Inside the Nerdery » Media Coverage

TECHdotMN talks with Nerds & Nonprofits about upcoming Webchallenge

Jodi Chromey — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:54:46 +0000

Nerds Nerds Mark and Eric along with Jan Hansen from Educate Tanzania sat down with the folks at TECHdotMN to talk about the Overnight Website Challenge.

In this short video Mark covers the history of the Webchallenge, Eric offers advice to web pros looking to participate, and Jan Hansen discusses the impact the new webchallenge-created website has had on her organization. Take a look.

Also, just a reminder, the application deadline for nonprofits & web pros is February 27th. Sign up today!

The Nerdery gets some recognition for untraditional recruiting efforts

Jodi Chromey — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:21:34 +0000

Head on over to Finance & Commerce for a great post about how LinkedIn, Twitter, even craigslist can help recruit job candidates (it’s also a good read for job seekers too). Of course, we point you to this post because it’s got some find quotes from David, our own Nerd Hunter, and Hilary, an internal producer who had this to say about Nerdery recruitment:

“Our site is designed to show off our culture but also our capabilities. We have a casual dress code and free soda, but we’re also advanced in terms of technology, and we hire people who have a passion about that. Our site helps to showcase what we offer.”

Speaking of what we have to offer, you should RSVP for our Open House & Spirit Showcase on February 2nd. This is where you can come and tour The Nerdery, talk to our Nerd Hunters about working here, check out some of our clubs, and, best of all, participate in (or watch) the Talent Show. You can get more details and RSVP on Facebook.

Friday Links: Nerdery ranked #11 on Biz Journal’s Fast 50 list

Jodi Chromey — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:52:00 +0000

The Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal announced its annual rankings of fastest growing private companies in the Twin Cities and we’re super pumped to say we’ve made it for the fourth consecutive year! With 2010 revenue of $14.2 million and a two-year growth rate of 119% we came in at #11 on the 2011 Fast 50 List.

Sweet!

Kris Szafranski, The Nerdery’s director of software development, spilled the following beans regarding the company’s success to Biz Journal assistant managing editor Kim Johnson. Subscribers, take a look at what Kris had to say. Non-subscribers? You can head over to the News section for the full scoop.

Now, on with the links.

Jason Kottke picks his favorite tributes to Steve Jobs.
This is a good one too. Brian Kam formerly of Gizmodo, Steve Jobs was always kind to me or regrets of an asshole.
This UX/UI t-shirt is totally badass.
Unicorns and Wheels: Apples two types of products.
Brands customers are most loyal to.
The Cult of LEGO, a coffee table book for LEGO fans.
In case you missed this earlier in the week, a father captures his son’s reaction to the big reveal in “Empire Strikes Back.”
Cheese or Font, much more difficult than you’d expect.

Life in the fast lane

Jodi Chromey — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:17:56 +0000

Today the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal decided to check in with some of the companies they named to their Fast 50 list. If you don’t remember we were ranked #14. During the check up they asked seven companies three questions: What has been something great that has happened at your company in 2011? What has been the biggest challenge so far this year? Is there something new you tried that has allowed you to continue to thrive in this difficult economy?

If you’re a subscriber you can head right on over to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal to take a look at how the seven companies are doing.

How are we doing? Fabulous, I’m glad you asked. You can read all about it over in the News section.

And to whet your appetite, here’s one of the great things thing CEO Mike Derheim said happened 2011: The expansion of The Nerdery’s office, specifically the Luke J. Bucklin Nerditorium Hall.

“We also use the Nerditorium to hold our traditional Friday afternoon ‘Bottle Cap Talk,’ at which we celebrate weekly good deeds through staff shout-outs and see the debut of a recently-launched web project,” said Nerdery CEO Mike Derheim. “It’s like show-and-tell for nerds with a happy hour feel to kick-off the weekend.”

Friday Links: Old Navy’s grammar gaffe & the best comics of all time

Jodi Chromey — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 19:50:20 +0000

Steve Jobs resigned from Apple earlier this week, this tribute is the best, seriously go look at the pictures. Also 11 unusual ways Jobs made Apple the world’s most-admired tech company.
The East Coast is currently freaking right out about Hurricane Irene. To partake in a little of their excitement, read How a hurricane gets named.
The 115 best comics of all time.
Old Navy hates apostrophes.
The Social Media Intern.
Web surfing helps at work. Duh.

Finally, I missed this last week after we were named Best Place to Work. Take a look at around 1:45.

2011 Best Places to Work in Minneapolis-St. Paul: MyFoxTWINCITIES.com

Four-peat: The Nerdery makes Inc.’s list of fastest-growing private companies

Jodi Chromey — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 18:18:13 +0000

After $14.2 million in 2010 revenue and 256% growth-rate over the last three years, Inc. Magazine put The Nerdery at #1156 on their list of fastest-growing private companies. We also ranked #17 on the Top 50 businesses in Minnesota list, as well as #96 on the Top software companies list.

This is our fourth year on the list and we’re pleased as punch! Want to know more about the methodology and what CEO Mike Derheim had to say about our ranking? Head on over to the press room. Want to work here? Head on over to the Jobs section.

Survey says: Two-time winners

Mark Malmberg — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 20:13:26 +0000

Best Places to Work

The Nerdery

#1 Medium Company

Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal

Provided by the Nerdery

The Nerdery hosts week-long summer and winter Pentathanerd competitions. Above: The winning team in January’s inter-office ‘Olympics for nerds’ celebrates.

From the desk of Mike Derheim, CEO…

What are some benefits and/or rewards that help keep your employees motivated and engaged?
We empower everyone to make their mark on our company and culture. We want them to aspire to be a Co-President. The late great Luke Bucklin was the only President we’ll ever have, and Co-President was what he called us – all of us – before we lost him. In one of Luke’s last all-staff emails he wrote: “Put your business card on the desk in front of you. Look at it … This card does not define you. You are a Co-President. You are bigger than your defined role … Play your part – transcend your job title, be a hero.”

How do you celebrate employee performance?
Every week we compile a video of shout-outs, with employees publicly praising their fellow nerds for going above and beyond. Five shout-out recipients are chosen for free lunches the following week. We play our weekly shout-out video at our Friday afternoon Bottlecap Talk, where we also celebrate the successful launch of a recent project with a show-and-tell demo led by the rockstar developers who made it happen.

What are some of your workplace gatherings?
We have an all-company monthly meeting called The Nerdery MindMeld at which we discuss everything from company direction to emerging technology to workplace culture. MindMeld agendas are shaped by the most pertinent inter-Nerdery staff discussions happening in real-time on The Buzz, our internal online forum where we speak our minds with respectful candor based on a social contract we have with each other. The senior leaders of our company firmly believe in distributed leadership throughout The Nerdery, and to achieve this we crowd-source solutions by tapping the considerable brainpower and passion within our community.

Name companywide or company sponsored charitable endeavors:
Besides The Nerdery Overnight Website Challenge, we also support a distributed computing initiative called World Community Grid, in which people around the world download and run software to band together large supercomputers that work to further scientific research. World Community Grid’s mission is to create the world’s largest public computing grid to tackle projects that benefit humanity. While World Community Grid has multiple initiatives, we are investing in servers and programs dedicated to furthering cancer research.

What does having fun at work mean to you? How do you carry that energy over to client relationships?
We’re doing what we do best and loving it, and that’s infectious in a good way. Our vision statement is: ‘We will be the best place in the world for web nerds to work – a destination employer for the brightest people with a reputation for putting cutting edge technologies to work on interesting projects.’ Striving toward this is as big a win for our partners as it is for us. We want people who blur the line between work and play. To us, partnering with creative minds and big thinkers to engineer and execute their interactive projects is also just the simple act of following our bliss.

“It starts with loving what we do, and this is incredibly infectious.” – Bill Stephenson, chief financial officer of The Nerdery

Best Places to Work: Winner and Still Champion

Mark Malmberg — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 18:08:02 +0000

Tomorrow’s Biz Journal contains today’s top Nerdery story: The Nerdery ranks #1 on the Best Places to Work list of medium-sized companies for the second year in a row. Yay, us (and please still buy a paper).

We’ve hastily stolen Nerdery front-end developer Frost Simula’s acceptance speech, lifted by permission earlier this summer from his personal blog.

Also well worth repeating is the late great Luke Bucklin’s famous “I told you so!” memo from when we topped last year’s list.

We take this cool-workplace thing pretty seriously. This is like winning the Super Bowl to us. Again. Somebody pinch me. More good-natured gloating to come.

P.S. We’re hiring.

Friday Links: Study finds 1 in 3 want a new job, they should come to The Nerdery

Jodi Chromey — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 15:48:25 +0000

Study: 1 in 3 Workers Wants a New Job: MyFoxTWINCITIES.com

10 brands that won’t be around in 2012. A few surprises on here. I don’t want to give away too much, but if you’re one of those that’s gotta have your Pops, you should get them now.
101 gadgets that changed the world. The list includes duct tape, bras, super soakers, and more fishing gear than you’d have expected.
Take a peep at The Skitttles brand book. No, Really.
Pop culture dollars.
How hangovers work (warning the video auto plays).
The 10 funniest commercials of all time.

Once again, The Nerdery is a top Workplace in the Minnesota

Jodi Chromey — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 19:54:50 +0000

Yesterday, the StarTribune published its list of 100 Top Workplaces in Minnesota, and The Nerdery ranked #4 on the list for mid-sized companies. Additionally, they singled us out for going above and beyond, by providing nerds with tons of opportunities and the ability to create their dream job within the company.

At the awards ceremony, Mark Seemann accepted the award on our behalf and gave a small speech about working at The Nerdery:

You can read his remarks below:

“I am a programmer. If that’s all I did, this will be a boring speech. Well it might be anyway. As a programmer, I make stuff for the web and mobile devices. I love to solve problems. I love puzzles and games. I’m an introvert, fighting the urge to run and hide from all these p-people. I’m smart and talented. I love my job at The Nerdery.

So far, everything I’ve said could just as well be spoken by a dozen other people at the Nerdery. [Aside:] Why just a dozen? Well, we are Nerds – we’re not good at public speaking.

But we are good at our jobs. We’re reminded constantly that we are the best and brightest. We are the rockstars. The ones clients turn to for cutting-edge technology solutions that no one else has even thought of before. But that’s not all.

As Nerds, we are also encouraged to transcend our role, to have the strength to get up and do what needs to be done as Garrison Keillor puts it. Or as we call it, being a Co-President. This was a title given to us in one of the last all-staff emails by the late Luke Bucklin, who will always be remembered as the President of the Nerdery. From that same email, he said: “You are bigger than your defined role, and you are much more than your job title.”

Some examples: I helped popularize chess games over lunch every day. I’m the founder of the semi-annual Pentathanerd Games, five competitions held over lunch at work to test our nerdy skills. I’m a co-founder of the company newsletter, The Werd (spelled like Nerd but with a W). It provides transparency on what’s happening in The Nerdery, from the Executive Committee all the way down through events to the clubs. We have a bunch of clubs for people with an interest in game development or knitting.

But there are other examples. Like, another developer that saw a need and started up the User Experience department. After a year, it now employs more than a dozen people. Our Office Manager was our first receptionist. The vice president of Marketing was originally hired as a graphic designer. The VP of Development was hired as a web developer, just like me.

Since it’s our Co-president nature just as much as our Nerd-given abilities that earned us this recognition, I’m here, in place of Mike Derheim, the CEO of The Nerdery, to let you know why.

Because I’m just a programmer, but I’m more than a programmer.

I am a co-president.

Thank you.”