Looking Back In Gratitude — BadVR’s Year End Wrap Up, Pt. 1

Believe it or not, 2020 is nearly over. Boy oh boy, has it been a wild ride! We’ve all shouldered some crazy burdens: pandemic panic, election year madness, the work from home blues, and incredible Zoom fatigue. However, there’s light at the end of this tunnel…an awesome, beautiful, radiant light!

The best part about BadVR’s #workfromhome policy is that whenever we need a break, we can strap on a headset for a solo virtual “Baddie” confetti explosion party! It’s the #simplepleasures 🎉🎊🤪 (Image Credit: Shutterstock/BadVR)

As we reflect back on 2020, we’re grateful for so many things despite the challenges this year has heaped upon us. Like some kind of weird creative writing experiment, the limitations of 2020 have actually allowed us to grow in many unique and creative ways!

As a result, we’re going to take a minute to reflect back on all of the things in 2020 that we’re grateful for via a three-part Medium. Everyone at the company will share the positive experiences that 2020 has brought to them, and to our team as a whole. Read on to discover what everyone, from our vanguard founders to our brand new interns, is thankful for, what they look forward to, and what they’ve learned in 2020.

Grab a cup of eggnog, sit back, relax, and get ready to soak up some virtual gratitude and special holiday goodness from team BadVR! ☕️

Suzanne Borders (CEO and Co-Founder of BadVR)

BadVR CEO and Co-Founder Suzanne Borders photographed at our company HQ in Marina Del Rey before #socialdistancing became a thing. While we can’t wait to work together in person again, BadVR has found many creative and unique ways to continue collaborating and growing in 2020! 👩‍💻📈🚀 (Image Credit: BadVR, Inc.)

What are you grateful for Professionally?

I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to successfully guide BadVR through the market madness created by the COVID-19 pandemic. 😷 It’s challenging enough to start a new business during the best of market conditions, but to start one during one of the most unexpected historical events of this century was simply unprecedented. I enjoyed the challenge but I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t frighten me to death! It’s an entirely overwhelming feeling to have the health and livelihoods of multiple people resting solely on your shoulders, entirely dependent on the day-to-day decisions you make. And in such uncharted, chaotic territory it’s hard to know if you’re making the right decisions — there’s no ‘best practices’ or ‘standard operating procedure’ about how to respond. However, as always, I enjoy being challenged, I like being forcibly pushed out of my comfort zone, being asked to close my eyes and jump, and this situation was no exception! I found the challenge overwhelming but exhilarating and I am incredibly grateful for the guidance and wisdom given to me by my mentors and advisors — it definitely got me through and ensured that BadVR not only weathered the storm, but even found new ways to thrive!

A lot of our success this year can be attributed to conditions outside my control — the new work from home trend, changes in workplace communication, etc — but I am proud of the (often difficult) decisions I was forced to make that ultimately helped BadVR successfully navigate this very challenging time. I’m eternally grateful to all the trusted and valued advisors, friends, and family that helped steer me in the right direction when making these hard choices. Thank you!

Suzanne pitching BadVR at CES 2020 — back before the pandemic hit. What a different world from the one we live in today! 😷🚀 (Image Credit: BadVR)

What are you grateful for personally?

I am very grateful to all of my loved ones (including my pet bird, Pidge!) for their unwavering personal support that helped me survive this incredibly challenging year. I oftentimes don’t feel I deserve the love and support that I am offered, but such is the nature of love and the magnitude of its grace that it is given anyways. ❤️ Thank you to all of my loved ones for the effort they made to ensure I remained as happy as possible; I’m so grateful for the emotional support they gave me when I needed it most. Not a moment passed where I felt lonely or alone, which is an incredible thing to say in the middle of a pandemic, in a year spent almost entirely in quarantine!

There are not enough words in the world to communicate how much my loved ones mean to me; they are my heart and my center. I don’t know how I’d have survived without them. I’m so very grateful for my flock!

Suzanne’s pet bird, “Pidge” (short for Pigeon). He’s a green cheek conure who says a lot of cute stuff, including ‘“I’m a pretty, pretty bird!” 😍 🐦 Fun fact: he also takes daily showers in the kitchen sink and uses his old feathers as ‘beak-picks!’ (Image credit: Suzanne Borders)

What are your hopes for 2021?

I sincerely hope the world finds a cure and / or an effective vaccine for COVID-19, so we can return to hugging, kissing, embracing, and touching our loved ones! People desperately need human touch and it breaks my heart that so many have passed away without the ability to physically hold their loved ones. I hope for a cure that brings an end to such suffering.

I also very much hope that we, as humans, continue to grow and expand our capacity for love and acceptance and continue the fight for racial, gender, and social equality. I took part in the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Los Angeles this year and the experience truly inspired me. It was wonderful to see how many Angelenos cared deeply about racial equality and justice! I hope this continues far into 2021 and beyond!

And of course, I hope that BadVR continues to thrive and grow. I hope our team can continue our mission to convince the world that democratizing insight — by using immersive technology to increase accessibility to the world’s most important datasets — can truly revolutionize the way we all understand and work with data!📊

The Los Angeles Black Lives Matter protests, summer of 2020, in the Fairfax District. 📸🤳 (Image Credit: Suzanne Borders)

What are your goals for BadVR in 2021?

I hope to grow BadVR by continuing to partner with awesome, forward thinking companies! I’m stoked to expand our product offerings, excited to bring new features to our existing products, and looking forward to delivering more exciting customer deployments, and scaling up their magnitude.

I also look forward to adding rad new faces to our team to help, and look with great anticipation towards scaling up the magnitude of our innovation, momentum, and team spirit. The most important goal for 2021 is to position BadVR as the market leader in innovative analytics — which I will accomplish, apocalypse or not!

What achievement are you most proud of this year?

Honestly, simply keeping BadVR alive makes me proud. Continuing the vision, growing the company, and not only weathering the pandemic, but actually turning such a negative event into a positive was incredibly difficult — but I achieved it! As with any negative, there’s always some hidden opportunity, some obscure path to success, and as difficult as it was to find such things this year, I’m glad I was able to do so, as it kept my employees employed, paid, and insured, which was very important to me. I love BadVR, I love our vision for the future, but in the short term, my main goal this year was to protect as many of my people as possible from unemployment — I’m proud of the extent to which I was able to do that. By the end of the year, BadVR was able to grow, expand, and hire several new people after finding our ‘pandemic groove.’ This makes me incredibly proud!

Adam Caplan (Director, Strategic Partnerships)

Adam Caplan taking a break and a selfie with Eureka Fire 👨‍🚒 before meeting with first-responders 🚨 to talk with them about BadVR’s immersive analytic platform. 👍🚀 (Image Credit: Adam Caplan)

What are you grateful for professionally?

I am grateful for the opportunity to evangelize new immersive technology and be part of some of the early pioneers in the Immersive Space. Through the vision and execution of the team at BadVR we are truly revolutionizing the way people engage with their data. 📈

What are you grateful for personally?

I am grateful for my health, the health and safety of those around us, and others’ kindness and caring. In these crazy times, we should all take a moment to be kind and caring for those in need.

Adam pictured while on a work trip to Stuttgart, Germany 📸🇩🇪for an event where BadVR presented their technology to Porche and Mercedes Benz! 🚘 (Image Credit: Adam Caplan)

What are your hopes for 2021?

I hope that as a country and a world, we can begin the healing process and remember that we are better when we work together. 🌎

What are your goals for BadVR in 2021?

Building on our strong foundation, I look forward to the continued development of relationships cultivated over the past two years into thriving partnerships in 2021 and beyond.

“Sometimes we travel virtually and sometimes we actually travel!” ✈️ Adam Caplan in early 2020 traveling in the real world. Let’s get back to flying again ASAP! 🛫🏝 (Image credit: Adam Caplan)

What achievement are you most proud of this year?

I am proud of the entire team’s achievement for weathering the storm of 2020 and making the necessary adjustments to virtual working. 👨‍💻 Every time I show our immersive demo to another client, I am reminded of the agile and talented company that I have the privilege to represent in the market place.

Nathan McCausland (Software Engineer Intern)

“I love animals because they are important for the environment 🏞 and they are comforting to have around. I have always had pets since I was a kid and they were always an important part of my life. I would be as excited to come home and see my dogs after school as they were excited to see me!” 😃 (Image credit: Nathan McCausland)

What are you grateful for Professionally?

I am grateful for the opportunity to gain professional experience at BadVR. 👍

What are you grateful for personally?

I am grateful for the health of my family and friends.

What are your hopes for 2021?

I hope that the distribution of vaccines for COVID-19 next year goes smoothly and allows the world to begin recovering from this pandemic.

“I saw my cat 🐈. running around with something in his mouth and I stopped him to investigate. It turned out to be an alligator lizard 🦎which I assumed was dead. Just in case it wasn’t, I took it from him and as I picked it up, I noticed it was moving! After that, I took it far away so hopefully my cat wouldn’t get it again.” 🙀 (Image credit: Nathan McCausland)

What are your goals for BadVR in 2021?

My goals are to work on becoming a better engineer and figuring out how to created cleaner and more organized code.

What achievement are you most proud of this year?

My most proud achievement this year was successfully managing my workload over the summer and into the school year. 👨‍🎓

Bob Turton (Social Media Manager)

In addition to working as BadVR’s social media manager, Bob Turton is a photographer and film/television/theater actor. 📸🎭 “Until I can get back on stage and work with my friends and community again, photography self-portraits during COVID have been one of many coping mechanisms to help keep me sane and relatively grounded.” (Image credit: Bob Turton)

What are you grateful for professionally?

In early 2020, I was honored to be nominated for an LA Stage Alliance Ovation award for best actor. I also directed a successful play that was running at The Actors’ Gang theater in Culver City, CA. When COVID hit, the entire entertainment industry hit the bricks. Work evaporated and my play was shuttered. I didn’t know what to do. I’ll admit I panicked for a few months as I tried to figure it all out. Thankfully, I found BadVR and the exciting world of social media marketing. I’m so grateful for this new position and career thanks to BadVR. During this challenging and uncertain year, it’s been an honor to grow, pivot, and capitalize on this new opportunity. I’ve been able to explore an entirely new skill set and work environment. I feel very grateful for new colleagues, new knowledge, and of course new headsets! 😎

What are you grateful for personally?

I’m grateful for my partner Lisa, our beautiful home, and our DOG! Life altering challenges like COVID-19 create tremendous amounts of stress and confusion. Those things can be very difficult psychologically. However, I’m proud to say that important relationships in my life have only grown stronger and deeper. That being said, I can’t wait to get this over with to get back to community, group activity, and live events. I love concerts and theater and I’m chomping at the bit to get back to them. Fingers crossed for Burning Man 2021! 🎪

Bob and his partner Lisa “keeping it weird” at the FORM festival at Arcosanti in Arizona. 🎉Bob’s number one priority post-COVID is to get back to concerts live events! 🎸 (Image credit: Bob Turton)

What are your hopes for 2021?

I hope that we all move past this virus and find our communities again. I hope for some kind of national healing and forward movement. I hope for a reduction in hate speech and divisive politics. Call me crazy, but I like peace, togetherness, and empathy. I know that’s a radical concept these days. 🤔

What are your goals for BadVR in 2021?

I hope for massive growth in our social presence, both in numbers and engagement. Working for this company has been a major highlight of 2020. I want to continue building my own momentum and growing the BadVR brand in the coming year!

What achievement are you most proud of this year?

That I haven’t gone completely insane…yet. Overall I’m most proud of using this strange year to grow in every possible way, given the unique opportunities this pandemic has brought. I’ve started a new career while continuing to work as an actor and photographer. Additionally, I’ve grown much closer with my partner and accomplished countless tasks that had been building up over the last couple of years. I get overwhelmed when I think of the pain and suffering that so many of us have experienced throughout the world this year, but I’m hopeful for the progress that we will be making in the coming months.

Be sure to check back next week as we ask several more BadVR team members about their attitude for gratitude, and how 2020 created unique opportunities for everyone to grow personally and professionally!

If you’re interested in learning more about BadVR, we would love to chat with you! We’re here to democratize insight and make the world’s most important datasets accessible to all! 😎 We’re grateful for you and all of our readers, customers, supporters, and friends! Thank you for a rad 2020!

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