Creating Environments That Optimize Creativity and Inspiration. Today’s article takes a look at how to help maximize creative thought by carefully structuring the environment around you. Everything from the design of your office to the specific hours of the day that you choose to work can play a key role in how effective you are when it comes time to actually get things done. The essence of creativity plays a very important role in art and design. When building any piece of work you’ll want to focus not only on your mood but also atmosphere, ambiance, and emotions. Mindset is key and plays one of the most important roles out of the creative process. Consider some of your favorite designs or artists.
I’ve gotten into a few ideas regarding workflow and regaining power over your projects. Empowering your Creative Side Often times I’ll read or hear about people questioning their artistic skills. Society tends to lump these folks together, although there’s a lot more in common than creative thinking. Sounds pretty convoluted I know. Developing Personality. How GitHub Works: Creativity is Important. We want to foster a creative environment. We love it when employees hack on side projects. It gets people excited. Excitement is contagious, and spreads easily from one project to another. Even if we'll never make money on that side project, the excitement generated from it can bleed into things that will make us money. Alcohol It's no secret that there's more than a few people at GitHub who like to drink.
We meet people. We meet each other. We brainstorm. Encourage different GitHub's primarily a Ruby shop: most of the developers use Ruby full-time and most of our projects use Ruby. We're setting up an Arduino shop in the office for those of us who have never done meatspace programming projects. The point is to get people interested in a lot of different areas of life.
Creativity means self-direction One of the initial questions Chris asked that led to this blog post was I'm sure anyone can't just write whatever they want. We're hiring. How do you create a corporate culture from scratch? | 30 Second MBA. Startup Culture: Values vs. Vibe.
I hear some form of the following question a lot from founders that are starting to have early success: “How do we hire a bunch of new people and grow the company quickly without losing the culture we’ve worked so hard to establish?” I’ve been fascinated by different company cultures for as long as I can remember (maintaining culture is also a hot topic at our CEO Lunches each month) and I’m frequently asking entrepreneurs to describe the culture of their companies. Over time I’ve come to realize that when you break down culture descriptions you’ll often find a mix of two components: values and vibe.
Although each component can have a significant impact on the overall feel of a company, the way you establish and manage the two should be different. Values I think of values as the guiding principals or a code-of-conduct upon which a company was founded and which it operates on a daily basis. The people you hire will come with their own set of values. Vibe. Six Key Principles to Set Your Startup Culture. May 6, 2011 by Marty Zwilling I’m seeing a renewed appreciation of culture and values in business these days. Maybe it’s just another example of nature abhorring a vacuum, but I prefer to think it’s a natural evolution of the pervasive social networking communities, where people relate to and expect to interact with businesses and products they like.
They drive the market, rather than the other way around. Your values as you create a startup are the key to creating an enviable culture that attracts more customers, according to Ann Rhoades, in her book “Built on Values.” I believe in a startup culture that strongly transmits the values of integrity, customer focus, and results. You can’t force culture, you can only create environment. Startups are the only businesses able to set their culture and values from a clean slate.
Strategy matters, but without a winning culture and the right values to drive it forward, your strategy will take you nowhere. Other articles by Marty Zwilling. 20 rules of thumb for building a great startup culture. (Editor’s note: Scott Weiss is the former co-founder and CEO of IronPort Systems. He submitted this column to VentureBeat.) Developing a good, healthy culture is extremely important at a startup. Culture reflects the essence of a startup’s operation because it directly affects the success of a company’s hiring practices and overall strategy.
It is, at its core, essentially a set of shared norms and a key source of strength and guidance when a startup goes through those virtually inevitable trying times.Some fundamental practices are obvious “must-dos” in building a strong culture. You must, for example, work to engender trust. As a decision maker, you rely on information being passed to you by the people who report to you. As the CEO, however, you cannot rely solely on this information. While these points create the core foundation for a good culture, it’s just the beginning. Personally interview every new employee until the startup has 50 employees. How To Create A Celebratory Startup Corporate Culture. Marc Bolan, lead singer of T. Rex, was a modestly talented glam rocker during the early 1970s who lyrically never had much to say. However, when he sang, “Bang a Gong, Get It On,” he hit upon a key entrepreneurial principle without even realizing it.
If you haven't already subscribed yet, subscribe now for free weekly Infochachkie articles! For What The Bell Tolls One of your most important duties at your adVenture is to communicate and celebrate your company’s small wins. Just because a deal is small in absolute terms does not mean it is insignificant. At Expertcity (creator of GoToMyPC and GoToMeeting, acquired by Citrix), I recall running down the hall high-fiving members of my sales team while yelling, “Booyah!”
To celebrate our wins at Expertcity, we installed a large iron bell in our tiny kitchen, which was comprised of a filthy microwave, an ancient espresso machine and a dorm-size refrigerator with a broken door handle. The Bell rules were simple. The Bell was not my idea. Don’t Drink Your Own Kool-Aid. This is a cross post from the Altos Ventures Blog, authored by Anthony Lee. Thanks Anthony for letting us reblog!
In my twenty years of working in and with startups, I’ve continually tried to figure out what makes some work and others not. There are myriad factors of brilliance, determination, luck and timing that go into the success equation. One of the most important and overlooked characteristics of successful entrepreneurs is objectivity: the ability to see and deal with reality in making decisions. By their nature, startups are driven by passion, optimism, persistence, hope and dreams. Company founders and CEOs get employees, customers and investors to take innumerable leaps of faith on the way to fulfilling their entrepreneurial visions.
Here are three signs that you might be doing it: 1. 2. 3. How can you avoid drinking too much of your own Kool Aid? 1. 2. 3. And just for fun… the following video was added by Christine.