No quick fixes

As a software engineer, I always admire those talented guys that know how to reuse a third party application to meet their needs. Some engineers do it fast. For some it takes hours or days. And the rest just re-invent the wheel. Fedor Taikan is one of the fast guys. My first encounter with him was when I asked him to debug a program that he had developed several years earlier. He looked anything but confident. He was confused and troubled. With his mouth wide open, he paused for a minute, gazing hopelessly at his monitor filled with dozens of other applications running simultaneously. Just as I was about to give up, knowing that it would take Fedor ages to find and fix the problem, he clicked. Then another click. And then another. “Here we go.” he said with his strong Russian accent. It was done. “What a lucky guy” I told myself. I would still consider him lucky hadn’t several similar instances not occurred throughout the four years I worked with him. He indeed was an invaluable asset to our company. He knew how to do “quick fix”.

While this strategy works fine in IT, the question is whether it is a valuable strategy for reputation management, by which we can do “quick fix” the stigma of an ever-growing and influential negative feedback. Well, PR experts will do that for you. With a handsome salary, they can initiate highly effective damage control campaigns. At the end of the day, it is the best way to cure a wounded reputation. Or is it?

Reza Sabernia