Under the guidance of Dr. Paul Farmer
Dear Reader,
Every so often you read a book that touches your soul.
When I was 25 years old and living in rural Vietnam, I happened across Tracy Kidder's book on Dr. Paul Farmer called Mountains Beyond Mountains. Dr. Paul Farmer was a Harvard trained doctor who worked to build high quality medical services on behalf of the poor, especially in rural Haiti. At the time of reading the book, I was helping to build a bank for female rice farmers and I had a lot of trouble reconciling the comforts and liberties of my life with those we were serving who were some of the country's most marginalized. I was also trying to figure out how to scale a microfinance bank, whilst also wanting to help our beneficiaries on an individual level.
Last week, I reread this book that had helped shape me at that pivotal time, and I saw how enduring his lessons have been in my journey with Odetta.
Dr. Paul Farmer taught us that if you focus on individual patients, you cannot get sloppy. What this means is that your individual customers, the people you serve, can and must lead your way, and that it is appropriate to do the “unscalable” and spend time on the individual needs of those you serve. I know that as long as we build with the Odettians true needs in mind, we will not be living in ivory towers and we will build a product in service of those we care about most. In doing so, our Odettians will delight our business customers and Odetta will flourish. Whenever we have to decide where to spend our profits, Dr. Paul Farmer’s story reminds me over and over to move away from power, money, and personal advancement towards serving those who need you most. This one is not easy to maintain, but I do the best I can.
Farmer noticed the nuns dedicating themselves to simple tasks for the benefit of migrant workers, and he became convinced that embracing what he described as "unglamorous scut work" is the cornerstone of achieving great outcomes. I think of this every time I roll up my sleeves to do some menial task that is the job of every founder I know - - and I celebrate when our Odettian leaders do the same. The ability to perform unglamorous scut work is how we improve processes and make breakthroughs.
Many outside forces will ask you to give up on your mission and your values along the way. Why source your leaders from the places you serve, instead of opting for more traditionally sourced candidates? Why not take on this highly lucrative content moderation work that is only a bit inappropriate for work? Dr. Paul Farmer taught me that it is easy to be a cynic in our world, and harder to build systems that align with your values. Do not let others denounce your sensitivity as being naive.
Throughout the world, there are people and places left out and left behind. However, their spirit remains unbroken. They just want someone to give them a chance, and they will leave their mark on the world.
Thanks for joining us in what we do,
Katharine
Use Case: Marketing Analytics and Data Support
A very common challenge facing our clients’ is that their operational process is moving faster than what their engineering teams can keep up with and so human teams are a must. Marketing is often the last to get engineering support. The marketing data is often sitting in Google Sheets and needs to be compiled into dashboards for use. Odetta collects and cleans the data and presents it weekly in dashboards to relevant stakeholders. Because there is some stuff that may never get automated, Odetta runs multiple workflows to help our client keep up pace with the demand.