Ch-ch-ch-changes!

A wise young NCO once said to me, "change is never good or bad. Change is just change."

While in uniform I tended to agree with that philosophy. In the military, change usually meant you had to do it wrong the first, second and third time before you got it right. Change meant classroom training, hours of standing around while someone explained this bold, new change and more hours of everyone complaining that the new change didn't make any sense and then some old been-there-done-that guy explaining in great detail why we should just keep doing things the old way. Sound familiar?

As a civilian working for the Army I can truthfully tell you that the reaction to change hasn't changed much.

BUT, when it comes to this blog ... or more importantly, this website, where I continue to write about women in combat boots, change was necessary. Change was critical. Change had been on my mind for a long, long time and with the help of the lovely Natasha Wilson, change is finally here!

I found Natasha through WordPress's Upworks. I knew I was never going to create the look I wanted without help. On Upworks, I posted the job, explained what I was looking for, created a clear statement of work and several people responded to the post with examples of their designs and their ideas for the project. Some of them had impressive resumes and amazing bodies of work, but I felt their vision for the website was a bit more elaborate than I wanted. Even though I'd been vague about what I was willing to pay, none of them were so far outside of my budget parameters that I went into sticker shock. The designers clearly state their hourly fees in their profiles and each presented a resume, a star rating and plenty of information to assure me they knew what they were talking about. I could have used the option of setting a finite price for the project, but since I clearly don't know what I don't know, I didn't want the final price to get in the way of the idea train. If the designer I hired presented a good idea, I wanted to hear it, so I leaned toward the hourly rate.

After some back and forth emails and an awkward phone call (we're both clearly people who communicate better over email and text) I decided Natasha was a good fit and within a week, I finally have the website I've always wanted. Nothing fancy. Not a bunch of wow. Just enough clarity and professionalism that visitors might think I'm serious about writing.

And while I would rarely argue with lessons of wise NCOs, I think change sometimes IS good or bad. I'm feeling as if this change is a "GO" at this station.

What do you think? Do you have any suggestions for improvement?

And if you're interested in seeing what Natasha can do for you, you can reach her at Brogrammers Agency - Web and Mobile App Development Agency.  Tell her Mary sent you.