A Minnesota postseason baseball fan perspective.
I’ve been a baseball fan all my life and a Minnesota Twins fan almost as long. The Twins made the playoffs this year, so for those not familiar with the Twins and Minnesota professional sports in general, this means fans like me get ready to extend “the streak.”
The streak is the Twins not winning a playoff baseball game for 19 years. But this year was different: Pablo López channeled Johan Santana (the last Twins pitcher to win a postseason game in 2004), which led the team to their first playoff series victory in 21 years. That’s what’s new!
What is not new for a Minnesota professional sports fan is that we lost the divisional series in four games. That’s better than being swept, but now I’m heading out to rake leaves and pining for Jack Morris in the 1993 World Series Game 7.
All this postseason baseball led to a lot of reminiscing. “The streak” covered most of my professional life in equipment finance. I thought “what’s new and not new for me” during this time?
“Not new” was pretty easy. I am still working in equipment finance, which means I am still working with old friends from my Wells Fargo days. I am also still working with legacy brands like PayNet, Solifi (formerly IDS) and LTi (formerly Lease Team Incorporated).
“What’s new” was even easier. My old friends are now at companies like Honour, Northland Capital, KLC and Bell Bank. I am also working with a completely different approach to running an equipment finance business, using technology platform partners like Salesforce, Microsoft and Amazon.
But most new is the user experience I see for our customers. Everything they need is at their fingertips on mobile phones via application environments like Power BI. Everyone in the workflow can now get the data they need whenever they need it. And, of course, there is AI. I think AI is going to change a lot of things for the better.
As a Twins fan, I continue to be optimistic about additional postseason wins in my lifetime. But I have to admit that I have much more optimism about the “new” that is happening right now in the equipment finance industry.
Tim Appleget, CLFP, Director of SaaS Products, Tamarack