Farewell Address: Looking Back at 32 Years at IK
Overview
I’ll keep this short. I am incredibly happy and grateful at this stage of my career and wish this feeling for anyone who has started a business and seen it grow, survive, and evolve over time. Interactive Knowledge is thirty-two years old now and has a new owner to help guide it through the next several decades.
Eric Veal, a thirteen year IK veteran and former Technology Director is now the owner and President. This change of leadership for the company is ideal from my perspective and has been extremely well received by all of our clients. Eric brings technology experience and a fresh perspective that will allow this business to thrive in the years to come. I am wrapping up the leadership transition process and will be retired at the end of 2022.
I started Interactive Knowledge in January 1991 with former partners Chuck Barger and Sam Hess. We had a vision for creating an educational technology company that could use new innovations to improve math and reading skills. That 90s era innovation, CD-ROM, lasted about ten years before it was eclipsed by the new World Wide Web. Luckily, by 1999 we had divested our inventory of CD-ROM products to a large educational publisher and were able to transition to designing and producing interactive websites. Those types of transitions continued for the next two decades and that is not likely to change. My favorite projects lately are installations that use touch screen technology or new applications featuring augmented reality. If I wasn’t comfortable with change, I never could have stayed in business this long.
I’m excited about the changes that come with retirement. I will miss the environment and culture we’ve built at Interactive Knowledge as well as the incredible team working here now. I will miss the incalculable numbers of satisfying relationships I’ve built with our clients. Helping them meet their goals has been a very rewarding career. Interactive Knowledge’s client base of cultural institutions, universities, foundations and nonprofit organizations have goals that are highly ambitious and worth supporting. I know (thanks to Google analytics) that my work has reached millions of people and hopefully has had a positive effect on helping them achieve their personal goals as well.
I’ll always look back at my time with Interactive Knowledge as an incredible opportunity to meet the challenges that come with running a mission driven organization. I’ve been involved on a daily basis with one of the most dynamic times in history in terms of technological changes that have affected practically every individual on earth. It’s been a great ride and has prepared me for all the changes that are coming in this next stage of my life. I’m very proud of what Interactive Knowledge has accomplished and know that the company will continue to grow and succeed for many more years to come.