Hello Friends

I’m going to presume you have a few questions. At least a few questions.

First, what the heck is this all about?

That question is easy to tackle. I spent almost exactly 25 years (+ a few days) working at Epic Systems Corporation, currently in Verona, Wisconsin, USA. You may not have heard of it. But, there’s a reasonable chance you’ve indirectly encountered it, especially if you’re a resident of the United States or a country where Epic has an established business presence.

Epic has created software for healthcare institutions and enterprises since 1979 in some form or another. It wasn’t till 1992 however that Epic created something noteworthy that would go on to shape the fundamentals of a burgeoning industry and an entirely new type of application (henceforth, I’ll refer to it as Epic as that’s how the company refers to itself, preferring that greatly over the much longer and the mouthful that is Epic Systems Corporation).

Is this really interesting enough to write about?

Sure thing it is! Part of my experience at Epic was living through massive growth. When I started, there were just under 40 total staff. I believe the new number of employees is more than 12 and a half thousand. There are lots of great stories to be told. I hope to hear some from readers as well who have interesting stories they want to share as well!

If you’re interested in what makes Epic “Epic” from a former insider’s perspective at a company that experienced genuinely massive success in a difficult marketplace, then I expect you’ll find the content interesting.

If you work or worked at Epic and wondered about the growth periods … I was there.

What kinds of stories are you going to tell? Are you going to dish dirt?

For starters, I’m not going to be talking dirt directly. I worked there for a long time and learned a lot. While my departure (a topic for later) wasn’t on the best of terms during the middle of the height of the pandemic, there was a lot to like there — and a lot of topics and learnings that anyone could benefit from, but in particular technical staff (software developers and software adjacent roles, including support and infrastructure).

Each Epic post talks about some aspect of life at Epic and has a theme, something that you may be able to apply to your own day to day. It’s not going to show source code (I certainly didn’t take any with me!) or divulge technology that isn’t already known generally or through customers. I won’t talk about specific customers other than one as it was a pivotal point in Epic’s history and made the news a lot at the time (and I was heavily involved). I won’t talk about employees with the exception of Judy and maybe one or two others that are known in the industry. It’s hard to talk about Epic without Judy.

More importantly, this is my story and my experience at Epic. It’s certainly won’t be like anyone else’s as I was there during a unique growth time and had a number of unique responsibilities.

I still have friends that work at Epic and I met many more over my years there. I expect I’ll get some messages from current and past employees asking for the “inner details” about some of the topics I mention here. But, I want them to be eager to learn too, and not treat these as just stories about their employer.

That all being said, not every day and everything Epic does is of course merit-worthy. I have a fair share of topics that relate to some frustrating aspects of Epic culture and stubborness that I plan to share.

How frequently will you write?

When my inspiration, motivation, and availability come together … boom. My goal is approximately weekly I’ll post an “Epic” focused topic unless someone sends me a topic idea that I’m eager to discuss immedately.

How many posts are you going to write about Epic?

I won’t know until I’m finished writing. I have more than 80 topics noted in my queue. Some are long and may be divided into sub-topics, and others are brief and to the point. But, I expect some of you may suggest topics that I’ll write about as well.

Why now?

Oh my! Because I wanted to write this for a long time and finally decided to do it before the memories start to fade more. The topics I picked I’m excited about still and I want to use that excitement so I can better convey my experience and what I learned. As could be expected, if I’m enjoying something, I’ll put more time and effort into it.

What else will you talk about?

For starters, you may be weary of reading criticisms and complaints seemingly endlessly on the Internet as much as I am. I get it, Gloom and Doom gets click-throughs to advertisement driven web sites. Rallying a crowd around controversy, celebrating an unpopular opinion can all lead to more traffic and maybe more money in the pocket of the author or the aggregator as in the case of Facebook.

I specifically choose to avoid content like that as much as possible. It’s unhealthy.

There’s so much more to celebrate, and honestly, it can be just as interesting (or more so!), but it rarely drives the same numbers for engagement. Social media algorithms are tuned to keep you there as long as possible. They can keep their algorithms while I create content that I’d like to read and ideally you, my new reader.

This will be a positive place on the internet as much is possible (sometimes I won’t be able to hold my breath and may express some frustrations).

But who are you?

For the basics about me check out the about page.

For the Epic story, start here!