What’s that guy?

Well, it’s back-to-school time again. August has always been a favorite time of year for me because I love learning about new things and for much of my life that itch was scratched at school. I have six grandchildren now who are all “sponges” when it comes to learning.  I never get tired of watching them figure out how things work.

My two youngest granddaughters, born 10 days and 10 miles apart, are best buddies and use the same catchy phrase whenever they run across something new -- “What’s that guy?” The answer to the question is not always easy. Even though I am well versed in the thermodynamics of vapor-liquid equilibriums, for example, I struggled to explain steam coming off a hot drink to a 2-year-old. But the desire to learn is a superpower so I am excited whenever I hear “What’s that guy?”

Learning doesn’t just happen when you are young or in school; we learn throughout our lives. I am a big proponent of learning from the perspectives of others. Asking questions is a key to design-thinking as well.

We were fortunate this year to have an intern on staff to remind us of the joy of curiosity and its critical role in learning. Alkis Morellas spent his summer with Tamarack learning about equipment finance while doing some of the background business intelligence and data engineering work that helps us support our customers and develop new products.

Alkis was kind enough to share his learnings in a post for Equipment Finance Advisor [EK1]  . I looked forward to it because I knew his assessments and observations would be honest and unbiased by decades of “that’s how we do it.” Alkis’ comments on the speed and layering in the equipment finance industry were insightful and prompted me to look differently at how applications layer on top of data infrastructures.

Whenever I see an inflection point in a data trendline now, I ask, “What’s that guy?”