Pull Up a Chair: 29 Years of Getting Comfy
"Mike, say something funny." If only it was that easy.
“Mike, say something funny.”
Those four words have become a joke unto themselves at Akhia. Any time Ben Brugler wants to lighten the mood in a group, he often look to me to make it happen.
“Mike, say something funny,” he’ll say.
And being told to make it happen makes it harder to make happen. I’m completely stuck for a response, a deer in the headlights. But eventually I find something funny to say. Two days later.
Which brings us to Akhia’s 29th anniversary.
Can we just go from 28 to 30?
Every November on Akhia’s anniversary, and we like to celebrate it. And lately, we’ve marked the occasion with an object that is traditionally symbolic of the anniversary year being recognized. The anniversary gift. The first year is paper. The fifth is wood. That sort of thing.
Last year it was the orchid for our 28th. You may have seen an orchid in Ben’s office while on a Teams or Zoom call with him. Orchids were the centerpiece on our table for the holiday party. Orchids found their way into the “AI Roundup” and “Ben Thinking” newsletters.
Next year it’ll be the pearl for turning 30.
And this year, as Akhia turns 29, the traditional symbol is… furniture.
“Mike, make furniture exciting.”
Now, that’s saying something funny, Ben.
But two days later, I think I stumbled upon something. And the more I thought about it, the more perfect furniture seemed this year, and for so many reasons.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let’s look at some furniture.
First, let's take a look around my house. At some furniture. Some of mine to be exact.
This chair is where I think.
This desk is where I work.
This shelf is where I imagine.
This couch is where I relax.
It’s really that simple.
But taking a closer look, there’s really a lot more to it.
Look closer. And you will see more than furniture.
Because those same pieces of furniture in their own way convey a bigger story about what Akhia has done for 29 years. It turns out furniture is perfect. A perfect way to capture the work we do, the client relationships we’ve built and strengthened, the fun we have, the energy we have that hopefully rubs off on others.
So let’s look again.
The chair, with its worn-out arm. It still represents thinking––intensive thinking, obviously––but also illustrates leaning in to hear something better on a Team meeting, sitting back in satisfaction when a good idea hits, and yes, a little bit of chair-dancing when clients love what they see from us. That worn-out arm is an illustration of “elbow grease” and it takes a lot of thinking to get it like that.
And the chair may have stayed in the same place for years or more, but from that vantage point, we have seen and been a part of so much.
The desk is where I work. And it’s where my dad worked too, because it used to be his. The drawers still hold old items from when he was with us... old golf scorecards, foreign currency, an Almond Joy which was his favorite, even a gift card to Max & Erma’s that never got used. I feel his presence every day when I sit in front of it. And try to make my work live up to his.
For Akhia and more broadly, the desk is the launchpad where work comes to life, where ideas take hold, where imagination becomes realization. And it holds the tools we need––computer, notebook, pens, those special knickknacks that are totally ours. I got an hourglass, my old Akhia pedometer from our walking contest years ago, library card coasters I got one year in our secret Santa exchange. It’s a place to rest those items. And our heads as well sometimes.
What’s on our desks ultimately connects to what’s on yours. The surface may not be big, but the work that happens there is.
The shelf still absolutely represents imagination and how what we bring to life is made to be different than anything you’ve seen before. But it also is a history of our stories with you. In 29 years, we’ve done thousands of projects, had thousands of meetings, delivered thousands of ideas.
Plus, all the conversations, interactions and yes, even occasional disagreements. All of which made our partnership stronger. In 29 years, there’s been a little bit of everything, which truly adds up. If you took all those meetings, ideas, conversations, ideas… and wrote them down in books, they would take up so much more than a shelf. It would be a library. A big one.
The couch is still a place of rest. And this couch of mine is the most comfortable one in the world. It practically embraces me when I sit down. I sink into it almost in a dream-like fall and never want to leave. But it wasn’t that way at the start. Comfort takes time. You break it in, it gets to know you, you pick a favorite spot. And that’s what we like to think we’ve done with our friends/clients.
The more we know each other, the more comfort there is. And before long, the relationship we have is indestructible.
So here we are. 29. And the traditional gift is furniture. I may not have made it exciting, but I hope I made it interesting and meaningful. Because that’s what the last 29 years has been.
Thank you for the thoughts, the work, the imagination and the comfort.