To: Current Customers

cc: Future Customers

Re: Javelin Communications Mission and Vision

My timing was the best. My timing was the worst. When Javelin Communications launched in the spring of 2010, the national unemployment rate stood at 10 percent. Wall Street in chaos. Bear Stearns gone. GM bankrupt. Bank failures everywhere. At big companies, an orgy of layoffs. Meanwhile in Washington, infantile gridlock. Millions of home owners miles under water. Derelict McMansions melting in the sun.

Great time to start a new marketing communications business, right?

But I felt at the time, and still do, that something good would rise from this cauldron of gloom. I knew that historically we Americans are a resilient people. Our national character still retained that core of resilience. I saw us re-employing ourselves by striking out on our own and going into business for ourselves. I believed we would reinvent ourselves and make our own new jobs. I believed that these new homemade jobs would lead the way out of the Great Recession. I believed that, in this way, the base of our economy would be broadened and strengthened.

I believed, if you can believe this, that it was the best time to start a small business dedicated to advancing the fortunes of other small businesses. And in starting Javelin, I became part of my own narrative.

Will it be the dominant narrative when historians look back on these times? I kind of doubt it. The narrative as usual will focus on the actions of titans and politicians. Partially it's because historians are writers and all writers know instinctively that every good story needs strong central characters. A broad, diverse, decentralized American resurgence? A story with a million heroes?

Just try pitching that script in Hollywood. The producer would look at you across the desk and say it's crazy. No drama, no tension, no bathroom jokes, no sex, no violence. Plus, who would believe it? Well, I know someone who might believe it.

You. If you have found Javelin Communications, you may well be one of the countless heroes of my narrative. How about we write the next chapter together?

-Jim Gribble 

Javelin Communications founder Jim Gribble has worked as a communications executive in health care, direct marketing, business-to-business advertising and higher education. A former director of marketing for Milwaukee Area Technical College, he began his career as a front-line reporter for The Milwaukee Journal. View his profile on .

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