Technology Joys

This morning I was reminded of the joys of connectivity, which the local Catholic bishop urged all of his flock to somewhat disconnect from during lent. For the past two years I have been working on an innovative way to distribute student loans which would increase the transparency to students and (presumably) would also lower costs. One of our partners is on the East Coast. So the three principals decided to do a conference call, using Go to Meeting, to put the final touches on a document which explains how this program complies with some new federal regulations. Like many regulatory frameworks - the writers worry little about how the rules will actually work and more about finding seeming precision in their directives (which of course are not precise at all but curiously are overly prescriptive). One of the benefits of this new program is that the responsibilities will be clarified so that institutions will not have to understand the difference between precision and prescription. For the best of intentions we scheduled it at 9 AM Eastern. I live on the West Coast so that started the call at 6 AM - which meant getting up even earlier because I had to review the draft documents. (I am not complaining, just commenting.)

One positive thought came to mind as I was jumping out of bed at o'dark thirty, in the late 1980s I worked on the development of a specialized insurance company that was housed in Bermuda. There the 9 AM conference calls started on the West Coast at 5 AM.