@madpilot makes

It is important to step back sometimes, and to look at what is going on. It is all too easy to become completely immersed in things in what is going on in your own life, that you forget how lucky you really are.

Today, I went to the launch of the Breast Surgery Gallery – a system that was developed by a uni mate of mine, Patrick MacQuillan as his honours project a couple of years ago. My honours supervisor (David Glance) was Patrick’s supervisor, and he asked me to do a quick re-design for their website before the launch today, which is why I was invited.

It was quite strange – as we walked into the offices, we noticed their was only two other guys there – the rest were woman. Now nothing was explicitly said, but it is pretty safe to say that a majority of the woman there (If not all) had been affected by breast cancer at some point in their lives.

As I was standing there, listening to the presentation, it hit me that these woman have had to deal with something that I could not even begin to fathom. Yet, they were here smiling – genuinely happy to see each other and to witness the official launch of a product that is actually helping people.

David, who has worked in large software companies for many years said something very profound (Maybe more so when you think about it) – he said: it was good to see a piece of software that is helping people.

We have all probably thought that a system we were writing was going to help someone, but not in the same way as this one did. The stuff that we write day-to-day will probably make someones work day more efficient, or allow them to shop more convienently – ironically the sort of stuff that in the whole scheme of things doesn’t really matter. This software was playing a roll in easing the pychological pain of life changing and life saving surgery, helping the suffers on the road to recovery.

It really isn’t often that software does that…