Earl and I are just awaking from our first night at Walt Disney World. He is out on the balcony reading some resort literature and I’m typing away here in the room, enjoying the early morning sun on my face.
I just awoke from the most incredible night’s sleep I have had in years. I feel refreshed, alive, awake and ready to enjoy the day. My dreams were of work and old friends, but it was all good. I dreamed of having a computer business again, geared towards ‘simplicity’. Don’t oversell the customer and be honest to them. If all they do is surf the web and send e-mail, don’t sell them the latest computer with all the bells and whistles. Not very 2005-like for the business world but a philosophy I wish was near and dear to my heart.
I think the dream comes from thinking about my Dad’s store yesterday. Back in 1990 or ’91, I wrote an accounts receivable program tailored specifically to that situation so they could be computerized with their billing. They’re still using that program to this day. The program replaced an old NCR posting machine that was a glorified adding machine that could print in columns. The posting machine and my program were both designed to print on specially designed billing statements and ledger cards. That posting machine was the height of my early geekness in all its mechanical wonder, tabulating, printing in columns and popping the ledger card out when it was done printing on it. They’d probably still be using the posting machine if I hadn’t insisted on using my computer program.
I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a new version of the program for them and having them use that. The program I was thinking of was all modern with databases and customer trends and all that. They haven’t asked for a new program, but I was ready to introduce bigger and better to them after I sat down and actually wrote the program.
But what they have works. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Maybe that’s the key to everything… simplicity is better.
It is wonderful to be on vacation.
