Archimedes and Skinny Dipping

Archimedes was perhaps history’s most notable genius.  He was an astronomer before there were stars.  A mathematician long before it was spelled with that E between math and matician.  And he’s probably my seventh favorite inventor. 

He invented the lever and pulley.  He invented the screw pump.  Incidentally, no one knows what a screw pump is.  Archimedes didn’t even know.  

But clearly, Archimedes' greatest invention was the attachment. 

Prior to Archimedes, nothing was attached.  Think about that for a moment.  Wheels completely separated from your chariot.  Roofs just blew off houses.  No cherry on top.  

Those who say that Archimedes’ discovery of the ‘attachment’ was a stroke of luck aren’t giving him enough credit.  Yes…it happened while he was skinny dipping.  But still, over and over again, Archimedes proved that he was ahead of his time, so let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.  

But, humans messed everything up.  And now, nearly 2400 years later, the attachment has become mostly despised.  Maybe not on cars, roofs or sundaes. But definitely in board materials.   

I was in a board meeting a couple of weeks ago.  I received the board deck on a Sunday night for a Tuesday afternoon meeting.  The company doesn’t use Zeck (yet) so I got a PDF of a PowerPoint.  

On Tuesday, a few hours prior to the live board meeting, I received exactly five emails with ten different attachments.  An updated board deck, updated financial statements, minutes to approve from the prior board meeting, etc.  

There isn’t a person in the world who could have liked getting all those emails with all those attachments.  It’s an insult to Archimedes. Even worse though, during the live board meeting the person ‘driving’ kept going from the deck back to his email to pull up the attachments.  It was all pretty chaotic.  It was actually a terrible board meeting.

Fortunately, Zeck is solving the attachment problem entirely.  Attachments can be great.  As long as you do it the way Archimedes intended. 

Zeck isn’t a deck.  Zeck is a site.  So, if you have docs that accompany your board materials, you don’t have to send ‘em to your board members separately via email or add ‘em as distinct docs to a messy portal.  Instead, you simply upload your attachments right into your Zeck.  Takes about two seconds to make it happen. 

A few examples…

Your HR Director wants to add a PDF of a resume for a potential new hire.  Instead of emailing a separate attachment, she simply uploads the PDF into the Org Update section in Zeck.

Your CFO needs to add your audited financial statements to your next board Zeck.  Again, no separate email attachment is necessary.  No need to add a new document to a clogged portal. She simply uploads the doc to the Financial Update section of your Zeck.  Easy and organized. 

Your Director of Retail wants to add an attachment that shows the 1, 3 and 5 mile demographics for a new potential store location.  Same…he uploads the doc to his section.  Done.  Guessing no one will open it, because unlikely anyone on the board cares about this file, but that’s all the more reason to add the attachment to your Zeck.  It will annoy no one. 

Now…

1. Your board isn’t inundated with an email that includes the board deck plus lots of other attachments or, what’s more typical…five emails prior to the board meeting with ten different attachments.
   
   
2. When your board is preparing for your board meeting, they click through to one site that includes everything.  No more going to email to pull up docs.  No more sifting through a portal. 
   
   
3. During your live meeting, the person ‘driving’ doesn’t have to worry about leaving the presentation.  Everything is there, in order, so the meeting flows perfectly.
   
   
4. During any kind of due diligence, you don’t need to search your email or repository for all the docs that accompanied your board deck.  They’re all stored in your Zeck.  So easy. 
   
   
5. Who do you think would win in a fight?  Steel cage match.  Dua Lipa and Clint Eastwood against Paul Rudd and Jane Lynch?  No need to actually answer that but it’s important to think about.

So, what have we learned?  

• Archimedes loved to skinny dip. 
• With Zeck, the inevitable attachments that accompany your primary content won’t ruin everything. 
• The capital of Brazil is not San Paulo. It’s Brasília. 

I think that covers it. 

Decent Humans at Zeck