Recently my company celebrated its 17th year anniversary.

We didn’t make a big deal about it, or use the anniversary as a marketing platform,  mostly because it’s not a nice “round” number for a celebration like 10, 15 or 20 years.

Sometimes it may seem silly to celebrate an anniversary, but I like to use anniversaries to take stock and reflect on how far things have come, as well as where challenges and short falls came, compared to the goals for the company.

It’s neat to go back and look at or even create the timeline.

In 1998, when we started:

• We weren’t worried about the internet, it seemed more important to get a fax machine at the time.
• Mobile phones were mostly described as “Car Phones”, were bigger than land line phones and seemed both expensive and awkward.
• Only a few companies had a website on the internet.
• Most press releases were still mailed to the newspapers and magazines.
• Postage was only  $.32 a stamp for first class.  Today June 1, 2015, the postcard rate went from $.34 to $.35.
• If you believe the calculator on this site, things cost about 45% more due to inflation since 1998.

How about your company’s anniversary?  What do you to for it? Do you celebrate it among the employees? Customers? Suppliers?