B&J Celebrates 15th Anniversary

We turned 15 this year. Founders Bill Babcock and Diane Jenkins and the rest of the board of directors threw a small soiree for all of us a few days back.

Nothing like closing out what we anticipate to be the first 15 of many years of success with lasagna and champagne for lunch. They don’t endorse afternoon naps here, but they don’t mind tempting us with the right ingredients. Some warm milk and Enya on the sound system is all it would have taken to knock me out for a couple of hours.

President and COO Denise Barnes toasted the company’s origins, its current exciting growth and strong staff, and its successful future. Josh Siler, VP Technology, and Julie Wisdom, Executive Creative Director, ran through all the iterations of BNJ.com and our Control Panel, the proprietary interface we designed so our clients can watch their campaign performance in real time. It’s a testament to our company culture that we’re able to laugh at past designs once considered state of the art but might now be… well… laughable. Even the Internet was young once; I’m talking about long before Web 2.0, when Al Gore first invented it.

15 years. Michael Jordan played basketball for 15 years. I’d already been driving for a year by the time I was 15 (grew up on a farm in Idaho). I’ve only sampled a few scotches aged 15 years or longer due to their rarity and expense. My point being that 15 is a pretty big number, during which time a lot can be accomplished.

I think we can admit with confidence that we are experts in our field. (Back pat everyone.) Cheers to 15, B&J. You’ve come a long way from Bill and Diane’s garage.