April 11, 2022
Dear Acumatica Community,
Because my social media posts on LinkedIn and Twitter are about Acumatica, this post is also about Acumatica. This doesn’t mean that I don’t care about other things. It simply means that my focus is on Acumatica when I post on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Back on March 1st, over a month ago (click here), I decided to pause my social media activity. That was a few days after Russia invaded Ukraine.
I did this because the Acumatica community has close ties to Russia and Ukraine. I personally know multiple people in the Acumatica Community who are in Ukraine and Russia and who are directly affected by the current situation.
It didn’t feel right to continue posting about Acumatica on social media as if everything were normal.
So, out of respect for those of you Acumatica people in Ukraine and Russia, I paused my social media activity.
Currently, those of us in the United States can get in a car and drive all the way from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, stopping for gas whenever we need, eating at restaurants along the way whenever we get hungry, and sleeping on soft beds in nice hotels at night.
Those in Ukraine can’t even drive down the street without risking getting hit with a missile from the sky or machine gun fire from Russian soldiers at a checkpoint. Even if they are fortunate enough to survive an assault, where will they stop for gas? Where will they stop for food? And where will they sleep at night? In many places, Ukraine looks like the moon. Uninhabited, desolate, and full of craters left by missile strikes ordered by a barbarian.
Those in Russia have it much better than those in Ukraine, but “better” doesn’t mean “good”. Less than a year ago, completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline seemed inevitable, with Russia acting as a major player on the world stage. Now, sanctions have crippled the economy and Russia is beginning to look a lot like North Korea.
To those of you in the Acumatica Community who are in Russia and Ukraine, my heart goes out to you. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.
I paused my social media activity this past month out of respect for you and for what you’re going through. I viewed this as being similar to a period of mourning on behalf of a loved one.
Today I’m unpausing my social media activity, but that doesn’t mean that the “mourning” period is over. That doesn’t mean that I think that everything is back to normal.
In mourning the death of a loved one, the grief has a permanent impact, many times popping up years later when you least expect it. Things never go back to “normal”, but, for the most part, you gradually learn to live with a “new normal”.
So I’m unpausing my social media, but that doesn’t mean that I’m forgetting about what you’re going through. This flag behind me on my video calls is one reminder.
Industry analysts are looking at Acumatica right now and wondering about the impact of the war in Ukraine on Acumatica’s ability to continue to innovate the product at a rapid pace.
I don’t have inside information on Acumatica’s response to the current situation, but there is plenty of information out there about various companies that are shifting development resources away from Ukraine and Russia.
I personally am less concerned about the impact on the Acumatica product and I’m more concerned about the impact on you and on your families. My heart goes out to you.
For those of you in Ukraine and Russia who are unable to work right now due to the war, my hope for you is that you will be able to return to a normal work situation as soon as possible. Obviously, there are much more pressing concerns, but, again, because Acumatica is the focus of my posts on LinkedIn and Twitter, my comments on the current crises come from a “work” angle.
Those of us in the United States are fortunate enough to be able to work, uninterrupted, as usual. We don’t have to worry about how we’re going to get paid. We don’t have the constant worry of the well-being of family and friends hanging over us.
But we do have a small little battle that we can fight. We can continue to contribute to making Acumatica a stronger product so that those in Ukraine and Russia, who are unable to work right now, will have skills that are in demand once they are able to return to work.
Returning to work is something so small compared to the war, but it’s still something.
Acumatica’s competitors are going to try to take advantage of the current situation. As far as I’m concerned though, worst case Acumatica suffers a setback this year from a development standpoint. Worst case, we might have to wait a little longer for things like .NET Core and a browser-based Report Designer. But the gap between Acumatica and the competition is so great right now that I don’t think there will be a measurable impact.
More importantly, the success of a software product is not just about the product being strong. It’s also about the community being strong.
I personally have experienced this with Microsoft Excel. Product innovation has waxed and waned over the years, but the success of Microsoft Excel in a given year was not directly associated with the number of development resources working on the product in a given year. Why? That’s because of the community component which I would argue is just as important, sometimes even more important, than the product itself.
Microsoft Excel is not only successful because of the technology, it’s also successful because of one simple fact. Anyone can go on Google, search for a business problem, and find a solution to that problem using Excel. That’s all due to content that was generated by a strong community. At the end of the day, business software by itself is useless. It’s the application of business software to business problems that is useful. And it’s the community that discovers those useful applications.
So, to those of you in the Acumatica community who are in Ukraine and Russia, who have built your livelihood on the Acumatica product, your ability to contribute to your economic well-being, and the economic well-being of your family, has been severely affected.
My heart goes out to you.
In unpausing my social media, I’m not forgetting about you. I’m not “moving on” and ignoring what is going on over there.
But, those of us in the Acumatica community who are outside of Ukraine and Russia still have a job to do. We can still contribute to making the Acumatica ecosystem stronger, even if, worst case, development of the Acumatica product suffers this year (again, I have no inside knowledge on this, that’s just my worst case prediction).
By unpausing my social media, I’m contributing to the Acumatica community, doing my small part to make Acumatica a stronger product.
In doing so, my hope for those of you in Ukraine and Russia, who are unable to work right now, is that you’ll have a stronger Acumatica product to return to once you are able to work again.
Sincerely,
Tim Rodman