We aren’t very good at waiting. We want what we want now. Not later.
We seek our news online because we can’t stand waiting even a day to know what’s going on. We “Google it” because our curiosity demands immediate satiation.
Even outside the realm of technology, we are impatient. We can’t stand it when there are three people ahead of us in line at the grocery store. We put too many purchases on credit cards because we’re incapable of waiting to save the money for something we want. We dismiss the efforts of leaders who can’t provide magical fixes to monumental problems.
We’re not satisfied with incremental progress. We want the whole ball of wax — and we want it almost the very moment we can conceptualize it.
My staff had to learn a lesson in patience this past summer, when our office flooded and we spent two months essentially homeless. Just sustaining the core business — publishing a monthly magazine and posting daily website content — became unbelievably challenging. Even now, two months since we moved back into our office, we are still sifting through boxes, rediscovering things that are missing, scrambling to document the financial cost of losses.
In the interest of sheer survival (and sanity), a lot of the “big picture” stuff got shoved by the wayside.
Which is why we are all so delighted about today’s launch of a newly redesigned website. Our brighter, better organized site has been in the back burner for months. It was supposed to happen soon after we adopted our magazine’s new cover design in May. It’s been hard to wait to see it happen.
Credit goes to Art Director Michelle-Renee Adams for the look and to website programmer Evan Blomquist (husband of Calendar & Directories Editor Mala Blomquist), who made time outside of his fulltime work for Tempe-based Mindspace to write the new code required to accommodate Michelle’s design. Our staff got together to rethink the way our site was organized and we implemented some changes we think will help visitors more easily navigate our content.
I looked up the phrase “Good things come to those who wait.” No one seems to know where it originated. If we’re not careful, it will disappear from our collective consciousness altogether. We need to relearn patience. Use it or lose it.
Or have it forced upon you.
— Karen
P.S. The first time I pulled up the new site today, the display was a bit garbled. If you visit our site frequently, you may notice the same problem. Clear your cache and try again. And thanks for sharing our journey!
