Tag: value

Expensive Socs

A guy at work spent the last year working on one word.

Now he’s going on sabbatical.

Big companies that want to handle other big companies’ data must show that they’re going to look after it properly and protect it from anyone who might be snooping.

This guy at work spent the last year figuring out how to do that — and we are very grateful. The thought of all those painful words and mind-numbing legalese sentences makes me want to weep.

Multiple salaries were invested in the project. Operations were overhauled. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t cheap. But he did it.

All so we could add one little word to our website and become:

“SOC2 Compliant.”

That’s one expensive word. One very valuable word.

We’re surrounded by the attentions of others. There are countless little things we take for granted that are the result of a life’s work.

All those things that “just work” when we push the button, work because someone spent their days designing it to work, for us.

 

 

Making Life Meaningful

There’s a lot of woo-woo and hoo-hah out there that veils one of Life’s Great Truths.

“If you want to have a meaningful life, make life meaningful for other people.”

There are lots of ways to do this.

Steve Jobs wanted to put a computer in the palm of everyone’s hand in 1976. That was an old sci-fi dream and now it’s real. It took 32 years — and his life — to achieve that. 

Jeff Bezos gave people what they wanted: cheap shopping delivered fast. And that meant something.

Self-help gurus like Jesus and Buddha eschewed material wealth but brought meaning through knowledge and belonging. 

But we don’t have to serve a billion souls. Who needs a 150ft super-yacht or a $400 million tax bill or an army of sycophants anyway.

We can bring meaning from behind a post-office counter if we give it long enough. Or we can write a song or draw a picture or play a game or have a conversation or kick a ball, really, really fucking well. It all means something to someone.

And when we find the people to whom we can bring meaning and show up every day, life becomes meaningful.

The rest is just trimmings.