Now that we’re 20 people, it’s time we add someone to our team who is dedicated to making sure our day-to-day administrative tasks are taken care of efficiently, reliably, and properly.

Here’s who we’re looking for:

You’re the type of person who thrives on taking care of things the right way the first time. A task comes in and you figure out how to get it done without having to ask a lot of questions. When you say “I’ll take care of it” we know it’ll be done well. You get excited when you know you’ve made someone else’s day easier. Great handwriting is a plus, too.

If you were working for us, here are some of the things you would have done last week:

• Talked to the landlord to get an update on the parking garage situation.
• Coordinated with Abt Electronics to schedule installation of 4 flat panels.
• Received UPS/FedEx deliveries + US mail.
• Sent 25 handwritten thank you notes to customers.
• Recommended restaurants and activities for our of town guests.
• Booked two hotel rooms and two flights for out of towners.
• Answered a handful of calls and routed them to the right people.
• Researched and recommended local floral arrangers for weekly flowers for the office.
• Researched and recommended local caterers for a variety of events.
• Cleaned up our Highrise account to make sure contacts have photos, proper company names, phone numbers, addresses, etc.
• Showed the cleaning crew exactly what we needed cleaned.
• Took notes during various discussions + transcribed some audio to text.
• Researched and recommended dental/vision healthcare plans.
• Asked 100 customers permission to include them on our customer page.
• Paid a few bills.
• Welcomed various people to the office.
• Packed up and shipped out about 5 copies of REWORK to various people.
• Packed up and shipped out a few other packages.
• Picked up some office supplies.
• Answered a dozen general questions about 37signals via email/phone.

Here are some other things you might do:

• Basic event planning/management/support for our in-house workshops.
• Handle any basic issues with outside vendors.
• Check in occasionally with top customers via phone/email.
• Stay on top of things that were promised to us but haven’t been delivered yet.
• Fill in on some basic customer service/support if the team is short.
• General reception duties.

Experience is important. We’re looking for someone who’s managed an office of 20+ before, or has worked full time as an executive assistant for someone who had a very full schedule. You should consider yourself a pro – this is not a job for first timers or designers/programmers who are looking to work their way into another job at 37signals. Note: You must live in the Chicago area to apply for this job.

If this job sounds like something you’d love to do every day, we definitely want to hear from you. We need to hear from you!

Please get in touch by emailing jointheteam [at] 37signals dot com and include “OMEA” (no quotes) somewhere in the subject. Thanks!

Last week at our full-company get together, each person was asked to say two things to the group: 1. What do you want to get better at? 2. What do you want to learn?

Unfortunately I was out sick and unable to participate, but I heard it was a great session. Had I been there, here’s what I would have said.

1. I want to be a better teacher. I feel like I’ve been guilty of “drive-by teaching” over the last year or so. Someone will show their work and I’ll see an opportunity to make it better. But instead of spending time with that person to teach them what I see and how to make it better, I’ll drop some quick comments in Campfire (or IM or email) and then just move on. Things like “That sentence is a bit wordy – let’s try it this way” or “I think there are too many horizontal lines going on here… Can you remove some?” It’s not that the comments aren’t useful, it’s that I drop them and move on. That’s not teaching, that’s just critiquing and suggesting and that’s not going to help people get better. Teaching is about encouraging understanding — and patience. I want to be a better teacher. I’m going to be working on that this year.

2. I want to learn Rails. I’m surrounded with some of the best Rails programmers in the world, yet I’m mostly clueless when it comes to Rails. That’s gotta change. It’s time to get a good basic understanding of Rails. I’ve always enjoyed what little programming I’ve done. Be it back in the day with FileMaker (that’s barely programming, but it let me make programs I wanted), or what little PHP I knew. It’s a constant frustration for me that I can’t make my designs work on my own. I can design it, but I just don’t have the knowledge to hook it up. I also believe learning Rails will make me a better designer. First step: I signed up for the Getting Started with Ruby on Rails tutorial at Windy City Rails. I’m really looking forward to it.

Those are my two things. What are yours?

I’ll be speaking at TEDx Midwest on October 15th at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Here’s the full list of speakers.

The event is sold out, but they may be opening up some additional slots. If you’re interested in attending, fill out this invitation form and let the organizers know you want to be there.

Hope to see you there.

Earlier this year I was invited to New York for an interview with Big Think. Big Think interviews opinionated people from the world of business, politics, religion, charity, academia, science, etc.

We talked for close to an hour, but it was a 6-minute segment on why you can’t work at work that really resonated with their audience. In just eight months the interview has been watched over 1,000,000 times (thank you!). Here are some other popular Big Think interviews from 2010.

A couple weeks ago Big Think came to Chicago to film a second interview with me for their HP-backed INPUT|OUTPUT series. Here it is:

We talked about the modern office, VC funding, why to be less ambitious up front, common mistakes new businesses make, the difference between spending money and making money, the importance of hiring late, and how marketing departments get it wrong.

If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, you can jump to a specific segment on the Big Think site.

As seen from the skies over the midwest. Endless farmland textures always make the window seat worth it.