And so a blog was born!

Like all stories, we must start from the beginning of VISUS' history. And to do so, I must turn the clock back to the year 2000. When Jorg Holstein and Klaus Kleber founded VISUS as a start-up venture of the University of Witten-Herdecke, the medical world was already undergoing radical digital change. The release of the DICOM standard in 1993 paved the way for standardized digitization in radiology. As young students enthused by the technological developments of the time and with a medical visionary at their side, they founded the company with the aim of developing a digital, medical imaging archive with a wide range of non-location-dependent functionalities to improve patient care.  VISUS more than managed to do this not only through its own efforts, but with direct help along the way from vital supporters—users, partners, and staff—over the last 18 years. PACS technology is now more than 20 years old and you cannot imagine radiology without it. VISUS has shaped and assisted this development and has not failed to continuously develop itself.  In June 2018, VISUS will be celebrating its 18th birthday and will come of age. It is time, therefore, to act as a mouthpiece and provide a forum information for discussion and information gathering to those who have influenced our development and personality. This is how we understand the VISUS corporate blog.

Hidden champions and multi-talented people

I can remember my first days at VISUS more than 10 years ago very well. A really unusual company, I thought, which was not just down to the fact that the VISUS offices radiated a really family atmosphere. Instead of rigid structures, I encountered dynamic, multi-talented people each of whom could be employed in almost any area. Just in my office which I shared with two colleagues (Mustapha Addam and Michael Kickuth), there were two such exemplary people. With his vast IT background knowledge and impressive training as an IT specialist at VISUS, Michael was the man for accountancy, contracts, and licensing. Mustapha, the first trainee at VISUS, was also a multi-talented person in all matters concerning national and international sales, marketing and programming. There are other multi-talented people from the early days who I could mention, for example, Heiko Schneider, Thorsten Geisbe, Jens Martin, Yusuf Yener, Thomas Stroter, Patrice Scheidt, Andreas Schroter, Christoph von Prince, Alf Meyerratken, Dennis Schlevoigt, and Marc Wenczek. All of these colleagues are still members of the VISUS team even now and have made the company what it is today.

Old dogs and young pups

Why have I told you this? At the start of the year, VISUS traditionally holds a strategic kick-off event at which all VISUS staff come together. And I'm always amazed at how many staff we have gained in recent years. I'm similarly astonished at how well-balanced the mix of 'old dogs' and 'young pups' is. In just the last year, 36 new colleagues joined us, unbelievably.
 
With this VISUS blog, we would like to build bridges and offer our inside, wide-ranging expert knowledge acquired from established and new minds to the outside world. Besides, we also ought to say something about our customers and partners who, together with our staff, continue working on further developing digitization. In short, we would like to increase the visibility of those people who are writing VISUS' history and the history of digitization in medicine every day and making their mark with their work and their personality. Whether you are colleagues, partners, or customers, the VISUS network now includes so many exciting, intelligent, and interesting minds that we firmly believe we can fill this blog with life, information and inspiring articles in the future. In this vein, I would like to wish you great pleasure in reading our VISUS blog.