Flying Above and Beyond, Despite the Turbulence

,

Scratch’s Biggest Milestones in 2020

As this whirlwind of a year comes to an end, the Scratch team can’t help but feel an immense sense of pride about all we’ve accomplished this year—alongside our clients and internally through our firm’s own transformation. 

This year has not only challenged us, but also allowed us to reflect on the values that drive us to persevere, even in times of uncertainty. Leading with a unified mentality of being game-changers and growth advisors in the media space is at the core of our practice. How we’ve put that into action is a whole other story…one that can only be illustrated through real-life examples. 

Here are some of the achievements that we’ve chosen to highlight as some of our most significant milestones.

On the client side, we’ve spearheaded a number of new product and solution launches, collaborating with our partners to execute creative and timely press campaigns…
Zapata’s Orquestra platform GA announcement:

Zapata Computing, a Boston-based quantum computing startup, tapped Scratch to launch its software platform Orquestra’s Early Access Program in April, then General Availability in September. Orquestra allows teams to accelerate their work in quantum across a variety of industries. In conjunction with both announcements, Zapata engaged with analysts at top-tier firms and relevant tech and industry publications to help spread the word of its revolutionary work at the forefront of quantum software innovation.

Jvion’s COVID Community Vulnerability Map:

Jvion, a clinical AI provider, developed the COVID Community Vulnerability Map—a public tool that identifies communities at increased risk for severe illness, hospitalizations and deaths during a COVID-19 outbreak. It also highlights the socioeconomic and environmental risk factors in each US Census block. The map has been viewed over 2 million times and used by various federal agencies as well as medical student groups to guide proactive outreach efforts in vulnerable communities. Their initiatives were covered in top-tier publications, including TIME and the Wall Street Journal, as well as healthcare-focused publications such as ModernHealthcare and HealthLeaders Media.

Azalea Health’s telehealth platform:

At the beginning of the pandemic, Azalea Health, a cloud-based electronic health record (EHR) provider, offered a year of free telehealth services to its customers, many of whom are in rural or other underserved communities. The providers are also currently leveraging Azalea’s data transparency and interoperability to support their patient populations through the pandemic and share vital data with public health officials. For example, one of Azalea’s customers based in Arkansas, DeWitt Hospital, was one of the only providers authorized to perform COVID-19 testing in their community. Since deploying Azalea’s EHR and data-sharing capabilities, DeWitt has been able to conduct more tests and share results faster, helping regional employers like a local fertilizer plant test all of their employees, symptomatic or not. DeWitt’s story was published in media outlets including Healthcare IT News, EHR Intelligence and Managed Healthcare Executive.  

CloudBolt’s two acquisitions:

CloudBolt Software, the enterprise leader in cloud management and integration solutions, expanded on its support of enterprises anywhere on their hybrid cloud, multi-tool journey, with two major acquisitions in 2020. The acquisitions of companies Kumolus, an innovator of cloud cost management, security and governance solutions, and SovLabs, a leading provider of codeless integrations for hybrid cloud, have significantly strengthened the company’s hybrid cloud management vision and established CloudBolt as an industry leader in making hybrid cloud management more successful to enterprises.

Hysolate’s CISO report:

Following a successful funding and product launch in 2020, Hysolate, the isolated workspace innovator bridging the gap between user productivity and enterprise endpoint security, explored the impact of the pandemic on large enterprises’ remote work and business continuity strategies through an industry survey. The CISO’s Dilemma: How Chief Information Security Officers Are Balancing Enterprise Endpoint Security and Worker Productivity in Response to COVID-19 captures the perspectives of, you guessed it, CISOs on how remote work reality forced by COVID-19 has reshaped organizations’ approaches to corporate security and worker productivity. Aside from revealing deep and surprising divisions in how different companies are responding in the face of real business continuity challenges, the survey sparked interest from many security publications and has continued to serve as a staple resource for further cybersecurity and WFH trend pieces months after its publication.

TestFit’s seed funding campaign:

In January 2020, generative design technology startup TestFit enlisted Scratch’s PR practice to assist in its $2M seed funding outreach to secure media interviews and coverage. TestFit spoke with major industry publications including 3D Printing Magazine and WorldCAD Access, and was covered in top-tier publications including Fortune’s Term Sheet, SiliconANGLE, and Finsmes. Moreover, TestFit was able to double the amount of media exposure received in the last two years in a matter of two days.

We’ve worked closely with those seeking to enhance their online presence with new websites and enriched customer experience features…
Jvion:

This past year, we worked with Jvion on a branding project including updated brand positioning and strategic messaging frameworks. Within the project, the Scratch team collaborated to come up with a creative strategy that translated the company’s mission, values and voice into a design system of visuals and words that now properly expresses Jvion’s unique position in the marketplace: Prescriptive intelligence that helps you intercept & course-correct to prevent avoidable patient harm. In a robust, completely renovated design program that included a new website at the center – radiating around it was a smart, tailored program of campaigns, social media strategy, paid advertising, PR programs, and branded collateral and sales materials. One of the things the team is most proud of is the “Hey CORE” video, which for the first time simplified the complexities of Jvion’s artificial intelligence into an easy-to-understand, human-centred story of what it does and how it works. Since the launch of the new website, Jvion’s web traffic has increased by more than 50%, page views by nearly 70%, and average session duration by 20%—while bounce rate has decreased by 20%.

Accion Systems:

Accion is a Boston-based company reinventing propulsion for the next generation of spacecraft. Their new ion engine, the TILE 3, is poised to be the most efficient space propulsion system ever. Ahead of its launch, Scratch revamped their website, branding, and messaging to capture the promise of their technology to accelerate our future in space.

In light of events turning virtual this year, we’ve assisted with spreading the word around insightful webinar discussions through social media…
Zapata Q2B:

At QCWare-hosted virtual Q2B, the fourth annual event bringing together the leaders at the bleeding edge of quantum computing to share their latest research, predictions, and milestones in quantum hardware and software, Zapata’s executives participated in and led various sessions on the company’s latest research developments and partnerships, how quantum computing will add a new edge to analytics and business decision-making in the near future, and more. Throughout the jam-packed conference, the Scratch team supported Zapata’s social media presence by live-tweeting and commentating on major announcements and key takeaways from quantum computing industry leaders, as well as Zapata’s own revelations and news.

The Scratch team also developed in-depth reports to support safety and security for businesses across the globe… 
Everbridge Risk Reports:

For Everbridge in North America and EMEA one of their main focuses was to enable real-time monitoring into their interactive COVID map by showing satellite imagery of several regional offices of a given company in different countries around the world and then superimposing on each map the different types of threats that have occurred over the last year. When the pandemic took over, they parlayed that real-time monitoring into their interactive COVID map. Scratch helped by developing over 200 Hyperlocal Risk Reports, each customized for a different global business, highlighting Everbridge’s unparalleled threat detection and emergency notification capabilities. Each personalized report graphically displayed the history of critical events occurring in proximity to the given enterprise’s business properties and interests, including extreme weather, natural disasters, crime, civil and political unrest, and more. These reports were foundational to a large-scale account-based marketing campaign targeting Fortune 500 companies and generating awareness of, and demand for, Everbridge’s flagship offering Critical Event Management platform.

In addition to our clients’ amazing wins and successes of 2020, we’ve also taken on multiple initiatives that we’re proud to highlight. Throughout the challenges faced this year, our team has made it a priority to keep employees motivated and engaged, all while doing our part to give back in a number of ways…
Scratch Aviation Academy:

Scratch launched its first ever pro-bono consultation program to support entrepreneurs of color and minority-owned businesses. So far, the team has worked with a number of local groups, ranging from social applications to career training programs, most notably the TYE Student Entrepreneurship Academy. The Academy is a Boston-based, virtual boot camp for business and leadership skills that has helped fill in the missing gap for high school career training courses and afterschool programs. Learn more about our collaboration with them here.

Roger Murdock Awards:

Scratch began giving out performance awards that celebrate the accomplishments of individual team members each quarter. By accomplishments, we mean performance above and beyond normal job responsibilities that result in creativity, increased nimbleness, improved systems, less re-work, and a greater level of client service. Why is it called the Roger Murdock Award? Obviously it is named after the greatest co-pilot of all time: Roger Murdock, played by Kareem Abdul Jabbar in the 1980 motion picture, Airplane! “Roger, Roger.” Learn more about the awards here.

Remote-working initiatives:

What a year it’s been! As our company shifted to a completely remote work setting (for the first time EVER, for many of us), it was a learning curve and an adjustment, to say the least. To better support our co-pilots during a difficult transition period, we encouraged mental health breaks actively taken through our time tracking system, to be used at any time and for any amount of time when employees need a break to unwind and get away from their screens. For many of us who have never worked from home, it was crucial we set everyone up for success to brave it out. Scratch supported this through compensation of any and all work-related supplies needed to ensure a productive and comfortable WFH setup. And once we got those basics down, we scheduled weekly virtual check-ins, social hours after the workday, and found excuses to celebrate anything worth celebrating: work anniversaries, birthdays, and our strong collaborative efforts, to name a few.

Donations:

The Scratch team donated to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a foundation aimed toward ending mass incarceration, excessive punishment, and racial inequality. Scratch’s Principal, Lora Kratchounova, felt especially connected to the group and is a huge fan of its founder’s book, Just Mercy. Additionally, Scratch’s design leader Laura Wills (aka Lo) chose to donate her Roger Murdock award to support the foundation’s mission.

This year has certainly been a journey of ups and downs, but we couldn’t have achieved those ups without our hard-working, committed team of co-pilots and client partners. From the start, Scratch’s core mission has been to accelerate meaningful change by enabling game-changing technology and innovations to be recognized and adopted quickly. We’re proud to say that we still stand by this same mission and have been able to make significant strides in reaching it. 

As we look back on the many challenges we’ve faced this year, the biggest was overcoming the turbulence of this pandemic and continuing to soar high as a cohesive unit, above the clouds of stress and doubt. 

Cheers to a new year of taking flight with those who matter the most to us…and of course to our clients who are just plane awesome.

Share the post