This is a public shout out to our sales directors and development directors who left their cozy offices to carve out common ground right in the middle of The Nerdery. I’ve admired their unprovoked, bold move to blur the lines that separated their teams in order to improve our lines of communication. Instead of saying “Get off my lawn,” development and sales directors created The Lawn. Good call. It’s working.

No company can avoid people problems, and with 300+ people it matters more and more how we roll with changes. But organizational growth doesn’t have to mean more baggage and protocol, and we’re willing and able to reinvent ourselves in order to form a more perfect Nerdery. Our work is about overcoming challenges with technology, but technology can’t do this by itself – it takes people, relationships and trust to succeed. The business of custom software is very challenging. There will always be problems during production. We won’t pretend to have all the answers but we’re good at figuring things out – including nontechnical things of a more human nature.

The Lawn has become our fertile ground for cultivating relationships that allow us to handle problems as they arise. Eric Johnson, our director of project management, explains, “The Lawn provides Nerdery leadership with instant access to peers and interdepartmental leadership. We work collaboratively to solve problems and address company needs on a daily basis.”

The communication methods of our recent past were not keeping up with organizational growth, which introduced risk to employee experience, and, ultimately, customer experience and quality of work. Distributed leadership works well here because significant changes need not be top-down decrees. Territorialism is as out-of-place here as signs that say, “Get off my lawn.”

Instead of protecting their individual “lawns,” development and sales directors created a bigger, better lawn they could all share. The idea of leaving their comfortable existing workspace for something more collaborative was a sacrifice these Nerds were willing to take. Jon Pettersson, our director of software engineering, wasn’t exactly stoked. “I was very much opposed to moving to The Lawn at first. But after witnessing firsthand the efficiency of being able to simply get things done, I have been convinced of the benefits.”

Jake Trippel, director of our enterprise partner program notes, “I have had the awesome opportunity to get to know my colleagues better personally, as well as professionally.”

The simple, effective solution of physical proximity in The Lawn is a testament to the pragmatism and humility of our development and sales leaders’ ability to adapt to the needs of our growing company. Where they could have built new process, rules, or protocols, they opted for simple relationship building and physical collaboration. For years we have bragged to potential recruits that they’d never hear the phrase “read the f&#*ing manual.” I’m stoked to say that “get off my lawn” is not welcome either.

This is all gearing up for tomorrow night’s Open House & Spirit Showcase. The Open House is from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. (that’s tomorrow, February 2nd, 2012) right here at The Nerdery: 9555 James Ave S. Suite 245, Bloomington, MN 55431.

A yeti-like photo of this year's lego luge contraption

The Winter Pentathanerd games wrapped up this week with three exciting events; Anna Grahams, Lego Luge and a clever variation on The Price is Right as the final round. Below are the detailed accounts of each event as written by Mark Seemann, the founder and organizer of the Pentathanerd games…

Wednesday – Anna Graham

“For the Anna Grahams event, contestants had to unscramble words or phrases to guess the original word or phrase based on the selected category. In groups of three, teams had to get four correct to move on to the final round of three. The categories were:
Steel Men (Elements)
Hip Cretaceous Stirrer (Prehistoric Creatures)
See Ample Money (Employee Names)
Creates Niches (Earth Sciences)
In the first round after choosing Earth Sciences, WYSIWYG blasted to a quick victory against Teh Awsumbs and QWERTY, leaving them with nothing on the board. In the second round, The Nerderlands’ knowledge of Elements gave them an easy path to victory over Teh Newbs and Nausea, with each of the others scoring a single point. In the third round, Chicago’s team RAGE! phoned

in and managed to get a point in the category Prehistoric Creatures; Don’t Blink came close with three, but We Are Not Cheaters pulled away with the win.
In the final round, We Are Not Cheaters’ Annette J took a quick lead with her knowledge of Employee Names, but WYSIWYG’s Sean Hickey and The Nerderlands’ Jim Barrett kept the scores close. Easily the most entertaining category, among the anagrams were “dimmest hick” and “cranky urea.” After a number of unanswered anagrams, a snap *snap* judgement had to be made to continue, after running out of anagrams in the category; we resumed the round with the remaining unsolved Elements anagrams.
The score quickly tied up, three points for each team. The final clue – “tiny moan” – was solved by The Nerderlands.

Try your hand at unscrambling the same clues as the challengers here: http://pentathanerd.com/ag/“

Thursday – Lego Luge

“A record crowd braved the chilly 76-degree weather in the Nerditorium to witness the first ever indoors Lego Luge event of the Pentathanerd. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Eric Myers, the indoor track made for a spectacle of its own, as competitors waited their turn to try out their luge designs in “the series of tubes.”

Participants were expected to bring their Lego vehicle – complete with rider – to the event for approval from the Head Judge (Kai Esbensen). Then, the competitors handed their luge to the Primary Luge Launch Technician (Mark Seemann, standing on a ladder), who placed the luge carefully in the pre-calibrated “Flusher.” Once docked in the “Flusher,” a member from the team pulled on the release mechanism, occasionally needing to jiggle the handle, to begin the luge’s descent toward the luge track. Based on the results, the following points were awarded:

300 pts – Clearing the flusher earned 300 points
500 pts – Making it into the luge track (not as easy as it sounds!)
700 pts – Getting caught in the “lint trap”
800 pts – Getting into the garbage can
900-1200 pts – Clearing the entire luge track, depending where the Lego rider ended up on a field of points

Three teams managed to propel their craft all the way down the luge track; WYSIWYG, Nerderlanders, and Ridin’ QWERTY. WYSIWYG missed the scoring field of points, earning 900 points. The Nerderlanders landered [sic] on the board, but just outside a colored scoring area, earning 1000 points. QWERTY made a solid showing in this event, also landing on the board but outside bonus points areas, tying for first place.”

Friday – Price is Right

“The Friday event was Teh Price Is Right. The game, as was revealed right at the start of the event, was to guess how Jansen Price would answer questions (hence, [Jansen] Price Is Right). There were eight warm-up questions, worth 100 points for the first four and 200 points for the second four, leading up to the wager-style bet-it-all final question.

“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.

As Luke Bucklin said in 2008 when we announced the second comingof our nonprofit nerdathon, “We are committed to this event as long as there are good nonprofits whose websites could be better, powered by nerds.”

That blanket-statement of commitment crossed state lines last summer at Chicago’s inaugural Nerdery Overnight Website Challenge, and March 24-25 will mark our fifth Nerdery Overnight Website Challenge in the Twin Cities. In the first five years of these nerdy deeds done dirt cheap, volunteers from The Nerdery and the interactive community at-large have donated about $2 million worth of professional services to 66 nonprofits. We’ll continue to consider this just a good start. Get started at http://tc2012.overnightwebsitechallenge.com.

For more the nitty-gritty lowdown and more information about this year’s event. Head on over to our News section.

You can ask the nerds about anything related to working and life at The Nerdery, just make sure you include the #NerdJob hashtag. We’ve got over 200 nerds on Twitter just waiting to answer your questions, so get asking. And, if you like what you’re hearing in those answers, head on over to the Jobs section and apply to work here.

The Nerdery collected 270 toys for needy kids in Minnesota. You can check out more pictures on Facebook. Thanks to all who helped!

Donated gifts must be brand-new (no hand-me-downs, please), unopened (don’t break the seal), and definitely not gift-wrapped (so they can be re-gifted to an age/gender-appropriate recipient). Mitch and Sue Buckland, coordinators of our Toys for Tots campaign, have asked that donations be dropped off by end-of-day on Friday, December 16 – so, plenty of shopping days left.

You need not work at The Nerdery to donate – anyone’s welcome to give: friends of the Bucklin family, friends of The Nerdery, and do-gooders throughout our community who want to help kids have happier holidays just by leaving a little something under our tree.

Note: We’ve expanded our office space (again) and our lobby is literally moving later this week toward the middle of The Nerdery, still at 9555 James Avenue S., Suite 245, Bloomington, MN 55431. Look for the Toys for Tots sign in the window and the Christmas tree lights (blue for Bucklin). ]]> http://blog.nerdery.com/2011/11/give-toys-for-tots-remember-bucklin-boys/feed/ 0