by Briana Campbell (@MsMatchGirl)

I don’t know about you, but I like TV. And while my taste tends to run to the hour-long, grittier, cable drama (Mad Men, Sons of Anarchy among my favorites), sometimes I like to settle down with something a little more main-stream. So, I admit to all of you, right now, that I am really digging the NBC show Parenthood, based loosely on the 1989 Ron Howard directed-Steve Martin starring movie.

While the show itself is not where I would normally find the inspiration to write for the screens of this blog – a recent episode, “Meet The New Boss,” – started me thinking about change, process, creativity and innovation. And that is most certainly relevant to Zemoga.

In the episode, main character Adam Braverman’s struggling company is going through some big changes.  It’s been sold to Cory who made his money by creating an iOS game. And, of course, the guy is about 22 years old.  While the character is, to quote The AV Club, ”this wretched collection of twenty-something stereotypes. He has secret handshakes! He eats from food carts! He plays video games! He wears hats! He doesn’t like to sit down for long periods of time! He has an entourage! He plays more video games! He smokes weed!,” something that he says to Adam, towards the end of the episode resonated as something that we deal with on a daily basis.

Cory says, to paraphrase, “I don’t have the answer yet. But I know the problem.” He goes on to talk about how it is going to be a process to take the struggling shoe company out of its rut and back to its roots.  He talks about the fact that he knows the changes have to be extreme.  And he talks about how it will be a process to figure out the answers – and how he’s excited to do that together.  And that it should be fun.

In Tony Hsieh’s great book Delivering Happiness, which I’m currently reading, he writes about knowing when it was time to leave a company – to move on, to do different and more challenging work.  The time? When what he was doing was no longer fun for him.  For Hsieh, the fun is in the problem solving and the challenge of constantly pushing and moving forward.  The fun is in the not knowing what is going to happen next, but working with the best people to come up with the best possible solutions.

And that’s what we do.  We look at the big picture.  We see the problems.  We gather the best and the brightest around us – be it through partnerships or within our own walls – and we accept the challenge.  We may not have the answer right away.  We may not know exactly what’s to come, but through the process, we will figure it out.  And we will definitely have fun