Becoming Telstra Purple

I started at Readify in 2017, after my previous employer closed their Perth office. I’d been a developer for just under a year and in the software industry for just under 3 years. I’ve had amazing opportunities for growth since starting at Readify. We get 20 days per year of professional development time to learn new skills, both technical and core skills. I’m surrounded by smart and encouraging people who are always willing to help. These learning opportunities were the biggest reason for me joining Readify in the first place.

Now Readify is part of Telstra Purple. The Readify name will live on in our hearts and minds, but not on paper. The connections I’d built with the people around me, and their reputation for delivering outcomes, haven’t gone anywhere. Readify had a strong presence and reputation within the community, and the task of everyone who’s now a part of Telstra Purple is to build that same reputation for the new name. It’s important to remember that the people haven’t changed, just the name on their shirts.

Telstra Purple is built from a number of separate businesses, which had been acquired by Telstra over a number of years, including Readify and Kloud — the two sharing a sister-company relationship of sorts. Becoming Telstra Purple allows us to build stronger relationships with the people in those other businesses.

As an example, Readify run a quarterly Back2Base event, where everyone comes back from customers for a day of talks and workshops. In WA, Readify has 50 or 60 people and Kloud, having come to WA only recently, has around 5. When we wanted to include the new Kloudies in Back2Base as part of our WA “fam”, we needed to drop the “Readify” from “Readify Back2Base”. In trying to include more people, we’d actually lost something of our identity.

Identity is particularly important for a business like Readify; so many of us spend our days with customers that these events might be the first time you meet someone new. Earlier this month, we had our first Back2Base since becoming Telstra Purple, and this time we could use branding while remaining inclusive — the Telstra Purple brand. Everyone was included. We are together again.

Speaking about identity — being at Readify had become a big part of mine. I was introduced as being from Readify when speaking at DDD Perth and Fenders, and I wore the polo like a uniform, like so many others at Readify. It was a little scary to lose that, and I think it’s normal to be scared of changing your identity. But all the things that I liked about Readify are still there.

The perks are the same, the work is the same (for now — joining forces opens some exciting new avenues), the people are the same, and the shirts are coming!

Written by Ben Lowry who lives and works in Perth building useful things. You should follow him on Twitter