Lev’s Take on the New ThinkShout, Inc.

When I started Level Online Strategy back in 2004, I never intended to remain on my own as long as I have. I assumed that I’d soon find a partner who shared my vision about how to run a consulting company and my passion for helping progressive organizations through our work. In large part because I was too busy running the business, I never found that person, until I met Sean Larkin back in the summer of 2009. He was just starting out on his own, dba ThinkShout. We realized early on that we had complimentary skills, similar approaches to business, and wanted to serve the same base of clients, in our case nonprofits and social ventures having a positive impact in their communities. Neither one of us was quite willing to give up our independence and personal brands, at least yet, but we did start collaborating and had some huge wins, including SaveOurGulf, The Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership, GeoMeridian, and our work together on Watershed Now. During that time, we also released several modules back to the community (Mapstraction, QR Codes, Openlayers Taxonomy, and Openlayers KML Layer, VoteSmart Webform, Watershed Now), something we found much easier and more rewarding working in tandem.

Which brings us to the present day. After our successful year and half long trial, we’re finally pulling the trigger and tying the knot, so to speak. As of January, 2011, Sean and I are equal partners in ThinkShout, Inc., a new Oregon corporation. The process hasn’t always been easy, but it has been extremely rewarding. We have a full slate of exciting projects for Q1 and beyond, as well as some top secret product initiatives that we can’t wait to share with the world. As a partnership with room to grow we can much better serve our existing clients, provide a broader and deeper set of services and products, and give much more back to the community. And by community I mean the places we live, work, and play, organizations we work with, and, of course, the Drupal community itself within which we operate. To celebrate, we’ve given ThinkShout.com a new look and feel, including a new logo. Well, that’s at least the start of the celebration.

I am 100% committed to my existing Level OS clients, to whom I owe so much from the last 6 years. I will continue serving them however it suits them best, be it through Level OS or ThinkShout. For the most part, I plan on transitioning all of my consulting work to ThinkShout (After all, having 2 throats to choke is better than one!), and keep Level OS around for the occasional side venture, a personal outlet on the web, and for any work that may not fit within ThinkShout. I’ll do most of my work related blogging over on ThinkShout.com, and hopefully will have time for more of it now. I’ll still post the occasional web/geek/personal interest story here on levelos.com.

Oh, and we’re also moving to a new office in February, over in the Ecotrust building, which we’re thrilled about. NedSpace has been an amazing and nurturing environment, and I couldn’t recommend it more, but it’s time for us to move on. So that’s the big news. Please chime in with any thoughts or questions. It’s a big move for us, but, again, we couldn’t be more excited about the future.

This post was originally published on levelos.com at http://www.levelos.com/blog/2011/01/thinkshout-inc.