huzzah!

innosight institute is now officially the clayton christensen institute for disruptive innovation. and we have a shiny new website to show off our important work!

about 16 months ago, on my first day as an education research assistant at innosight institute, our president ann pulled me into her office and asked me how i felt about taking on the job of managing our website redesign/redevelopment project. i said “sure!!” truly having no idea what i was getting myself into. a coworker recently said to me, “it’s like they gave you a hammer and told you to build a house.” not a bad analogy.

it has been an incredible learning experience and quite a wild ride. i delved into a foreign world, trusted my intuition, got a lot of support from an amazing team, taught myself some basic coding and how to use some new technology tools, practiced some patience and hope, and majorly built some skills around project management and negotiating contract terms. it has been at times scary and frustrating and disheartening, but i’m so truly grateful for all i’ve learned.

on wednesday, when the site went live, i was so pumped up on adrenaline. my heart was beating so fast for a few hours, realizing the culmination of nearly a year and half of work - about the same amount of time i spent as a missionary! the website still has a ways to go, but we’ve come so far and i’m really honored to have made this meaningful contribution to the world-changing work of the institute.

of course, i planned a launch party in the office for thursday morning. i brought pastries and fruit and made everyone put on a party hat. meg brought bubbly so we could make some toasts (and some lovely flowers for all of us who’ve worked on the site!). we set up the new logo backdrop we had created for our 5th anniversary gala in march.

since i only eat sweets on holidays, my boss made me a legit holiday proclamation to make sure i got to enjoy some treats to celebrate (mmmm, that was a good donut! and my coworker brought me a 1.9 lb bag of swedish fish!). i actually had already chatted with our president about how i thought i’d recognize mother’s day a few days early to allow myself to have sweets. she said that actually fit quite well because, after all, the website has pretty much been my baby.

the long-awaited day has come. hurrah, hurray! i sure have learned a lot.