It’s still appropriate though. Because that is what we are – thought leaders in open source PostgreSQL. But that’s not what I am here to talk about.
The name “2ndQuadrant” comes from “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey, specifically Habit 3 “Put First Things First”, p.151. It refers to the classification of tasks in terms of 2 axes: Importance and Urgency. The second quadrant is the Important, Not Urgent quadrant. According to Covey, if you concentrate on doing work in that space, it leads to “vision, perspective, balance, discipline, control and few crises” – i.e. you focus on your long-term vision and your ability to execute short to medium term goals is also impeccable.
These are all qualities highly valued by every individual at 2ndQuadrant; so that’s where the name comes from and it’s something that is deeply ingrained in our company culture. Yes, there are fires to be put out from time to time, but our focus is always on the long term benefits. The result is sustained thought leadership for open source PostgreSQL based on customer experience.
These customized experiences have fueled our commitment to continuously contribute features for Clustering, High Availability, Replication, Security, & Performance to the PostgreSQL project over the past decade. Not only that, our focus on Covey’s second quadrant has enabled us to execute projects with a skilled international workforce, sustain a positive cash flow, focus on customers, and deploy a rapid delivery model.
2ndQuadrant is not just our name, it’s the methodology that drives us.