Deep Thoughts Coming Soon

No big long deep thoughts today… got kinda wrapped up in having a day off. As more of a “thinking out loud” kind of thing, one of the ideas I’ve had bouncing around has to do with the balance between “good enough” and “minimally acceptable”. One of the things I heard a lot while working at the hospital was “don’t make perfect the enemy of good”. While that’s a wonderful sentiment, and true as most truisms go, it does still manage to miss the point - where’s “good”? Usually it was said while trying to raise the online education up to some minimally reasonable standard as recognized by multiple experts in the field, or at least that’s how I saw it. They saw it as some sort of perfectionist streak run wild. While I’ll admit I have such a streak, I’m usually self-aware enough to see when it’s kicking in and compensate.

I suspect the problem is the same as one I’m seeing elsewhere now - “it was good enough before, so it should be good enough now”. They only saw the online education through the lens of what had come before, and in that context what I was trying to implement was far above what had come before (though very much a baby step in getting the training in line with more current standards). Having said all that, I now see that we were far and away better than the training some other companies are pushing on their employees… but that’s another topic for another day.

I know there’s a way to tie these two things together, and with more illustrative examples. That’s the thought exercise for the next few days.