Last week our whole company got together. We try to do this a few times a year. We fly everyone in and all spend a few days together in Chicago. We share what we’re working on, we talk, we debate, we review, we get some work done, and we have some fun.
Usually we reserve one of the nights to all go out to dinner together, but this time we decided to host some of our Chicago-based customers at a party at our office instead. We invited about 50 customers – some new, some old – and all hung out for a few hours. We met, exchanged ideas, fielded feature requests, and just got to know each other. Everyone had a great time. Thanks to everyone who came.
We put together a little video to share.
Special thanks to Steve Dale from Gyro, Jimmy Spencer Jr. from Love Without Agenda, Ray Hightower from Wisdom Group, Ben Greiner from Forget Computers, and Michael Carney from MWC Accounting for taking some extra time to be interviewed on camera.
Nate Otto
on 26 Oct 11Well done video. I like the animated logo doodad.
pëll
on 26 Oct 11This is a brilliant idea. Meeting those guys behind the payment, behind the e-mails. I like it a lot. I would have loved to see more.
iuhugd
on 26 Oct 11Ah well! Look here! I recommend! http://url.jzzx.in/77
julio
on 26 Oct 11this seems like a great gettogether idea. customers, developers, creatives etc. all in a casual environment … really love it.
Thiago Carvalho
on 26 Oct 11Loved the logo animation/music
pukomuko
on 26 Oct 11what’s with beer in paper towels?
radex
on 26 Oct 11Really nice :)
I like the logo animation, but the sound is really annoying. Just the logo animation itself, without any sound effects, would be great.
Zach C
on 26 Oct 11I’m sure this has been asked before, but what’s the deal with the logo? Is it as simple as “connecting the dots…”?
Robert
on 27 Oct 11Here you go Zach C: http://keiwi.com/post/4005804727/evolution-of-a-logo-spinfree-37signals
Im_Sad
on 28 Oct 11@37signals
I’m sad to say this feels very corporate.
Not at all what I use to love about 37signals.
@lm_Sad
on 28 Oct 11I agree with you. Curious to know what determined what Chicago customers where invited to the event. Was it a random pick or only top paying suite customers?
If it was only customers who use the high priced suite… well 37signals has become SAP and all the other big companies they like to bash. Wine and dine the “best” customers, who gives a shit about the little guys.
DHH
on 28 Oct 11This feels corporate? Inviting a random selection of customers in your neighborhood over to the office for an hour or two of drinks and chat? I fail to see the corporateness.
Also, @Im_Sad, why would you assume that this was just highest paying customers? It wasn’t. It was a random mix from three pools: old customers, customers who’s been with us for a while, and brand new customers.
Nobody pays us enough to make us go all strippers’n’steaks on them. I think you need 20K seat Salesforce installations for that to pay off :)
Eric
on 28 Oct 11Great video. Now I know that I talk crazily with my hands.
And to those saying it felt corporate, it really wasn’t. I go to lots of corporate events for my job which I hate; this was so much nicer and relaxed. And just for reference, I’m not a “top paying suite customer.” More like the bare minimum user who tried to stack coupon codes when first signing up. ;p
Vincent
on 28 Oct 11@DHH
What feels corporate to me is that you made a video out of it.
Vincent
on 28 Oct 11@DHH
To add more to my last statement, something about the design of your office (or maybe even the fact that you have offices) just makes it feel corporate.
Something about the idea that a company who in many ways is a life-style business having this posh and larger than needed office space gives off the smell of “corporation”.
(That and recently me noticing Jason using the term “CEO” much more regularly).
Vincent
on 28 Oct 11To summarize, here is a listing of ways that 37signals has jumped the shark> Having office space Having customer get-together’s for no apparent reason Using the term “CEO” Killing your Product Blog. This was great for your customer ecosystem to both help you publicize how us customers are using your product as well as help publicize us as well. It’d like you have forgotten about the old customer who did PR for you to get you where you’re at today. Using a publisher for your latest book (no more DIY). I continually seeing ads on Youtube for Highrise No longer listing who works at 37signals which gives the perception you’re just massive for no reason … which also becomes a disconnect between your team and your customers. E.g. everyone knew who Sarah was b/c she use to post to this blog, etc. Now, yes – I see the customer support page but who the heck are they? Photos are terrible and I never hear about them on this blog expect for when they were hired. No longer posting on the blog about internal stuff at 37signals (coding, design, how you work together, etc … the stuff this blog was founded on). The large amount of sporadic downtime 37signals constantly has and tries to hide.
I’ve been a user of basecamp since fall of 2005 and an avid reader since 2004 of this blog.
Anonymous Coward
on 28 Oct 11To summarize, here is a listing of ways that 37signals has jumped the shark
Having office space Having customer get-together’s for no apparent reasonUsing the term “CEO” Killing your Product Blog. This was great for your customer ecosystem to both help you publicize how us customers are using your product as well as help publicize us as well. It’d like you have forgotten about the old customer who did PR for you to get you where you’re at today.
Using a publisher for your latest book (no more DIY ).
Continually seeing ads on Youtube for Highrise
No longer listing who works at 37signals which gives the perception you’re just massive for no reason … which also becomes a disconnect between your team and your customers. E.g. everyone knew who Sarah was b/c she use to post to this blog, etc. Now, yes – I see the customer support page but who the heck are they? Photos are terrible and I never hear about them on this blog expect for when they were hired.
No longer posting on the blog about internal stuff at 37signals (coding, design, how you work together, etc … the stuff this blog was founded on).
The large amount of sporadic downtime 37signals constantly has and tries to hide.
@Vincent
on 28 Oct 11Seriously, guys. Stop being successful and innovative, and quit using that success as a platform for different thinking of work life. Us little guys don’t have a big office yet, so neither should you.
And shame on you for consolidating your avenues of communication. I want you to spend time on things I want you to spend time on, namely what my comments are saying about your product. Don’t you know you should be designing by committee?
Same thing with using a publisher for your last book. Psh. Stop working on products and start working on the little details of publishing.
Oh, and don’t you dare advertise. This will turn out just like Apple. Where once we were the few and proud, now that logo is as common as the Nike swoosh.
Nate
on 28 Oct 11@Vincent They aren’t a punk band, they are a business. They can evolve and stay true to their core values. Making a video to promote their culture and putting it on their blog is pretty DIY if you ask me. As for having a publisher, I imagine that they did that because it was easier and would allow them to reach a greater audience. You seem to be taking their evolution personally. Get over it.
JS
on 28 Oct 11@Vincent – At first I was quite tempted to be defensive about your complaints. I just started working in support this summer and I really like it. I like the people I work with and our customers. I previously worked for small organization that really did pretend to be a corporation – the experiences couldn’t be more different. So it was really jarring to read your critique, but after some consideration, I can see where you’re coming from.
I was a 37signals fan before I joined the team. It’s hard to accept even small changes from things that you are attached to, like your favorite indie band gaining in popularity or your hometown sports team doing well and seeing a onrush of bandwagoners. I understand this feeling – I have felt it myself. Even so, these things (companies, bands, teams) are not your ideas of who/what they are. Part of living is changing and growing. If you’re not changing, you’re dying. Or you’re Aerosmith.
I don’t feel I’m qualified to respond to every “way that 37signals has jumped the shark,” but I think I can shed light on a few.
Re: the office – I’m not quite sure how having an office is a qualification for being corporate. There are lots of 37signals employees all over, and when we gather together, we have to be somewhere. Think of it as our Room of Requirement. :)
It’s a nice office, but not everybody works there. In fact, I know plenty of the Chicago-based team don’t work from the office more than a few times per week. I’ve never seen the office as opposed to any of the 37signals philosophies. As a physical space, it makes a lot of sense to me. I’m curious as to what you think makes it shark-jumpy.
Re: downtime – While we’re proud of the work we do, we’re never happy about downtime. It’s gross and painful and embarrassing. We’ve also never been tried to hide it when it happens. I think we’re extremely transparent on our Status page and responsive on Twitter and through Support. I would be interested to hear what you’d like to see in terms of transparency or honesty when we have downtime. We can always do better.
I must admit, on behalf of the support team, we’re probably not the best at posting on SvN. Personally, it’s a tiny bit intimidating for me to write a post for a blog I’ve read for years and years. I think everyone I work with is terrific, but we’re less inclined to put ourselves out there. However, I think I’ll take this as a personal challenge. :) I would also like to bounce this back to you—what would you like to see from us? Did you have any questions about the team or how we work?
Devan
on 30 Oct 11Having peripherally watched 37signals grow from a ‘few guys in a shared office space’ to a medium/large business, I am actually watching with added interest to learn how they will deal with this stage of their growth.
I’ve posted before in this blog about how you cannot really get a true sense of a person/company unless you can see how they have handled a highly stressful or negative situation.
It is extremely easy to espouse how ‘the way you are doing things’ is better than the way others may be doing it when things a rolling along well, cash is pouring in and you are basking in the adulation of a dedicated fan base.
Not knocking 37s at all – in fact, I am really interested to learn about innovative ways that they will come up with to handle a much larger team, and how they will maintain their business focus.
I think we can see that their previous mantra of “do everything yourself”, “keep customer interactions on a personal level” and “make money from the ‘offcuts’ of your main product line” are now not as easy to do as your company grows.
The way that they will handle these challenges, and teach us about it, will really show us whether 37signals can still be held up as a beacon for the way ‘new’ businesses should be built and run.
Chris
on 30 Oct 11We attended the get together, and operate at the lowest price point of all 37’s products so I can assure you it wasn’t a room full of big spenders. I can understand how one could glean a ‘corporate’ feeling from the video, but that’s just production value BS. All of the staff we spoke with (CEO, programmers and support) had a genuine interest in learning about the specifics of our business and how their products help us achieve our goals. I don’t think a single person attended because it was a required ‘work function’, everyone was there because they wanted to engage and learn in a social environment.
This sort of get together isn’t genius, it’s as simple as it gets; people learning from people to increase the quality of the work. What is genius is that 37 continues to deliver on the brutal simplicity concept in their products and interactions with their users. There were no t-shirt guns or sticker handouts, just people sharing stories.
p.s. Are we in eighth grade? Who still uses ‘corporate’ as an insult?
Bert
on 31 Oct 11Love the shot of Jason flirting with the redhead at the bar at the end :-D
Daniel Gerep
on 31 Oct 11I love your logo, I wish I had that idea first =]
Great video!
David Vaassen
on 01 Nov 11Great to see an audio component to the logo sign off at the end of the video. Is the first use of it?
I really like it and as a brand guy would like to see more brands develop and adopt an audio signature of some sort.
I’d be interested in the machinations/thinking behind it’s development. How did you do it? Who did you use?, etc.
In fact I’d love to write about it for our brand focussed blog.
This discussion is closed.