Like many in the developer community, I'm a big fan of Jeff Atwood's blog. He has the rare gift of being a technically sharp guy who can articulate it very well through his writing. Knowing that he works for Vertigo (love their logo) I thought I'd peruse their web site to see what they actually do.
The thing I found most intriguing: their people page. This isn't your typical corporate page that lists the founders, CEO, president, VP, etc. No, no, no. They took a completely different approach. They show pictures of all their employees, but not what they look like today - what they looked like in their youth, and as you hover over each picture it tells you who it is. And not only do they use old photos, but they show you each person's handwriting, their favorite breakfast cereal, something from their office, and an action figure.
My first thought when I saw this was how ingenious. It's a completely out-of-the-box way to show who works for them in a way I've never seen before. What it does is show a human element to their employees, and to the company as a whole, which I think is very important. I mean, think about if you go out to interview with them. You instantly have a way to strike up a conversation based on their favorite breakfast cereal instead of the usual "Nice weather out here" type of crap. You actually get a slight sense of who the person is before you ever meet them. I'd love to know who's idea it was. Ingenious indeed.
It would be very cool if more companies did something like this. Maybe I can get Telligent to follow suit ;-)
Print | posted on Wednesday, October 17, 2007 12:32 PM