As we bid farewell to 2023, most feel a cautious hope. We had made it through the pandemic, but everything was more expensive, and the topics of interest rates, food prices, rent, and car costs were common in our conversations. Most banks warned of gloomy times ahead, with a recession looming on the horizon, but that never really happened. Instead, the year was marked by the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, with generative models becoming essential for our daily activities.
For us, 2023 was a year of relative calm. After losing six team members in a turbulent 2022, this year we had no exits, and one entry. In February, Keystroke welcomed back Jason Chin, who had left us 14 years ago. Jason’s first stint with us lasted from 1998-2009, before he pursued other opportunities, but we’re thrilled to have him back. He has been a great asset to the team this year, providing our web development department with some much-needed support.
Act! also underwent some changes this year, as Bruce Reading, a Canadian, took over as the new CEO of Act! in March, followed by Patrick Curley as the CPO a few months later. Both have brought stability and rigor to their roles, as they focused on Act! Premium Cloud. Old versions of APC were merged into the new one, and distractions like Nexus, Act! Pro, and other projects were discontinued. Canada became the only country with two APC servers, as an Anglo one was launched in May and a French one in November.
During this transition, Act! v25 came out in the summer and the tiers within Act! Marketing Automation were improved to make them more, well, automated.
Keystroke kept working on enhancing Linktivity.net, adding Link2mail, Link2shrink, and Link2surveys to this online suite of products this year. In fact, Linktivity evolved so much that Act! is partnering with us to offer these products to Act! Premium Cloud users. On other fronts, we updated Act4outlook, Designer, Dash, Qsales, Tables, and MailManager, among others, and they were well received.
2023 also saw us maintain our dedication to feeding the hungry. We organized several food drives this year in collaboration with Second Harvest and The Toronto Food Bank, raising over 40,000 meals for Canadians struggling with food insecurity. With one in ten in Toronto depending on food banks, there is still a lot to do.
Looking Ahead
I’m usually an optimistic person, so it won’t surprise many that I see good things in the year to come. We’ve invested in Sandler to train our sales staff; we’ve teamed up with Act! and CFIB to market our products; we have new campaigns ready to go in January, and we begin 2024 with both English and French APC servers in Canada. Plus, we have some exciting development projects that we plan to launch in Q1 that we think will have a positive impact on the Act! Community.
We might have more to add to this list of business achievements in the next few weeks, but we’ll be glad to spend some extra time with family & friends as things slow down during the holiday season. On December 16th we'll be gathering together for the first time in four years to host our company dinner in Toronto. It's a time we can celebrate personal friendships and professional accomplishments, but most of all just celebrate.
We sincerely hope the same for anyone reading this message, as victories are sweeter and defeats softer when shared with the ones we love.
