What's important?
I’m sitting at my desk in Vanguard’s LA office wearing my Dodger blue t-shirt, because a friend got my son and me tickets to today’s opening game of the National League Championship Series. With apologies to those of you in Philadelphia, we’ll be in Dodger Stadium late this afternoon, rooting for our home team. Last year, we watched these same two teams play in the NLCS. The Dodgers lost. Starting for the Phillies today is ace Cole Hamels, whom the Dodgers find hard to beat. Opposing him, the Dodgers are starting 21-year old Clayton Kershaw, who only has a year and half experience in the Majors.
Why am I telling you this? I’m telling you because it’s important to many of us, not only here in southern California, but around the nation.
But also I wanted to talk a little bit about what we here in Vanguard think is important, which relates to why we do what we do, and why we want you to pay attention to us.
For example, if you glance down the list of documentaries in our new fall line-up, you’ll notice that covering sports isn’t something that we do. And, in fact, if you just read summaries of our docs, and don’t watch them, you might get the impression that often times here at Vanguard, we seem to be sitting around all day long worrying about how this or that is causing the fate of the world hang in the balance. We might seem like an over-earnest bunch of folks.
And yes, it’s true, what motivates us, our mission, is to try to keep track of important changes in the world, changes that affect us all, but might not get a thorough examination if we don’t look at them. We try to tell you important stories that otherwise might not get told—because we think it’s important for society that we know and understand. But that’s just why we do what we do, not why we hope that you’ll watch us.
In fact, we don’t expect you to watch us because we try to do important work.
We hope you’ll watch us because we’re interesting.
In contrast, who wins the NLCS is important. It’s important to me. But speaking as a Dodger fan who watched them lose the NLCS last year, watching them lose is not an experience I would describe as “interesting,” anymore than watching a candidate you back lose an election is “interesting.”
In contrast, there’s Vanguard. Although you’re learning important information when you go with Mariana to Sri Lanka later this season, or Adam to Cambodia, or Christof to Italy, or Kaj to America’s military R & D centers, we understand that you’re going along with them because you want to, because it’s an interesting experience—at least, we hope it’s interesting and we try our best to make it so. We hope you agree.
Vanguard Season Preview (Video)
Recently from the Vanguard blog:
Vanguard is here - Kaj Larsen
A big day for Vanguard - Lauren Cerre
A premiere dedication - Mariana van Zeller
Why am I telling you this? I’m telling you because it’s important to many of us, not only here in southern California, but around the nation.
But also I wanted to talk a little bit about what we here in Vanguard think is important, which relates to why we do what we do, and why we want you to pay attention to us.
For example, if you glance down the list of documentaries in our new fall line-up, you’ll notice that covering sports isn’t something that we do. And, in fact, if you just read summaries of our docs, and don’t watch them, you might get the impression that often times here at Vanguard, we seem to be sitting around all day long worrying about how this or that is causing the fate of the world hang in the balance. We might seem like an over-earnest bunch of folks.
And yes, it’s true, what motivates us, our mission, is to try to keep track of important changes in the world, changes that affect us all, but might not get a thorough examination if we don’t look at them. We try to tell you important stories that otherwise might not get told—because we think it’s important for society that we know and understand. But that’s just why we do what we do, not why we hope that you’ll watch us.
In fact, we don’t expect you to watch us because we try to do important work.
We hope you’ll watch us because we’re interesting.
In contrast, who wins the NLCS is important. It’s important to me. But speaking as a Dodger fan who watched them lose the NLCS last year, watching them lose is not an experience I would describe as “interesting,” anymore than watching a candidate you back lose an election is “interesting.”
In contrast, there’s Vanguard. Although you’re learning important information when you go with Mariana to Sri Lanka later this season, or Adam to Cambodia, or Christof to Italy, or Kaj to America’s military R & D centers, we understand that you’re going along with them because you want to, because it’s an interesting experience—at least, we hope it’s interesting and we try our best to make it so. We hope you agree.
Vanguard Season Preview (Video)
Recently from the Vanguard blog:
Vanguard is here - Kaj Larsen
A big day for Vanguard - Lauren Cerre
A premiere dedication - Mariana van Zeller
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