Economic crunch, budget blues and the power of positivity

The economic environment and pending recession are playing havoc with the job market. Drastic deadlines, especially in the case of the CLF 2.0 deadline for the Treasury Board Secretariat, called for some drastic budget expenditure - not without fall-out. Cursive Communications and nearly a dozen other contractors had contracts cut short due to a budget over-spend in Quarters 2 & 3; prudent planning and spending are the theme for Q4 and beyond.

Despite the unexpected change, as soon as word got around that Cursive was free again, four new contracts materialized. It is easy to become pessimistic about a small company's future when bleak words like "budget cuts", "lay offs", and "bankruptcy protection" are in the headlines constantly.

I had a strong belief that in all the crises there would be some opportunties with Cursive's name on them. This simple positivity paid off. In fact, due to time constraints we will only be taking up three of the four contracts. They should all prove to be interesting learning opportunities. On Monday, Cursive's services will be used by the new media shop at the Canadian International Development Agency's Afghanistan Task Force (CIDA ATF) which builds nicely on top of the 2008 contract with DFAIT's Afghanistan Task Force. A concurrent, smaller project will help create a legal information portal for another Department's website. Before the end of fiscal, Cursive will shift gears with a slightly longer contract back at DFAIT's eCommunication group, dealing with marketing communications and products as well as project management.

2009 is proving to be an eventful year - may all of you enjoy even greater successes in the coming months. Happy New Year!