form without function?  Maybe, maybe not; but did we really want to be known as the “Where’s the footnote?” company?  Next…

It all came together on a fateful Friday afternoon in January.  We holed up at the ad agency office and vowed that there would be no weekend until we had a trademark.  While our Graphic Artist Extraordinaire tickled the Mac keys, I thumbed through design books for new ideas.  I explained that our prior attempts were missing the people element that was so much a part of who we are at Ambassador.  With that, the artist drew a stick man on the Mac screen.  Thinking he was being cynical, I almost smacked him.  Then I remembered that the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.  Although his first step seemed a might gimpy to me, at least we were moving, Lord knows where.

After a couple of hours, it didn’t look like our weekend would be starting anytime soon.  We were going nowhere fast while that goofy artist played with his stick man.  Then it happened.  While cocking his head slightly to the right, the artist said, “Here’s a thought…”  With that, the asterisk found a home after all in the middle of our new trademark – the ambassador thought bubble.  Don’t all good solutions start with a creative thought?  But wait, the creative process is not yet complete.  There’s that curious head turn again.  This time he says, “What if we…”  Then once again the artist turns the thought bubble 90 degrees left and we see the source of all thought – a person.  In unison, we cry out, “We’re there!”  Solutions plus people equals a new Ambassador trademark.  The weekend’s on!  It’s us, don’t you think?

Branding Update (January 2004)

During 2003, Ambassador, Inc. began doing business as Ambassador Solutions.  We made this change for three reasons:  1) Having dropped “consulting” from our name in 2000, there was a lingering feeling of something missing; 2) With www.ambassadorsolutions.com as our domain name, it was confusing to do business as anything but Ambassador Solutions; 3) As Ambassador, we were frequently mistaken for Ambassadair, the Indianapolis-based vacation club.

So, for the foreseeable future, we’ll be doing business as Ambassador Solutions.  If we’ve confused you with our name changes, when it comes to IT consulting, just remember the one name that we’ll never change – Ambassador.