This may be interpreted by some as advertising, and for those who do, I will not defend otherwise. But the relevance of the subject matter should be of interest to all as translated into principles, whether a name is attached or not.
Those of you who been gracious enough to listen to me have known how I feel about small, hard-working companies trying to compete in a world with giant corporate conglomerates. Many of us perceive that The Tax Book is such a company itself. I took the time on August 4 to make the 5-hour drive to Franklin, NC, home of Drake Software to present an idea for possible programming changes.
I am only one customer among the 36,000+ preparers that use Drake to file taxes. I was treated as if I were the only customer in the whole world. Two management-level people who know how to treat visitors ushered me into the complex, and sat down to listen to my ideas. This was not a "Thank You sir, we'll look at it and be in touch, and Bye Now" session. This was a serious and candid reception of ideas, replete with upside/downside analysis, and implementation techniques.
This visit took on unexpected dimensions. After at least an hour spent in the above discussion, I was invited to lunch at a fashionable buffet. The eating facility had been an abandoned factory bought by the Drakes and converted to a restaurant/children's play complex. At the "factory" both Warren Drake and Phil Drake made their way through the crowd to meet me and welcome me to Franklin.
After lunch I was offerred a tour of the various Drake campuses. The fashionable mountainside facility is the just the latest - there are at least three more buildings in the downtown area that house the remainder of Drake operations. The array of product development and customer service is mind-boggling. Just the sheer number of developers required by the various 50 states soaks up large numbers of people and facility space. The company appears to have an affinity for old Franklin buildings which have fallen into economic demise, and then remodeling and restoring them to modern productive use.
How are Drake customers protected in the event of power shortage? Two stories in the downtown corporate office are dedicated to this solution. A massive investment in Uninterruptible Power Supply equipment and simultaneous recovery servers boggles the mind, and I had the pleasure of listening to their manager explain it to me in plain English. To answer the above question? It's simply not going to happen! There is infinitely more to what makes your software and e-filing work than what can be imagined.
I prefer to think of Drake as a small company in the land of giants. I remember in the late 70s reading that tax laws change too fast for software to keep pace - IBM, NCR, other giants were telling us this. Somewhere in the midst of this mis-media Phil Drake and his siblings were toiling away in a small mountain town proving that it could be done.
Lest anyone be misled, Drake is no longer a small company. They employ over 500 people and have substantial investments in the Franklin area. They also own "D-net", a local internet service provider which services at least 5 counties in the western NC area. But the small-company mentality of sound growth, and customer service, is still alive and well, and the Drake family remembers the early days when ethical and economic principles were all that kept the company afloat.
Is this advertising? Is it a "plug?" Probably, and I won't defend otherwise. One thing is for sure, however-- Drake does not need plugs such as this to succeed. This is also a chronicle of how a hard-working small focused company can prosper and grow by keeping their economic and ethical values in place.
Those of you who been gracious enough to listen to me have known how I feel about small, hard-working companies trying to compete in a world with giant corporate conglomerates. Many of us perceive that The Tax Book is such a company itself. I took the time on August 4 to make the 5-hour drive to Franklin, NC, home of Drake Software to present an idea for possible programming changes.
I am only one customer among the 36,000+ preparers that use Drake to file taxes. I was treated as if I were the only customer in the whole world. Two management-level people who know how to treat visitors ushered me into the complex, and sat down to listen to my ideas. This was not a "Thank You sir, we'll look at it and be in touch, and Bye Now" session. This was a serious and candid reception of ideas, replete with upside/downside analysis, and implementation techniques.
This visit took on unexpected dimensions. After at least an hour spent in the above discussion, I was invited to lunch at a fashionable buffet. The eating facility had been an abandoned factory bought by the Drakes and converted to a restaurant/children's play complex. At the "factory" both Warren Drake and Phil Drake made their way through the crowd to meet me and welcome me to Franklin.
After lunch I was offerred a tour of the various Drake campuses. The fashionable mountainside facility is the just the latest - there are at least three more buildings in the downtown area that house the remainder of Drake operations. The array of product development and customer service is mind-boggling. Just the sheer number of developers required by the various 50 states soaks up large numbers of people and facility space. The company appears to have an affinity for old Franklin buildings which have fallen into economic demise, and then remodeling and restoring them to modern productive use.
How are Drake customers protected in the event of power shortage? Two stories in the downtown corporate office are dedicated to this solution. A massive investment in Uninterruptible Power Supply equipment and simultaneous recovery servers boggles the mind, and I had the pleasure of listening to their manager explain it to me in plain English. To answer the above question? It's simply not going to happen! There is infinitely more to what makes your software and e-filing work than what can be imagined.
I prefer to think of Drake as a small company in the land of giants. I remember in the late 70s reading that tax laws change too fast for software to keep pace - IBM, NCR, other giants were telling us this. Somewhere in the midst of this mis-media Phil Drake and his siblings were toiling away in a small mountain town proving that it could be done.
Lest anyone be misled, Drake is no longer a small company. They employ over 500 people and have substantial investments in the Franklin area. They also own "D-net", a local internet service provider which services at least 5 counties in the western NC area. But the small-company mentality of sound growth, and customer service, is still alive and well, and the Drake family remembers the early days when ethical and economic principles were all that kept the company afloat.
Is this advertising? Is it a "plug?" Probably, and I won't defend otherwise. One thing is for sure, however-- Drake does not need plugs such as this to succeed. This is also a chronicle of how a hard-working small focused company can prosper and grow by keeping their economic and ethical values in place.
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