One of the things I love about Ismael Ghalimi is he is an absolute nut… in a cool, brilliant way.  He launched the modern BPM era about 10 years ago (BPMN was one result of that) but his company Intalio never quite reached escape velocity. Sometime last year he started a new venture STOIC, a tool that allows end users with no more than Excel-formula skills to build mobile/web apps.  There is a “process-ish” aspect to it, but it does not purport to be BPM (although I bet it could do a lot of ACM).  For some reason, STOIC took their launch roadshow to a hipster hotel in West Hollywood, and – amazed that any tech company would try to plow the barren fields of SoCal – I had to check it out.  I was intrigued enough to drop $50 in his Kickstarter bucket, and now I’m told that my “instance” is almost ready.  Today’s missive says:

When you get your STOIC instance, you should expect nothing to work.

The great stoic philosophers knew that one of the keys to happiness was to constantly practice negative visualization. In essence, always planning for the worse to happen, then enjoying the fact that in most cases, it would not (Cf.A Guide to the Good Life).

At STOIC, we practice this ancient teaching on a regular basis. In everything we do, we try to imagine the worse case scenario, and plan around it. Today, I would like you to do the same, as you’re about to get your hands on your STOIC instance.

When I try something really new, this is my own philosophy as well, but I’ve never had the courage to ask my customers to accept it.  Ten years ago, this was the state of BPM.  Eventually it all works.