Every time that is my week to write a blog, I try to think of something to write about and that inevitably ends up with me asking myself questions. Questions about myself, questions about society, questions about the Irish frame of mind, and that in turn always leads me to ask the reader a question too. And this week has been no different. My question for you this week is;
Why do we do what we do?
Do we need a reason to do what we do, other than we feel that it is the right thing to do, and that we have the ability to do it?
I’ll explain where my question comes from before I explain my answer.
I was at an exhibition recently, where multiple entrepreneurs where explaining their ideas and companies to each other. There were people who created organisations for the elderly, organisations to help deal with depression, organisations to create social activities for young people that don’t involve alcohol and while the list goes on with wonderful ideas, each and every one of the entrepreneurs had a personal connection to the problem they were trying to solve. So when it came to my turn to explain CyberSmarties, I explained who we are, what we do, and why we do it, and I could see by the faces of my fellow entrepreneurs that they were expecting to hear a different story. They were expecting to hear my personal journey, or how cyberbullying has affected me. They wanted to know my personal connection to the problem we try to solve. And the truth is that I don’t have a personal connection. I was never a victim of cyber-bullying.
And that is where my question arose from. Do we need to have a personal connection to a problem to try and solve it? Does that have to be the WHY we are doing it, rather than because we have the ability to do it?
My answer is no.
CyberSmarties is first and foremost a tech company. We could develop technology for any industry but when the company was founded, as a team we decided that we would use our technology to solve social issues. We decided that this was the company vision, not because we were crusading do- gooders but because we could and ethically it was a direction we all wanted to follow. We have created and will continue to create a safe and secure online platform for primary school kids, but more importantly, with our technology we CHOSE to solve a social problem. We choose to tackle cyber bullying not because of its effects on us, but because we have the ability and the desire to make a difference. We do what we do because we can.
And that is why I ask you the reader to ask yourself the same question.
Why do you do what you do?