Embracing a Vision for Impact

The beautiful thing about living with a vision for a while, repeating it often, striving towards it, is how you grow into your voice expressing it.

Our vision statement was “to help build a brighter future for our planet and for generations to come”

The strength of it is the challenge it always presents me to think expansively about what “makes business sense” and on what timeframe.

But I’ve fallen for what is in effect a paraphrase I jotted down at one point: “make a positive impact in our communities and on our planet through the software we build and the people we help”

The full mission statement (purpose and vision) becomes

We unlock human potential by engineering better systems ~ to ~ make a positive impact in our communities and on our planet through the software we build and the people we help.

It feels true to the intent. It feels achievable over time. Stride is a community. Our neighborhoods and our industy are communities - humanity is a community.

It echos the purpose statement. The full mission contains three polarities that balance people and something more abstract: human potential and systems, communities and planet, software and people. So, it hits our differentiator hard which is balancing technical craft with emotional intelligence. Efficacy with empathy.

It also reminds us to build our resources so we can engage more with communities of color, women technologists and other underrepresented or under resourced groups.

So, with time, growth, and the support of my coworkers, we have a new vision statement.