By, Ken Ericson, Xerox Public Relations
I’ll confess, I’m not a big basketball fan, but I do like a challenge. So when asked to write a blog on college basketball and March Madness, I accepted.
I’m a resourceful guy, so the first step was to call my colleague and college basketball junkie Chris Gilligan, who lives and works in Lexington, Kentucky, along with around 5,000 other Xerox people. Chris loves everything about the state of Kentucky and trust me, isn’t shy about telling anyone who will listen. He’ll also tell you that two of the teams in college basketball’s Final Four are from the state– Kentucky and Louisville (the other two teams are Kansas and Ohio State). It’s only the fourth time in history that teams in the final four have been from the same state. They’ll play Saturday to decide who goes to the championship game. Some people are calling it “The Civil War.”
I ask Chris the obvious question, “So it’s a big deal there, right?”
He told me about the uber-craziness in a state that is basketball crazy even in the off-season. There’s vendors selling souvenirs on many street corners in town and people are getting ready to head to New Orleans for the game—with some plane tickets are going for more than $3,000. You can only imagine what it will be like on Saturday night.
But what does this have to do with Xerox?
Chris said you can think of it this way, “If March Madness were a business, Xerox would be the ones who let people go crazy.”
And that’s a great point. When you’re focused on something, like your Final Four bracket or painting your face blue and white for the big game, you shouldn’t have to worry about distractions. That’s just what Xerox does for businesses and governments around the world—they’re able to focus on what they do best, and we take care of the rest– making processes simpler and more manageable.
So the real question for Xerox employee and Kentucky native Chris Gilligan— who will you root for on Saturday night? He said without a doubt it’ll be Kentucky, but he’s hedging his bets, since a team from Kentucky is guaranteed to be playing in the championship.
