I arrived at the staff meeting early for the agency-provided breakfast. I loaded my plate up with a sausage biscuit and some pineapple along-side our CEO.
"Morning, John."
"How ya doin', Jeff?" he replied.
I was stunned. He actually knew me by name. Even with more than 400 people in our company, he matched my face with my name..in an instant. No hesitation. just as if we've been friends for years. He's an amazing man.
The staff meeting was really cool, as usualy. John is such an inspirational speaker. He always seems to have a little (and sometimes hidden) message in his speeches. Today's message was that we all have a creative "drive" that sometimes becomes supressed by the society's assimilation to the "norm".
He took a quick poll of employees: "How many singers do we have?" One, maybe two people raised their hands. "How many dancers do we have?" Again, one..maybe two people. "How many artists do we have?" A few more raised their hands. He then went on to explain that if you were to ask a bunch of kindergardners this question, almost every one them would raise their hands. Because everything in the world is "fresh" to their eyes. And, they don't care whether it's "cool" or "in" to be a singer, a dancer, or an artist. He encouraged us all to try to look at the world with a fresh perspective and not care about the "norms" of society. Almost a direct parallel to the idea behind Apple's Think Different campaign. Personally, I thought the ideas behind John's message were amazing. My guess is that a large percentage of our employees thought it was total crap. Boo to them.
The new Intranet was given a big, big plug and Jack and I were also given a really nice round of applause. It appears as though site usage is already up. A news article with a link to "Discuss this in the discussion forums" yielded more replies than I've ever seen previously. Very nice. I'm going to make an effort to continue the tighter news/discussion forum integration. It seems to be a hit and I think it'll make the site a more interesting place to visit.
The second half of the day was spent at the agency's Creative Director's house hooking up a Linksys router, Airport wireless base station, a PowerBook for him to use at home complete with VPN software so that he can work from at home. You see, this guy works ALOT. Just about every time I've been in there on a weekend, he's been in his office. I'm suprised he still has a wife. He's decided that he really wants to be able to work at home. So, since he IS a partner in the company, he pretty much gets whatever he wants. Even though his computer at work IS a (portable) Titanium PowerBook.
Posted by Jeff at October 10, 2001 11:55 PM
Comments
What was his house like?? Pretty extravagant?
Posted by: Bk at October 11, 2001 01:16 AM
Man, it was amazing. It was a very contemporary house with LOTS of art on the walls and african artifacts sitting around. Lots of nice hardwood and stone floors. It was exactly what I'd expect to be in his house.
Furnishings-wise, it was all of the coolest stuff from LaDiff, Pier One, and Ikea, all rolled into one kick ass house.
Posted by: Jeff at October 11, 2001 09:48 AM
What he should have asked was: If a half a chichen took a half a day to lay a half an egg; how long would it take a 5 legged grass hopper tp kick through a cucomber?
And when asked how are you, you should have said "Super Fantastic". Becaues "super" is an Up Lifting word and gets peoples attention and "fantastic" takes self digninty to say.
He would have been blown by then
Posted by: White Meat at October 11, 2001 11:54 PM
