We are debuting today with our company blog. It has been several months since the start of IF ONE and the site on our website devoted for the blog was still empty. At the beginning it could be explained by the lack of time - dozens of more or less important matters related to the launch of a new business required our attention. Now, when the company has probably stood on its own feet, no excuses will help. So it's time to start.
On the blog, we will not describe algorithms, tricks, installation methods (similarly to other websites of IT companies). We will not brag about how smart, clever and resourceful we are (we have allocated a different place on the site for that :-)). Our intention is that the blog will simply be a notebook in which we will write down insights on phenomena, people, technology, a bit of computer science, a bit of economics, some finance and management. We will do it primarily for our own use, because day by day important and interesting information get lost - we always want to save this but due to the lack of a pencil and a piece of paper we leave it for tomorrow. However, this "tomorrow" unfortunately (very advanced procrastination) never wants to be ''today''. Of course, we will not restrict access to these notes to outsiders. All we have is at your disposal :-).
Will Barack Obama ever be the reader of the IF ONE blog? Although, as the theory of social networks argues, only six levels divide us from Obama, the odds are rather slim. We have some asset in the name of the company, but probably we can not count that Obama, being nostalgic for the presidency, looking for photos of his favorite airplane on the net, will make a mistake and enter IF ONE in the search engine. For now, the rest of the civilized world is plunged into deep sadness and nostalgia. We know that we will miss him. He delighted us with grace, elegance, personal culture, not treating himself too seriously. We have the impression that the last real statesman, ultimus Romanorum, has left. We feel it especially now, when the barbarians begin to rule our world and the next ones knock at its gates. The Obama presidency's balance is difficult to consider as clearly positive, because it cannot be such. One man, unfortunately, will not fix the world, although it can undoubtedly spoil it. Obama, thankfully, did not spoil us badly, and in many places he made it better. We will not, however, write about his achievements or political failures, because others will do it better. It is impossible not to mention one area in which he was a master - in the art of speaking. It seems that the ability to speak should be an immanent feature of any politician, and it is not a particularly revealing statement that Obama was (is) an excellent speaker. Unfortunately, we have such times today (o tempora, o mores!) that a politician often needs only a few sloppy sentences to pull an audience. It is difficult to say what it results from. Perhaps the modern man, apart from the lost ability to understand the written word, also lost the ability to understand the spoken word? Or maybe the way of speaking is just not important anymore, what is important is to say exactly what others want to hear? In any case, Obama here is a glorious exception. He restored faith in the essence and meaning of the spoken word. He is often compared to Cicero, the famous Roman speaker for whom two military triumphs were less important than well-organized speech. Obama did not have many opportunities for military triumphs during his presidency (and luckily), but he gave dozens of great speeches that, like Cicero's speech, would serve the adepts of rhetoric art for years as unattainable models to follow. From many examples of the excellent presentations of Obama available on the web, we would like to include a fragment of the speech given during the funeral ceremony dedicated to the victims of the shooting at church in Charleston, South Carolina. These two minutes say almost everything about Obama what a speaker he was, what a president he was and what a man he is.
Thank you, Obama, for these eight years and we ask you not to go too far. Everything points to the fact that we will still need you very much. Kajetan Wlazło, 30 January 2017
