Squaring the Circle - The art of trying to do the impossible

Tags: Technology

Squaring the circle - a famous saying that readily describes the art of trying to do the impossible, but what are its origins you might ask (even if you don't I'm telling you anyway...). You'll probably be surprised (not) that it is mathematical in origin and describes one of the first attempts at calculating pi the irrational number used to calculate the circumference of a circle - 3.14159...

The Egyptian scribe Ahmes (c1650 BC) calculated pi to within 1% of is modern day approximation using the squaring the circle method which is to measure the diameter of a circle by building a square inside the circle. The search for pi has challenged the most famous mathematicians and scientists throughout history including Euler, Newton and da Vinci. Its calculation has much relevance to the modern world and even to the work we do at RESPONSE.

The "squaring the circle" method of understanding pi has fascinated mathematicians because traditionally the circle represents the infinite, immeasurable, and even spiritual world while the square represents the manifest, measurable, and comprehensive world - 2 contrasting worlds that need to be reconciled in all that we do - at RESPONSE whether as an advisor, manager or support staff it's about hitting our numbers while providing an outstanding customer experience. So in essence we are constantly trying to square the circle.

So how do we achieve the great and the efficient if they at times seem to be conflicting priorities? It is about understanding what drives a great customer experience and how we can build that into the realistic parameters that bind us around cost, productivity and quality. Until now we have striven to do this through our own expertise and experience but in this day in age we can only get so far but, like the pi calculation, it is still an approximation. We, however like da Vinci et al, can innovate to allow us the opportunity to improve our ability to deliver a great customer experience within our daily lives.

So how do we innovate?

Like all innovation it is no one thing - as a business RESPONSE is looking to make communication, performance visibility and game changing technology a priority.

So what recent innovations have we seen?

• Enhanced comparative data to review adviser performance
• Speech analytics to help us better understand how we can improve the customer experience
• Our first ever client web portal to allow clients to review performance
• A new automated system to increase the speed of our recruitment processes

Each of these initiatives enables our employees to square their own personal circles, whether it's in software development, customer experience management or providing support to colleagues.

I'll leave you with 2 more useless pieces of trivia on pi

In the Star Trek episode "Wolf in the Fold", Spock foils the evil computer by commanding it to "compute to last digit the value of pi." This is of course impossible as it is an irrational number. Clever bloke that Spock...

And finally anyone who saw me on National pi day on the 14th of March or if written in American date format 3/14 (incidentally Einstein's birthday in 1879) will have seen me wearing a strange t-shirt. On one side it said:

And on the other it said:

...and it was good.

The answer will be revealed next time...

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