Touchbase

A Communications Technology Company: Twenty six Years - 1992 to 2018

Riordan Maynard led Touchbase from the moment it began until the moment it ended, from the age of twenty-two to forty-nine. He put his all into it. The core phrase throughout was ‘People & Clients’. It could be heard spoken of daily by Touchbase’s people. If these two things were focused upon and the needs and opportunities regarding them were met, then, the belief was, all would be well. Later on, after the shock of the 2008 financial crisis, an important third word, ‘Fiscal’, was appended to the phrase. So, it was to be ‘People, Clients & Fiscal’ concerns that were to be focused upon. Riordan, being something of a libertarian, had perhaps not reckoned suitably with other overarching entities and ideas encompassing these concerns; one such being, ‘the State’. The necessary balance between all of these weighty subjects, ultimately, became unwieldy and untenable, resulting in Touchbase’s dissolution in 2018. Riordan’s watchwords during those last few years of tremendous commercial difficulty were taken from his hero Winston Churchill, to ‘Never give in - never, never, never, never.’ There could perhaps have been more distinction in assessing the less well known ending to Winston’s phrase; ‘…in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.’ He tried his best to create a successful business that benefited all concerned. At the end of the road for Touchbase, Riordan and his family neither had, nor emerged with, any assets; no car, no house, no savings, no wedding or engagement rings. He was able to keep his children in local schooling, sheltered, clothed and fed, went on some trips, not something to be dismissed of course, but to be most grateful for. There were many sleepless nights agonizing over, and waiting for, the flow of cash into and out of the business, and from the multi-directional pressure to satisfy numerous fiscal demands. The stress was palbable. For years. The most important things remained intact and in rude health; the love and respect of his friends and family. He continues, in his Churchillian way, to be optimistic and engaged, as he bides his time for the next six years or so in an American ‘Correctional Institute’. The bleakest aspect of this is not that Riordan will be ‘corrected’, it is rather that, in the peculiar notion of justice developed in the course of our two-thousand-five-hundred-year-old civilisation, it is his wife and children who receive the punishment.

Below are some examples of documents made in those twenty six years that give a look inside the business.

Cameron Maynard, October 2019

The Black Book - 2004

This book was published in an edition of 1000 for the people & clients of Touchbase. It is a look at what the business did day-to-day; selling, designing, implementing and managing communication technology systems. As a services company, with this project, Touchbase wanted to show something of the often unseen aspects of the value it provided.

Spreads from the Book

Click Top Left for the Opening Pages

Single Pictures from the Book

Touchbase Brand: A Review - 2015

Touchbase Proposition to Market - 2010

Touchbase Office Environments Guide - 2008