Ann Arbor, MI is best known for several things: it is the home of the Michigan Wolverines, the long Michigan winter, and it is one of the top 10 U.S. cities with the most PhD’s. It is a unique setting- a demographic of young university students and recent grads, a six-month winter where staying focused is a piece of cake (if it means avoiding the cold), and an extremely intelligent and motivated workforce. That being said, we thought Ann Arbor would be the perfect city to open our new Customer Success & Innovation headquarters.
We had heard rumors that Ann Arbor is “the silicon valley” and “high-tech capital” of the midwest, but were these rumors true? Could the city be as tech-savvy as we wanted it to be, and could a cloud-computing software company like Think Tech Labs and a Real Estate CRM like REthink find its place amidst the many technology companies and start-ups if it really is the next technology hub? We have found that not only is it a savvy-city, but one that will be the new home to our Customer Success & Innovation teams.
We just finished our first week in our new downtown Ann Arbor office, at the “address of innovation”, and the crossroads of SPARK and Google. When we heard about the “dynamic and entrepreneurial environment…working together and sharing vision” we decided we had found our match. Moving a company to a new city, establishing a footprint, and meeting people that share business acumen is always going to be a challenge. But for Think Tech Labs, we embraced the challenge because it wasn’t about ease, it was about change and growth. And the new location is providing us with just that- a creative, fast-thinking and fast-moving environment to learn and advance to continue to do what we do best. Maybe we can even convince Marc Benioff to open a Salesforce.com office in Ann Arbor.
It was an honor to be awarded the 2011 Salesforce.com AppExchange Customer Choice Award. And it made us more energized, more enthusiastic, and even more focused, if that was possible, for the new year. Now that we are situated in Ann Arbor, and in our new Customer Success & Innovation Headquarters, we are not only ready for 2012, but we are taking it on full force!
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