Growing Up with Insight

After switching over to becoming a consultant, a realization hit me as to where I'm working! Today, I share a little history of myself and a personal shock!

UPDATE: Insight Enterprises is now considered one of the best employers to work for in the world for 2020 as #296.

At the beginning of 2019, I was starting to get the consulting itch and decided to passively look around at local companies in the Columbus, Ohio area.

I knew a number of people who worked at Cardinal Solutions from being in the industry for a long time (like Vince, Scott, and Nick). I would see them from time to time at Codemash, Stir Trek, and other various events around the Columbus area.

In May of 2019, I made the switch and jumped from a full-time employee to a consultant at Insight Digital Innovation. They were previously called Cardinal Solutions until they were purchased at the beginning of last year.

In my initial weeks at Insight, I had an on-boarding/orientation process. During the on-boarding process, I watched a number of videos explaining the history of Insight.

Then I saw it!

The initial logo of Insight when it first started back in 1991.

Blew. My. Mind.

"JD, Why would a logo blow your mind?"

Well, it's kind of personal and requires a bit of history about me ("Sherman, set the wayback machine to the 1980's")

Wait...What?

For those who don't know me, a short history about me.

My friends and family know my life is based around anything computers. I've always been fascinated by creating something from absolutely nothing. Hence, my passion for building and architecting web sites.

I was given a Commodore VIC-20 when I was 10 or 11 years old and took to it like a duck to water.

Then upgraded to a Commodore 128 (a combination of a Commodore 64, Commodore 128, and CPM mode).

When I was younger, my mother would ask if I wanted to go to the grocery store with her and I would sit and read about Compute!, Compute!'s Gazette, and Computer Shopper.

Yes, in the store.

These magazines were my personal "Internet" back then. I would camp out reading these magazines in the grocery store to learn all about software and hardware in the computer industry.

In these magazines, there would be a mailing postcard to "subscribe" to their catalog and they would send the catalog to you through the mail.

As I got older, I would still request these catalogs, scour through them, and ask for gadgets for my birthday or Christmas. In the 90's, I restricted myself to only Computer Shopper since I loved building my PCs, but I would still subscribe to the catalogs.

A couple of these catalogs included Tiger Direct and Insight.

Yes, Insight.

Back to the Logo

Since Insight wasn't founded until 1991, they didn't appear in Computer Shopper until later, but I do remember them in the issues.

As you can see, this leads me back to the logo I saw in the orientation video.

This is Insight's current logo.

For the veterans in the industry, does this look familiar? This WAS Insight's original logo.

The same logo of the catalogs I used to read and subscribe to when I was younger.

After seeing this logo and how I grew up "reading" through their catalogs and then realizing I'm now working for the same company...

...almost fell off my chair.

I came full circle and didn't even know it.

The funny part about this is some of my co-workers who've been in the industry for a while didn't realize where they worked either, but recognized the logo immediately and put two-and-two together.

Conclusion

Ok, did I geek out too much? As I write this, I'm currently at Insight Enterprises (wiki) (Digital Innovation/software solutions department) in Columbus, Ohio and, from what I can see so far, it's definitely a great company to work for.

It seems I was growing up with Insight all this time.

Has your past ever snuck up on you? Did you have a blast from the past lately? Post your comments below and let's discuss.