Nerdery Culture

The Nerdery ranked #1 on list of Best Places to Work

In case you haven’t heard The Nerdery was ranked #1 on Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal’s Best Places to Work list.

The rankings were determined by employee surveys created by Quantum Workplace, which reported the results to the Business Journal. We topped the list of medium sized companies – those with 101 to 1,000 employees – that do business within the Twin Cities thirteen-county metro area.

The nerds had a lot of nice things to say about working at The Nerdery, including:

“Every day I wake up and actually look forward to going to work. I know that my opinion matters, what I do matters and that I am valuable to the company.”

We take our Nerdery culture seriously, and that makes winning this award a great honor.

Want more? Take a look at what Nerdery leaders had to say and get a few tips on how to create a rocking workplace.

Nerds in the News: Revenge of the Nerdery

Brendan Sullivan, Star Tribune

Head on over to the StarTribune to read the latest about Nerdery culture and how we like to keep nerds happy and engaged while they work. We told you this was an awesome place to work (and we’re hiring).

As such perks suggest, the company goes out of its way to be as nerd-friendly as possible. The goal at the Nerdery, founded by three programmers in 2003, is to attract other programmers who like collaborating and learning from each other as they tackle seemingly impossible projects. The results have paid off, including placing sixth among small companies, those with 150 employees or fewer, in the Star Tribune’s recent Top Workplaces project.

Go read the entire article so you can find out who called one of the projects we worked on “magic.”

This trail ain’t no game

This trailer for a faux movie version of Oregon Trail will make you laugh.

P.S. you should check out our very special Bottlecap talk featuring our own John Krenz and other programmers who worked on the original Oregon Trail game.

Pentathanerd Summer Games Wrap

To manage the expectations of Pentathanerd’s casual fans, the video below contains footage of Air Quote Quiz Show contestants reciting pi from memory (and rambling off as many digits as possible). Nerdery historians will consider this must-see TV, as will Pentathanerd Fantasy League players, but the casual fans will instead watch and re-watch Pinewood Lego Monkey Ball.

Air Quotes Quiz Show @ Pentathanerd Summer Games from The Nerdery on Vimeo.

If you’re still there, don’t miss the medal presentations:

Medal Stand, Summer Games 2010 from The Nerdery on Vimeo.

All-Around Award (overall points accumulated from the combined five events)

Gold: Jon Rexeisen

Silver: John Shimeck

Bronze: Dave Kam

Individual Gold Medals:

• Darts: Chris Locher
• Chess: Dave Kam
• Scrabble: Theresa Dahlberg
• Pinewood Lego Money Ball: Dave Kam
• Air Quotes Quiz Show: Jon Rexeisen

This concludes the 2010 Pentathanerd Summer Games. Our thoughts now turn to The Winter Games.

Monkey business at Pentathanerd

Pentathanerd’s Pinewood Lego Monkey Ball is revered throughout the wide world of sports and has fast become a fan-favorite with something for everyone – whether you’re into pinewood, Legos, monkeys … and even the sport’s cheaters seem sorta charming:

Next and last is The Summer Games’ final event: The “Air Quotes” Quiz Show, with a mid-day preliminary round and the finals at 4:30. We don’t dare broadcast it live (fear of wardrobe malfunction), so look for good/clean coverage of the finale, medal presentations and closing ceremonies on Monday.

Word Up – Pentathanerd Scrabble

Words will not do justice to a Scrabble competition that marked the midpoint of The Summer Games. Especially with words like “cheater” being played from under the table – on poorly hidden black tiles nonetheless, and an ill-needed black eye for The Pentathanerd.

Scrabble – Pentathanerd 2010 Summer Games from The Nerdery on Vimeo.

Next up is a traditional crowd-pleaser, the Pinewood Lego Monkey Ball.

Pentathanerd Chess, Presented by Fake Bacon

Pentathanerd is kind of a big deal. This has pumped big sponsorship dollars into The Summer Games, and this makes us beholden to the makers/fakers of bacon. But please don’t let a bit of blatant commercialism/product placement keep you from enjoying these highlights from our championship chess round.

Chess@2010 Pentathanerd Summer Games from The Nerdery on Vimeo.

Let the Summer Games begin: Pentathanerd opening ceremony, darts

Having set out to cover my third Pentathanerd, I got caught up in its pageantry and rich tradition. I surveyed the field, assessed the competition, saw an opening, dropped the camera and crossed the line from objective journalist to fierce competitor. Almost as soon as I picked up the darts, a stinging sensation shot through my throwing arm – a hastily administered shot of steroids from some shady doctor who came out of nowhere. With a sudden horror I saw the seedy side of The Games. How could I have been so blind to legendary Pentathanerd athletes fraternizing with gamblers, their widespread doping, and the win-at-any-cost mentality that permeates sports? What’s worse, I did NOT win and was bested by dart throwers well over the line in more ways than one. See for yourself:

Darts & Procession – Pentathanerd 2010 Summer Games from The Nerdery on Vimeo.

One the medal stand: Chris Locher “won” gold, yours truly settled for silver and Jon Rexeisen took the bronze medal. I’m renouncing my medal and going back to covering the games like the bulldog reporter I set out to be. Next up is the Chess championship round. Can you handle the truthiness?

Don’t forget, tomorrow is The Nerdery’s Open House

According to Matt, our @the_nerdery twitterer, there are three things you can do at tomorrow’s Open House (3-6 p.m. make sure to RSVP).

1. Play Tron
2. Play Chess
3. Get a cool job

If that’s not enough, you can read about The Nerdery’s Culture to find out how awesome it is to work here.

CONvergence: Independence Day

While most of the country spent the long weekend celebrating our nation’s birthday, there was one small pocket of Minnesota where the words “Independence Day” were spoken almost exclusively in sentences that also included the words “Jeff Goldblum.”

Inspecting the Bloomington Sheraton parking lot on Saturday there were subtle clues to the uninitiated that something was afoot. The woman in blood spattered scrubs rummaging through her trunk, the smoking porch filled with people discussing the new Captain America costume, the fact that the mud spattered Bronco had a vaguely threatening, but pleasantly sing-songy poem about car hygiene signed “Bad Horse” in lieu of the traditional “clean me.”

To those in the know, these were all omens pointing towards Minnesota’s biggest scifi nerd mecca, CONvergence.

This was my first time at CONvergence, so I’m going to leave the in-depth dissections of the panels, flame wars over costumes, and general fanboyism to the professionals (check out #cvg2010 on twitter). But I will say that it was a remarkable experience and one that had to be seen to be believed. While the full four-day experience may be too much for all but the most committed of nerds, it’s worth checking out when it rolls around again about this time next year.

My two favorite photos from the event:

Pictured from L to R: some girl, Chewbacca, Bountyhunter Leia (background), Jesus.

Wolfman curls up with a good book in the reading lounge on the 22nd floor.