Window of Opportunity

CELEBRATING ACHIEVEMENTS IS one of my favorite things to do. Over the last seven years, we’ve crowned 42 winners of the Women in Wide Format Awards, and I have the honor of sharing their success stories with you. They are aspirational and motivational. Take some of this year’s winners, for example: Tami began her business in her attic; today she’s in a 5000-foot facility with 11 employees and 10,000 clients. Abby started her career in the copy machine industry and is now considered the go-to resource for digital print. Carmen was an employee for 12 years before becoming a business partner.

As much as we talk about success (the word is used 13 times throughout the article), we rarely talk about failure.

How do you view failure? We asked this question in a recent Brain Squad survey. The multiple-choice options were:

As an opportunity for improvement
As a devastating setback
As a way of life, it seems, these days
As something to be avoided at all costs

Eighty seven percent of respondents chose option A. No one chose B.

Behind these women’s stories are most certainly moments of failure. Probably lots of them. But I’d like to think the reason they’re so successful today is because they view failure as an opportunity for improvement. They understand that learning from your mistakes allows you to grow.

Let’s talk more about our mishaps and defeats. Take the October Brain Squad survey to share a time where you failed and what you learned from it. Maybe you never processed what that failure meant. This is your opportunity for improvement.

Smart Tips From This Issue

Discover how the 2022 Women in Wide Format Award winners became who they are today in preparation for the celebration at Printing United Expo. (The Big Story)
Get the inside scoop on the best products and manufacturers from the VIPs of the industry before making a major purchase. (Special Feature)
Find ways to offer your employees greater work-life balance and better wellbeing. Sixty-six percent of female employees want this. (Big Business)
Spend the time and money on training programs for your staff. Doing this will help employee retention and skill level. (Big Business)

Adrienne Palmer

Adrienne Palmer is the editor-in-chief of Big Picture and Screen Printing magazines. She joined Big Picture magazine in 2012 after graduating from Ohio University's E.W. Scripps School of Journalism with a BA in magazine journalism. During her time with Big Picture, she has held the roles of assistant editor, associate editor, and managing editor; she added sister publication Screen Printing magazine to her resume in 2019. She is a 2019 Folio: Top Woman in Media; spearheads Big Picture's annual Women in Wide Format Awards and Best of Wide Format Awards as well as Screen Printing's annual Women in Screen Printing Awards; is on the board of Printing United Alliance's Women in Print Alliance and the U.N.I.T.E. Together diversity and inclusion program; hosts the Screen Saver podcast; and represents the Big Picture and Screen Printing teams at numerous industry events year-round as a speaker, moderator, and panelist.