subject: Out of The Best ERP Software Will Come The Greatest of Many Little Things [print this page] One of the fonder memories of my childhood is when as a family, on hot
summer afternoons we would travel to the local beach and sit buried in the
delightfully cool or enticingly warm sand, depending on where you chose to
"dig in", eating Moms chicken salad sandwiches, washing them down with
delightful ice cold coke from thick bottomed glass bottles.
Another great memory is when, as a family, we would all go to the Saturday
evening movies to see one of those great old westerns or James Bond movies. Afterward, we would hit the local soda shop for triple scoop banana splits and enchanting smooth sundaes served in real honest to goodness glassware.
Which brings me to my first point:
Some of the greatest things in life are simple, exceedingly simple. To-day, many years later, my love for maple walnut and grape-nut ice cream, both great traditional Canadian flavors, has never faded. Almost every time I have the opportunity to savor either of these pleasures in ice-cream or have the opportunity to drink coke from a glass bottle, the memories of these instances come floating back.
Did we always have great times? No, we didn't. In fact, more frequently
than not, things were pretty tough. The winters were unbearably cold, our
old house was an endless collection of drafts, the walls and ceilings were
un-insulated and we lacked the conveniences of having running water. It
took close to 30 cords of wood a year to heat the old house we lived in and
every stick of wood was cut by hand with a Swede saw and double bitted axe.
Dad always said cutting wood wouldn't hurt you because cutting it gave you
the chance to get warmed twice.
But one of the great things about life is that when you reminisce, it isn't
the tough times you easily or readily remember. The tough times are no
longer important.
It's the good times that we vividly remember. Amazingly, it's always
simple things that come flitting back to delight the deep dark recesses of
our mind.
But, you know what! As I think about it, I also realize those good times
are there in my mind to look back on only because an effort was made to
make them happen. Had my parents not taken the effort to make those outings a part of our lives, those great moments in my life would not exist in the storehouse of magnificent memories I cherish to-day.
Which brings me to my second point:
The greatest things in life also take effort or they will never take place. The effort and determination to make these events were important to my parents because they knew that it was these types of events that would someday be important to me. Because of their efforts during my childhood, I learned through my adult life that one of the greatest treasures in life is the making of memories. I am so thankful that, thanks to them, it is also a treasure I believe we were successful in passing along to our own children.
Which brings me to my third and final point:
Things that happen in our lives have to be recorded if they are to ever gain importance. The incidents I mentioned above remain important to me only because I am reminded of them from time to time by related incidents which keep getting attached to those original events, now hidden in the deep recesses of my brain. It is highly doubtful if either of my parents remembered these events in my childhood for more than a few weeks, perhaps at best, only days.
To be truly effective, simple always trumps complexity. Complex things will
always be seen as things difficult to our minds and those are also the
things we tend to encourage our minds to forget.
You are by now probably wondering what all this has to do with running a
business and information systems.
It has a great deal to do with both. More importantly, it also has a great
deal to do with the development of each of our personal lives. We can all
easily understand why it is imperative to be profitable. If we don't, our
business will not survive. However, outwardly most of us will not admit it,
there is a lot more to running a business than just keeping score.
Running a business is about doing things just a little bit differently than
everybody else, later being able to brag about how successful those little
differences made our business. It is important to be able to say: "I
discovered and took advantage of the little differences that made my
business a success".
All those little details need to be retained by the best ERP software you
can possibly get. It is all these tiny bits of information that make your
business information system so important. The tiny bits of information are
essential to discovering the little differences. Any one or any number of
them can make an impact somewhere, sometime, you know not when or how.
All added up, the knowledge of all those little details can become a
substantial investment in your business, an investment many companies
repetitively, unconcernedly throw away. Interestingly, you just never know
what those little differences might be until the need for them,
unexpectedly shows up.
To be awesomely effective, and it can be (because it is both simple and
easy thing to do), everything we do in business should be recorded, then
not removed from our information systems, not for a very long time. In
fact, we should have instant access to even the tiniest of tiny details for
a very long time.
Information which has been discarded, or even difficult to access, is of zero value because discardedinformation in no longer information at all, just incidents blown away in the life of the business. When they are, they're in effect, a part of us discarded, a part us removed from our lives because, for most of us, our businesses have a habit of forming a major chunk of our lives, so much so that our businesses are the defining factor in who we are and what we do.
The human mind cannot possibly remember everything and every detail that
takes place in your business, but your computer can. It can remember all
the details. Out of those details you build the supporting foundation for
your next great adventure. For that alone, it is well worth the effort.
Someday there will come a time when all there is left for all of us is the
memories, the private secret icing on the cake. In the meantime, none of us
really knows what will someday be the greatest of many little things to come out of the best ERP software.
One of the fonder memories of my childhood is when as a family, on hot
summer afternoons we would travel to the local beach and sit buried in the
delightfully cool or enticingly warm sand, depending on where you chose to
"dig in", eating Moms chicken salad sandwiches, washing them down with
delightful ice cold coke from thick bottomed glass bottles.
Another great memory is when, as a family, we would all go to the Saturday
evening movies to see one of those great old westerns or James Bond movies. Afterward, we would hit the local soda shop for triple scoop banana splits and enchanting smooth sundaes served in real honest to goodness glassware.
Which brings me to my first point:
Some of the greatest things in life are simple, exceedingly simple. To-day, many years later, my love for maple walnut and grape-nut ice cream, both great traditional Canadian flavors, has never faded. Almost every time I have the opportunity to savor either of these pleasures in ice-cream or have the opportunity to drink coke from a glass bottle, the memories of these instances come floating back.
Did we always have great times? No, we didn't. In fact, more frequently
than not, things were pretty tough. The winters were unbearably cold, our
old house was an endless collection of drafts, the walls and ceilings were
un-insulated and we lacked the conveniences of having running water. It
took close to 30 cords of wood a year to heat the old house we lived in and
every stick of wood was cut by hand with a Swede saw and double bitted axe.
Dad always said cutting wood wouldn't hurt you because cutting it gave you
the chance to get warmed twice.
But one of the great things about life is that when you reminisce, it isn't
the tough times you easily or readily remember. The tough times are no
longer important.
It's the good times that we vividly remember. Amazingly, it's always
simple things that come flitting back to delight the deep dark recesses of
our mind.
But, you know what! As I think about it, I also realize those good times
are there in my mind to look back on only because an effort was made to
make them happen. Had my parents not taken the effort to make those outings a part of our lives, those great moments in my life would not exist in the storehouse of magnificent memories I cherish to-day.
Which brings me to my second point:
The greatest things in life also take effort or they will never take place. The effort and determination to make these events were important to my parents because they knew that it was these types of events that would someday be important to me. Because of their efforts during my childhood, I learned through my adult life that one of the greatest treasures in life is the making of memories. I am so thankful that, thanks to them, it is also a treasure I believe we were successful in passing along to our own children.
Which brings me to my third and final point:
Things that happen in our lives have to be recorded if they are to ever gain importance. The incidents I mentioned above remain important to me only because I am reminded of them from time to time by related incidents which keep getting attached to those original events, now hidden in the deep recesses of my brain. It is highly doubtful if either of my parents remembered these events in my childhood for more than a few weeks, perhaps at best, only days.
To be truly effective, simple always trumps complexity. Complex things will
always be seen as things difficult to our minds and those are also the
things we tend to encourage our minds to forget.
You are by now probably wondering what all this has to do with running a
business and information systems.
It has a great deal to do with both. More importantly, it also has a great
deal to do with the development of each of our personal lives. We can all
easily understand why it is imperative to be profitable. If we don't, our
business will not survive. However, outwardly most of us will not admit it,
there is a lot more to running a business than just keeping score.
Running a business is about doing things just a little bit differently than
everybody else, later being able to brag about how successful those little
differences made our business. It is important to be able to say: "I
discovered and took advantage of the little differences that made my
business a success".
All those little details need to be retained by the best ERP software you
can possibly get. It is all these tiny bits of information that make your
business information system so important. The tiny bits of information are
essential to discovering the little differences. Any one or any number of
them can make an impact somewhere, sometime, you know not when or how.
All added up, the knowledge of all those little details can become a
substantial investment in your business, an investment many companies
repetitively, unconcernedly throw away. Interestingly, you just never know
what those little differences might be until the need for them,
unexpectedly shows up.
To be awesomely effective, and it can be (because it is both simple and
easy thing to do), everything we do in business should be recorded, then
not removed from our information systems, not for a very long time. In
fact, we should have instant access to even the tiniest of tiny details for
a very long time.
Information which has been discarded, or even difficult to access, is of zero value because discardedinformation in no longer information at all, just incidents blown away in the life of the business. When they are, they're in effect, a part of us discarded, a part us removed from our lives because, for most of us, our businesses have a habit of forming a major chunk of our lives, so much so that our businesses are the defining factor in who we are and what we do.
The human mind cannot possibly remember everything and every detail that
takes place in your business, but your computer can. It can remember all
the details. Out of those details you build the supporting foundation for
your next great adventure. For that alone, it is well worth the effort.
Someday there will come a time when all there is left for all of us is the
memories, the private secret icing on the cake. In the meantime, none of us
really knows what will someday be the greatest of many little things to come out of the best ERP software.
Out of The Best ERP Software Will Come The Greatest of Many Little Things
