I’m still relatively new to the corporate environment, and after the last decade or so of running a small business – I’m accustomed to hustling all day to get things done. One of the things that I continue to wonder is, ‘how do large businesses even make any money?’. I don’t ask the question because I am actually confused as to how – but rather because I see so much waste and repeated work that it still shocks me as to how much they actually make in profits.
I am a small player on a large field in Oracle – and in fact, I’m not even an employee, I’m a contractor. But I love making things better and easier to use. If a piece of software has shortcuts then I’ll find them. If there’s a way to automate my job then I’ll want to do it. If there’s a process that can be made better then you want to watch out because I’m going to make it better.
Standardisation is a way to make things a bit faster, a bit better, a bit easier for people to understand. That’s why processes and systems exist. However there’s one thing that a lot of people find hard – and that’s URLs. Especially at Oracle where I’m currently contracting there are (as my kids would say) a zillion billion dillion googolplex of URLs and software and places to remember.
So I made Orclr.com
It’s a URL shortener – but more to the point it’s a URL standardiser. Pop in a URL, give it a customised name, and out comes a customised, easy to read URL. Using it, I can customise where projects are just by remembering the job name of the project. Because it’s private and fresh – I don’t have to work out names that are available.
Now anyone can create standardised URLs for sharing across projects, across websites, across software. Shorter and easier to read – no need to have a billion bookmarks, or navigate through the very many clicks that are wasting time each day.
Hopefully it can go a small way to helping people in their jobs, and helping reduce wasted time.