The High Cost of Being Unprepared

/0 Comments/in /by

We once heard a story about the town of Uxbridge, Massachusetts. According to the story, many years ago, it took the people of Uxbridge 50 years to figure out the sewage in the Blackstone River, which flows through the town and was stinking up the place, didn’t actually come from Uxbridge. We’re fairly certain gravity had been invented by then. And we’re pretty sure water flowed downhill then. So, the fact that Uxbridgians didn’t deduce the fact that the sewage in the Blackstone was flowing down from points north inspired a feeling of disbelief in us, even though we were assured the story was true.

We had the same sort of feeling when we read a story in Saas Brief recently. Entitled, “The ‘Hybrid Office’ is Going to Be More Work, Not Less. Time to Start Preparing”, the story said this, in part:

The “hybrid office” will be coming for most of us, and maybe really for the first time ever where there are no two-tiers of employees and team members.  It will be great.  But it won’t be cheaper.  It will be harder.  And it will require a lot more investment in culture.

Wait. What?

Let’s Go to the Replay

At a technology conference in San Francisco, in 1968, Douglas Engelbart demonstrated the ability to do remote work using a computer, a mouse, and a keyboard. Last time we looked, this was 2021. If we’ve had that kind of capability for 53 years, it’s hard to imagine how — and why — we need hybrid offices. And it’s almost impossible to believe companies would create hybrid offices at all, let alone creating them knowing they’ll increase expenses and make operations more difficult.

Maybe we should stop and ask ourselves a few questions: In the insurance industry, haven’t most core systems been web-based for quite some time? Doesn’t the touting of those systems included phrases like work from anywhere? If you believe in gravity and the future, wouldn’t you build a system that would make such geographic and operational flexibility possible, even making completely virtual insurance companies possible? We did. But maybe that’s just us.

In any case, there’s no reason to pay the high cost of being unprepared.

We’re not in Uxbridge anymore, Toto.

Our New Year’s Resolutions

/0 Comments/in /by

No matter how you slice it, 2021 is going to be an extraordinary year, if for no other reason than it follows 2020. Need we say more?

Consequently, we thought it appropriate to come up with an equally extraordinary list of New Year’s resolutions and to share them here. So, as a public service, here they are:

  1. We’re never going to utter or write the phrase, new normal. The fact is the entire world was arduously about the business of adapting to a new reality sometime around March or April of last year. It forced us to wonder about our very conceptions of normal, let alone a new normal. So, this year, normal is out the window. Rather, we’ll look ahead. And we’ll focus on accomplishing what we can in the effort to provide the best products and services to our customers that we can. As the actor, Sir Anthony Hopkins, once said, “Today is the tomorrow you were so worried about yesterday.” We’re going to spend the energy we might otherwise spend worrying about tomorrow to accomplish what we can today and every day.
  2. We’re going to take more chances. We don’t mean we’re going to take foolish risks. We mean we’re going to set our sights just a little higher. Thomas Edison said, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” Not us. We’re going to use the success we’ve already achieved as inspiration and as impetus to extend and expand that success even farther.
  3. We’re going to have more fun. We got into this business because we love it. If 2020 taught us anything it’s that no work is worth doing if it’s not the work of your heart. And if you’re doing the work of your heart, you certainly deserve to enjoy it. We do. We will. We hope you do, too.
  4. We’re going to cherish our relationships — all of them — and be more mindful of them. Especially with the specter of COVID-19 hanging over us, there are no guarantees of anything. Every relationship and every moment is valuable.
  5. We’re not going to be preachy. Okay. We may not have done such a bang-up job on that score with our items 1-4 above. But we’ll try. We promise.

No matter what happens in 2021, we wish everyone who reads this post a healthy, happy, and rewarding New Year.

—
Image created by BiZkettE1 – www.freepik.com.