In this day and age of Google mania where some mad little gremlins sit with complicated abacuses counting the number of times people search for this or that, it is a sin to not refresh rather like the choice to not wear deodorant on a very hot day. You just shouldn’t do it!

And yet, despite being in marketing, despite pushing clients to publish releases more regularly to keep all those little Google gremlins well fed, I have been negligent. Hughes Communications, Inc. has stuck by its old site, old logo, old messaging since 2002 when it was originally put up. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that”—or at least used to be wrong with that! Konrad Witte, now senior web developer at Open Systems Media, did a stellar job at putting my first website together while in his final year at the University of Vermont.

Of course, we added to it over the years. When editors wanted photo downloads, HCI’s graphic artist, KC Prescott built a press center with photos, FAQ sheets, releases in other languages. And, little beef ups like staff changes or the addition of client logos, descriptions and what HCI was doing for clients evolved as the years went by. But there was no major overhaul. After all, HCI was still writing press releases, coordinating client-press conference connections, and pitching and editing articles to the same embedded systems industry. There really didn’t seem any great reason to make a shift until…

I got annoyed. After all the gloom and doom about our economy in Q3 2010, the market picked up and was going great guns as 2011 rolled in…until it flopped again about two months later. Depending on who you listened to, the US President was either handicapped with a legacy that couldn’t be overcome or was causing the destruction of modern humanity. It was eminently clear that if anything was going to improve, shift, change for HCI, I had better make sure that I did it and NOT wait for any government anywhere to sort things out.

Strong on the “Field of Dreams” way of doing things, I called Mira Greenland, recruiting goddess of the technical world, and told her I needed some good staff. Mira—not one to simply deliver—DELIVERED! Not one, but three people I wanted to hire:
Jennifer Bodnar, Michelle Allard McMahon, and Deanna O’Donnell.

Did HCI have new clients to pay the bills? No, not yet…that’s part of the Field of Dreams bit. Deanna, blessed with unbelievably good people skills, was hired to build the company. Yes, we would continue to honor HCI’s strong roots in engineering and embedded PR, but we would also reach beyond that, taking on clients in life style areas where social media was taking off and print magazines were growing. As projects came in with specialized needs, we found subcontractors to execute a project with efficiency and skill.

It didn’t take long to realize that, if HCI was going to grow, serious infrastructure issues needed to be beefed up. HCI formed long-term partnerships with industry-leading companies such as Business Wire, Meltwater, MyMediaInfo, winning discounts that ensured clients would get the best services possible without the higher price tag. The database, a PR company’s most important IP, was built up and new relationships formed as we inched our way into new market areas like toys, children’s products, security, consumer, and requirements engineering.

And, this dinosaur of an almost-fifty-year-old entrepreneur started dipping her toe into the altogether new world of social media creating company pages on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. Who’d have thought?! To figure out what the heck I was doing in this space, I headed back to Mira for advice and she sent me for guidance to social media speaker Jessica Miller-Merrell, who authored Tweet This: Twitter for Business. And, the whole educational social media network began. I now twitter and tweet with the best of them, care about Klout scores, post to Facebook and LinkedIn… Is there room for improvement? Absolutely! Tailoring these new services to ensure they’re effective for all communities is a mad science!

Now back to that Field of Dream’s thing: did they come? Yes, with a few false starts—you know, the grumpy old guy who didn’t want to cooperate in the movie. We found a few of them, but with Deanna’s persistence, the field is filling up and HCI is now playing some serious ball.

Today, we’ve opened our new playing field with this brand-spanking-new web site—HCI’s first since 2002, and ain’t she grand. Joshua Touster took nearly all the shots, Adrian of Sound Software designed it, and Lisa Gundlach managed the project in a momentary lull she had in a stream of projects. All of this good work is finely complemented by a splendid new Hughes Communications logo that KC designed. It all looks mighty fine.

Better yet, the new and improved HCI site captures all the changes that have been unfolding over the last year: new staff, new services, new verticals, and an excellent SWAT team of associates.

Welcome to the new HCI! And, keep your eyes open. We’ve grown accustomed to all this excitement and are ready for what else might just walk through the door. Bring it!