The solo operators whose collar would be blue if they ever wore one - need external help in 2 main areas: business administration and ‘learning about business’.
The flow of dollars or yen is the daily constant for the operator, the most pervasive ongoing activity that must ever be 1) managed well and 2) understood better.
Because currency exchange pervades everything else, it is more akin to being an ether and not simply the core element of operating. Therefore, accounting in the common sense (‘counting cash’) and financial literacy in the scalable sense (‘being clever about cash’) are by far the primary aspects of business administration and education.
If we are to have the greatest positive impact for the solo operator (“acceleration of activities”) then our external assistance must be anchored to these aspects.
The building of any grander plan or system with a real chance of success will be based on the plain logic of daily life and classical exchange. Incoming and outgoing, contexts, sources, balances and flows.
For a set of business tools to endure far beyond a few booms, the explicit need to manage and the implicit need for continuous learning should be supported in tandem via a unified architecture that maintains the marriage of these 2 processes.
Let’s keep it simple!
The operator creates 2, and only 2, types of records. Exchange records and notes. Notes are of various kinds about exchanges, people, processes and topics.
We could also word things this way: with the growth of automated digital processes the operator is only required to make 2 types of records. Computers complete calculations.
Exchanges can have one or more notes associated to them but notes can standalone, representing definitions, insights, ideas, opportunities etc. Because we are dealing with the advent of a digital system, such notes may be recorded in other forms besides text (e.g. audio, video, sensor data, etc). These recordings accumulate quickly, they become invaluable to the operator, and they are prone to loss or deletion when saved into regular systems and devices that have represented the norm until now.
The note at its essence is simply a record of anything except for a transaction which requires its own standard treatments. As a note-record in a ‘system for business’ its relevance or value grows as its connections via tags, categories or relationships with other records increases. This is equally true for closed, single-operator systems as it is for linked systems with record sharing amongst operators.
Since business learning (or ‘increased ability for business action’) is the overall purpose for business note-taking, a user must be helped beyond the operational use of notes. We can do this through the provision of private learning pathways that sustain and propel the operator’s individual success over short and long periods of ‘daily life’.
The universal business system we are building according to these principles is named Babb, after computer pioneer Charles Babbage. Like the early works of Babbage, the primary purpose of this system will be the computation of numbers and the performance of mathematics, with note-records and associated data enabling the fine-tuning of calculations and operator analysis.
And, like the lesser known works of Babbage, we see splendid unity in all of man’s actions, as daily life and business life forever weave together to create tomorrow. Exchange in all its forms helps further human processes and human places. ‘Business’ is the simplest and handiest way to describe this grand process of civilization which has its basis in the individual, the family, small groups and the use of advantage in order to grow.
Business is short hand for exchange activities. And Babb is here to help.