Where in the World is Colleen Mauer?
Reflecting on When CMD Went Virtual

Hello my friends,

I originally wrote this post on April 6, 2020, just a few weeks after COVID changed the way all of us were living and working. At CMD, one of the fastest shifts was figuring out how to stay connected with people when we suddenly couldn’t welcome them into the San Francisco shop the way we normally would.

That’s how I found myself spending my days on FaceTime with customers all over the place. One Friday alone, I virtually traveled to Sacramento, Washington State, Michigan, New York and even France. At the time, it felt completely wild that I could sit in my studio with a tray of jewelry and somehow end up inside someone’s home hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Taking the CMD Experience Online

We were hosting a Virtual Sample Sale, sharing pieces through Instagram Stories and booking one-on-one FaceTime shopping sessions so people could see jewelry up close without ever leaving home. It was all very improvised. We were learning as we went, trying things quickly and figuring out how to recreate some of the connection that normally happened in person.

What I loved most was the chance to actually meet people I might never have crossed paths with otherwise. Instead of someone simply placing an order online, we could talk, try different combinations, compare pieces and make the experience feel personal even though we were sitting in completely different places.

I’ve written more about that larger shift in Pivoting & A Whole New Way to Connect, because what started as an emergency solution ended up becoming a lasting part of CMD.

A New Way of Connecting

Looking back now, virtual appointments don’t seem nearly as unusual as they did in 2020. At the time, though, they felt like a completely new way of doing business. We were all adapting to circumstances none of us had chosen, and this was one small way I could keep creating, connecting and showing up for CMD customers.

That experience also taught me something that has stayed with me ever since: distance doesn’t have to be much of a barrier when the connection is there. Some conversations are just as meaningful through a screen, and sometimes being invited into someone’s home virtually can feel even more personal than meeting across a counter.

That lesson became especially important after CMD eventually relocated from San Francisco to Asbury Park. Virtual appointments gave me a way to keep working directly with longtime West Coast clients while also connecting with people I might never meet geographically otherwise.

What Started as a Pivot Became Part of CMD

So much about CMD has changed since I wrote this, but that willingness to meet people wherever they are has stuck around. What began as a necessity during a very strange time helped open the door to working with people far beyond wherever I happened to be physically standing.

Today, virtual appointments are still part of how I work with clients, and they’ve become especially useful for Custom and Reconstruction projects. You can show me heirloom jewelry from your own home, pull additional pieces out of your jewelry box as we talk, and begin figuring out what something might become without needing to live anywhere near Asbury Park.

Reading this now makes me smile because I can still remember how novel it felt to say I had “traveled” from California to Michigan to France in a single afternoon. We were simply trying to make the best of an impossible situation, but some of the things we figured out along the way ended up shaping how I think about connection and accessibility in this business even now.

If you want the fuller story of what that year changed for CMD, you can also read Reflections on 2020: A Year of Change.

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Here’s to finding new ways to meet each other where we are,
Colleen

© Colleen Mauer Designs. All rights reserved.
Published: April 6, 2020
Updated: August 23, 2026