I was introduced to Scaredy Squirrel today. I’d met him before, but I’m afraid that I didn’t know his name. You’ve probably already met him too.
Scaredy Squirrel is a cute little guy. He lives in his tree and he knows it well. He enjoys his regular routine, which includes looking at the view and eating nuts. He’s not just carefree; he’s carefully planned his strategies in case of attacks by killer bees, sharks and other threats.
One day something happens and Scaredy Squirrel suddenly discovers that he’s more prepared than he’d ever dreamed. This experience changes his whole world for the better.
As mentioned, I’ve met Scaredy, but he certainly didn’t look like a squirrel at the time. In fact, I wonder if he’s a secret agent or something. Now, that I’m thinking about it, I must have encountered him a few times…
A Master of Disguise
Once he looked just like an accountant. He’d been using the same old limited accounting software for years without seeking ways to enhance the system or provide more value to his clients. Yup, it must have been him.
Then one day I overheard an IT manager discussing the solution that his team was about to implement with the President. It was a system that had been adopted by many companies much larger than theirs. “Great decision,” said the President. “Nobody ever got fired for buying that brand, right?” asked the IT manager, only half joking.
Scaredy Squirrel is one talented little guy. And he’s SO fast, being able to take two roles at once, and all.
Later, something happened to change that happy-go-lucky critter. He must have been preparing for winter, because he was being quite aggressive and clearly was feeling the pressure.
In order to accumulate a bigger stockpile than any other squirrel, he assumed the guise of a salesman for a big database company. His task was to sell software to other squirrels to that could help them manage their nuts. The software would be theirs for a mere half of their nuts.
All of the other squirrels knew that they liked their nuts, and wanted more of them, so this guy really seemed to know what he was talking about, so this must be a great product that they must invest in so that they could acquire more nuts.
I wish that you could have been there to hear him. “Once you agree, we’ll work with you to implement such an integrated system for handling your nuts you’ll wonder how you ever got along without it. Your tree will never need anything else; everything’s included!”
I felt badly for Scaredy Squirrel back then. He was so focused on maintaining the only reality that he’d ever known that he couldn’t see the forest for the trees. I guess that was to be expected though. He’d spent so long cooped up in his tree looking at the horizon that he’d never even tried to expand his own horizons.
But, as mentioned, one day Scaredy was forced to jump out of his tree. That’s when he discovered that he was a flying squirrel! He learned that he could leave the tree and go to new places and try new things and that nothing bad would happen.
Oh, he still enjoyed his tree and his view and his nuts, but now that he liked trying new things, he became a much happier squirrel now that he wasn’t constantly afraid.
Have you seen Scaredy Squirrel? What was he up to when you saw him last?
Did somebody say “refund guarantee”?
If you still use only Excel, perhaps in addition to a larger information system, and haven’t added Monarch to your toolkit, then you’re working too hard to get and manage your data, and with Datawatch’s “unconditional 30 day refund guarantee” (see the last page), you’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Don’t be a Scaredy Squirrel. Stop working for your data, and make your data work for you. Get outside of your comfort zone, and try, just try, to excel with Monarch.
