Refactored Principals: Biz Language and Strategy
When the people you look up to are mix of the Woz and Henry Rollins, sometimes you lean more Rollins than not. It’s fine to be humble, know that Jobs may have played fast and loose with the “TRUTH”. Note the capitals and ask me my opinions on organizational data quality. More than often the best you strive for is “truth”. The lower case and relative kind. The eager analyst in us has probably all seen the KPIs reported that at best reflect something conjured at Burning Man. The things that steer your business, the North Star nothing more than fabrication. That’s how you and I know the gibberish has kicked into full gear. Businesses succeeding and completely divorced from reality.
Ask yourself, what’s the water like? Is it comfy cozy and wraps you up in warm sugary kisses. Tells you everything is fine? Or is the pool at the top of the mountain, freezing, reflective of the hours spent, cold enough you’re afraid your legs will freeze and you’ll be forever frozen in the reality of that moment. It should be no surprise that Graphical Methods leads towards the later. Unfortunately, the later kind doesn’t sell. The later kind, the astute reader might notice is full of doubt and self reflection. The Woz kind of swole. If I sit here much longer would I really freeze? Should I have brought that hot chocolate I snagged from the hotel? How cozy. What is your sunscreen drenched body seeping into the water you’re about to filter? Seeing that cycle come directly to you. No separation of mechanisms.
Graphical Methods is shifting. From Woz to Rollins. Good stories sell. Strong people sell. Overconfidence in one’s actions sells. We’re the ethical data company. That’s our pitch. It’s the thing we can talk the strongest about. The thing that when you talk to us you’ll hear conviction. We believe and will continue to believe that after a decade Texas still has some of the worst access to data and we all deserve better. Data can be used for good and to enrich our lives. It’s the dumbest achilles heel we can have. We can be both a Woz and a Rollins, hopefully. We have a track record though, history, of conviction. Whether it’s horrifically manipulative and extractive business models, post apocalyptic cultures, platitudes and lost leaders, we’ve held to our values. This is our “Good” story. Our entrance into the language of business; overconfident. We have surety in our history and conviction of delivering good honest work.
So, we won’t entertain your:
- Crypto company
- Adtech
- Ethical Techwashing
- Laundering user data
- Unnecessary PII collection
- Gambling company
- Dark patterns
We’ll happily refer you to any number of companies who deal with those things. It’s just not for us. We’re standing for a better data culture. One that respects the individuals involved. Our hope is that this doesn’t deter anyone. What we instead want is that this creates a goal, sets a bar, that we can work together on.