Reasons to be cheerful in 2021
For many it will be hard to see the positive in what was a rollercoaster of a year with brutally painful twists and turns. In 2020 we’ve suffered losses, seen great personal sacrifices and selfless acts and battled the mental health pressures of lockdown. It has been a year of great uncertainty and turmoil for all businesses - some unfortunately have been unable to survive and others have had to fundamentally rethink they way they operate and the products and services they offer.
We hope that our work at Juniper will represent a small success story and some optimism. We emerged at the beginning of the first lockdown. Being confined to our homes we thought we should do something productive with the extra time on our hands. We saw that many businesses had started to move online and we believed we could help support them with the skills we’d gained throughout our careers.
Although for some it may seem impossible, we’re going to attempt to share how we intend to use our experiences with Juniper and our fabulous clients so far and the powers we gained through the pain of 2020 to move forward into 2021 with as much positivity as we can muster (despite the immediate entry into lockdown no. three!).
Adaptability
The saying goes that necessity is the Mother of invention and we really felt that in 2020. Many businesses had to adapt - from quickly organising click and collect or takeaway services to moving online or changing their business model. Although it hasn’t always been pleasant and in some instances very stressful, what we have learned is that sometimes we need to think a little differently to succeed. At Juniper we’ve been meeting on video calls, using WhatApp to keep in touch with clients and tried to bend our services to support others who are having to adapt quickly. We hope to continue with this mindset into the future and continuously revisit what our clients need from us and how we can change the way we work to suit that - it’s more clear than ever that this is the key to success.
Resilience
We’ve needed bags of this over the last year. As we enter the third (who would’ve thought) lockdown, we all need to dig down deep for the resilience we’ve built over the last year to keep us going through this one. We’ve had to find coping mechanisms - from daily exercise, to focusing on learning something new or thinking creatively about how to keep social and interact with our friends and family. We hope this will prove invaluable for the future. We’re still in the thick of things and although there’s a glimmer of hope as the vaccination programme progresses. We know that starting our a new business can be hard and we hope to be able to use the strength we’ve build during the last year to keep us going and help drive us to achieve our goals.
People Power
If one thing has been demonstrated through this pandemic with its various forms of isolation, it’s that people and community matter. We’ve had to think about how we can maintain social interactions and stay connect whether thats with family and friends or as part of working life. What’s been hugely positive is the examples of human kindness - actions to protect and keep others safe, communities getting behind good causes, unwavering support for the glorious NHS. It’s really demonstrated the power that people have and what happened when momentum for an idea is triggered. At Juniper this year we’ll be thinking about how we can connect our client community and get them supporting each other. We know that there is strength in positive networks and connections and we can see how we might be able to ignite some positive relationships - watch this space!
Going Digital
Thanks goodness for the Internet! We can’t imagine what it might’ve been like without out laptops, phones and tablets. Ok, we know…this is our bread and butter and we’re always going to be a little biased, but what we saw last year was a huge shift to using technology to support our lives and work. We appreciate it isn’t the perfect replacement for actual human engagements but it does provide a huge amount of opportunity. It can open up the world, provide a way of broadening a business’s reach or streamline the way we work making life more productive. At Juniper we’ve really embraced some of the digital tools available to keep our business ticking over. As we haven’t been able to get together we’ve heavily relied on these tools to ensure we’re on track and up to date with progress. We’re planning to share some of the gems we’ve discovered in this month in another post so keep your eyes peeled!
Hopefully you’re feeling optimistic about the opportunities of the next year - and maybe even being able to get out of the house some time next Summer. As always we’d love to hear from you and if you’d like to chat through any ideas, are in need or a sounding board or even just want to talk through challenges you’re facing don’t hesitate to get in touch!
