Steve Jobs

[Wayne Goodwin]

Steve Jobs

"Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use... And however you learn that, once you learn it, you'll want to change life and make it better because it's kinda messed up in a lot of ways."

Do you agree to message above ?

Can you add anything ?

[Lifesighs]

I do agree, it was my mantra to my son when he was in his teens. I kept telling him that he was smarter then most people around him and he should always strive to find a newer better way to do whatever he was involved with. Doing more and analysis of what/why and outcomes makes you think and improve. It worked for me during my years of employment and my son is also on the right track finding new methods and really thinking about the day to day processes. I think it was one of my better teachings. It also makes you feel more satisfied with your life because you've made a difference.

An example was at the trucking company I worked for doing payroll, the comptroller got reports every two weeks of the dollar total of advances outstanding. I started doing a by person account of how old some of the advances were to get a feel for how long it took for the drivers to pay back the money they requested for trips across country. Then I started doing an aging report with detailed accounting. No one knew what was going on, the drivers were paying themselves months ahead, (some drivers, there were over 300 with about 60 or 70 playing this game).  When I had enough information over a period of months I gave the comptroller my report along with his requested report. I told him he might find the information useful. OMG within a day there were meetings called with the owners and things started changing very quickly. It made the comptroller look good and he made sure my life was much better for years later. 

He always asked my opinion about processes after that and they started looking at every procedure and report to see if they were getting what was actually needed. It just took one person to start questioning one process.

[Wayne Goodwin]

Too late for me now but i should have applied myself more for better paying job's over the years and should have worked toward a decent retirement . But i didn't . The most money i ever made in any job and that was the last 4 years of my employment . $10 dollars an hour was the most i ever made per hour ....

[blithe spirit]

Before I was a teacher, I was a systems/methods analyst and I worked for a Bank. I was part of several different projects that dramatically changed consumer banking..ATM's, debit cards, and different types of paper processing. I remember many folks were quite skeptical of trying to use computers to streamline all kinds of labor intensive processes and that people were going to be replaced by computers. The idea was to give people the time to focus on things like customer service and generating new consumer products. I'm not so sure the idea has been realized. I became very disillusioned with banking and most other financial companies.

One of the things I like about the school where I work is that we are able to change things quickly if we need to. I know many folks are very anti-charter school but somebody needs to work on the different models of schooling and throw stuff away that isn't working and and figure out what does. One of things we do is apply for grants from the government and from business to help our efforts. A collegial atmosphere is a big part of it too...it's not a me thing it's a group thing.

Folks need to be encourgaged and mentored  to think outside the box...it doesn't always come naturally. It's not about being smarter, it's about  being willing to try something different and feeling as though it's possible.