We have a philosophy at the heart of our work.
Personalized
I don’t think of myself as a technician. I don’t care about “information technology.” I care about people. When I first start working with you, I ask a few questions, and then I listen. I can’t be successful if I don’t understand what you experience when using your computer. I seek to use my creativity and skill to make your technology flow around how you work, rather than the other way around. I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all; instead I believe in custom fit.
Focus
We don’t try to be all things to all people. We do what we’re good at—helping you with Apple products and personal technology. Our company primarily serves residential clients and owners of very small businesses, because that’s where personal connections matter most. If something you ask for is not what we’re good at, then we’ll say so.
Ethics
We don’t BS, we don’t obfuscate, and we hold ourselves to our own high standard of ethical conduct. That’s just who we are, and it’s part of why I started this company to begin with—so that I could run a business according to my own values.
Skill
I’ll be blunt: I kick ass at what I do. I started with an Apple II in 1978, when I was eight years old. My first job out of college was at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino in the late 1990s. I have developed software. And I’ve now been a consultant for 20 years. Personally experiencing the entire arc of personal computing from its very inception guides my daily work and gives me superb intuition as to what is going on inside a computer, or the mind of the engineer who wrote its software.
Empathy
I don’t judge. I don’t believe any particular level of skill with a computer reflects on one’s character. I work with you where you are. If you want more information from me while I’m working, great. If you want less, also great. If you’re feeling anxious, that’s extremely normal, and I just request that you tell me, so I can slow things down. It’s not unusual for a new client to apologize for their self-assessed lack of facility with their computer, but it’s not necessary. We all need each other in this world, and this is what I’m here for.
Privacy
It’s your computer, and we have the utmost respect for that. We don’t care about what’s in your photos, your emails, or anything else on there. We just want it to work for you.
Professionalism
When you work with us, we’re committed to you. If you contact us, we will always get back to you. Given the nature of computers, we can’t always promise how long a given issue will take to get resolved, but we will see it through to the end. We won’t leave you hanging. We always want to be approachable: one of our long-standing clients, in my very earliest days of working with her, said to me, “I like you. You’re normal, and you show up.” I took it as a compliment.
Communication
We know we’re in a field that is littered with jargon, acronyms, and abstract concepts. That shouldn’t be your problem, though. We want our clients to feel in control, and that’s not going to happen if you don’t understand what I’m saying. So we will always make the effort to be clear, and if we’re not, we’ll find a better way to say it.
Pleasure
We always want your experience of working with us to be a pleasure.
This is what you can expect when you work with us, because it’s what we expect from ourselves.
We’re a small shop on purpose—we couldn’t offer our kind of personalized support if we were larger. If we sound like the kind of Apple experts you are looking for, then we’d like to meet you.