“So, what’s with the bear?”
We get this question a lot, probably as often as “what’s Redox all about?” or “can I get a picture with Niko?”. The story of Candi, like most symbols of company culture, started accidentally before quickly becoming iconic in the annals of Redox lore. And as with most Redox lore, it all started with tacos…
In March 2015, we had just picked green as our primary company color (we asked our customers to help us choose), had a newly minted integration platform, and a beautiful first generation website to go with it.
Ready to start evangelizing our vision, we began narrowing down conferences to attend based on the best local foods that we would find around the conference hub—cheesesteaks in Philly, gumbo in New Orleans, etc. I don’t recall which came first, reading this article about tacos or SXSW inviting us to their inaugural MedTech Expo, but either way, we committed to Austin.
We’ve always done conference displays a bit differently (did you see our camping chairs at HIMSS 2016?), and we started small for SX2015. Niko printed a single table runner with the R^ and a small poster with a grizzly bear with the tagline “Integration doesn’t have to be scary”. That’s it.
No retractable, double-sided pop-up banners. No ocular rotating ceiling signs. Just a poster, a logo, and matching t-shirts under our fresh blazers. The #1 conversation starter we heard during those three days?
“What’s with the bear?”
Candi’s persona was realized with each conversation we had with entrepreneurs expressing frustration around needing custom integration development with every sale; each conversation with software developers underwhelmed by the archaic lack of APIs in the healthcare space; each conversation with health systems about 12-18 month deployment cycles for new technologies. Over those 72 hours in Austin, our revolution had a face.
Since her debut in Austin, Candi’s gone through several different designs and looks, but her reassuring message, “Integration doesn’t have to be scary” continues to resonate across the Redox ecosystem.