The “Psyche” Story

Definition
Psy·che Psy·che (sk)

1. (Class Myth.) A lovely maiden, daughter of a king and mistress of Eros, or Cupid. She is regarded as the personification of the soul.

2. The soul; the vital principle; the mind.

A Company Reinvented

Our company was once known as System Analysis Corporation (SAC), a name that reflected the company's origins as a software consulting firm. Though the company changed its focus to software development with the creation of its first laboratory information system in 1976, the name SAC remained unchanged.

In 1994, our growing software company embarked on another dramatic shift – this one to our company structure. The company shed the traditional hierarchical management structure and adopted instead a hierarchical structure of interlocking teams. These self-directed workgroups have been created to comprise an open environment of discussion on how to best serve our customers (see Corporate Culture ).

This new structure has many advantages. Perhaps most important is that it empowers our people to serve in many places – anywhere their talents are needed, for as long as they are needed. This group system, as we call it, also enables us to be more responsive to our customers and market demands. We can create and remove teams effortlessly as our environment demands it.

While introducing the group system, we had also begun revolutionizing our products, which had previously operated on character cell terminals. Our new products were purely Windows-based, providing a new look and feel for a company founded when minicomputers were the cutting edge of technology. The new make-up of our corporate structure, coupled with the new platform on which our products were based, seemed to signal a reinvention of our former selves – one that commanded a new, more fitting name.

It Started With A Butterfly

One process in nature that seemed to match our total transformation as a company was the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. The caterpillar operates in two dimensions, the butterfly in three. We believe the group system gives us another dimension in terms of structural flexibility. Similarly, the point and click interface, with its ability to hop from one part of a program to another, does much the same. Therefore, it seemed the butterfly, which can go where the caterpillar cannot dream, seemed the perfect symbol for our company. Probably the reverse of how many companies establish a brand, we began to focus on the name only once we had agreed on our symbol.

Upon researching into the butterfly as a symbol, we learned of the Greek goddess Psyche. The legend of Psyche tells of a mortal woman whose unmatched beauty arouses the envy of Venus, the goddess of love. Venus sends her son, Cupid, to shoot an arrow into her rival, hoping that Psyche will fall in love with the first brute that crosses her path. Instead, Cupid finds Psyche so appealing that he plunges the arrow into his own flesh and falls in love with her himself. As the story unfolds, Psyche marries Cupid and becomes a goddess. As the only human to every become immortal, Psyche has come to represent the “spirit” to some, the “mind” to others. [The story of “Cupid & Psyche”.]

The Greeks believed that when people die, their spirits leave their bodies in the form of butterflies. Psyche, goddess of the spirit, became associated with the butterfly and is therefore depicted as a beautiful woman with butterfly wings. There is a butterfly named after Psyche, glaucopsyche lygdamus , the Silvery Blue. With some artistic license, we adopted it as our symbol and Psyche Systems Corporation became our name.