There's no exact rule when a history should be written.
For companies, it can take place at a business or produce anniversary or when a baton passes to a new generation of leadership. For organizations, it might be at a point when its mission becomes inseparable from the community it serves. For individuals, a personal history might be worth recording at the end of a life... or when new life happens.
As a former Business Editor of the Chicago Sun-Times, Lisa Holton has more than 25 years of experience writing the stories of companies, organizations and leaders. She's an experienced author, ghostwriter and local historian and can create a corporate, nonprofit or individual history for you in any of the following forms:
- Books, Booklets or E-Books: From research to publication, we work with experienced production partners to create anything from a high-quality coffee-table book to a history in digital form suitable for downloading on your website.
- Video: Really Simple Video, our joint venture with Burlingham Productions, develops and produces documentary and interview-style video histories to show at events or to broadcast online.
- Legacy Statements/Ethical Wills: In video or print format, we help individuals, business owners and family leaders to create customized statements to address their most important personal, estate, philanthropic or business objectives. These written and video records add detail to legal documents that survivors and successors can turn to again and again.
- Rewrite/Updating of Existing Histories: Even if you don't plan to republish, it's always good to have a history updated every 10 years.
Lisa Holton has been a freelance researcher with the Chicago History Museum for the past decade and is a member of the Association of Personal Historians, an international network of professionals working to create and preserve personal and organizational histories.
Our most recent projects:
- Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary//Department of Otolaryngology/150th Anniversary History (2008): Lisa researched and wrote this 1,500-run hardcover book to mark the history of the head and neck surgery department at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago.
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