This month, the Schipul crew has taken a look at some of the things we are thankful for with our 30 Days of Thanks series – and boy did we get a WIDE variety!! At the end of a month dedicated to introspection and family, we are left feeling more blessed than ever.
Our final shout out for our 30 Days of Thanks is to YOU! Whether you are a client, a local Community member, part of the Schipul tribe or just stopping by to see what’s happenin’, we are glad you are here and part of our lives.
At our company, we put a lot of focus on Storytelling – both online and offline. One of the most crucial components of any Story are the diverse characters that we interact with. The greater the variety and the depth of the interactions between characters, the more interesting and exciting the Story.
Without you, we’d just be a group of nerds tapping away at our keyboards. With you in our world, we’re constantly growing, connecting, networking, learning and pushing ourselves in any way we can.
Thanks for being you and thanks being a part of our tribe. Lots of warm fuzzies from the Schipulites. We think you’re pretty swell.
Two years ago I was just another college senior looking for a job when I got what seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime. I was offered a job at Accenture to do technology consulting. In Manhattan, NY. I had visited NYC twice and loved it both times. The bustling city was full of energy, and soon I would be there.
Flash forward to just a year ago. NYC had been hit hard by the financial crisis, and I was not immune. Suddenly there were many people at my level without a current project. There was no doubt that cutbacks were coming. And unfortunately for me, they were coming to my neck of the woods.
My employment at that company ended, and most jobs were on hold everywhere in NYC. This was actually a great opportunity to come home, but not under the best circumstances. I was now on a job hunt in a truly bad time to be looking for work. To top it off, I had little experience, and none whatsoever in my degree area (Mechanical Engineering).
I liked the internet. I had my JMO website and a Twitter and a Facebook. And I had the Aggie 100 as my main source for finding a small company for a new job. That’s when I found Schipul.
I interviewed over the phone, and my enthusiasm made up for my lack in experience. I quickly learned that I was probably out of my league. But, things worked out better than expected. I got another interview, and finally an offer. Through some miracle I had won the opportunity to work at the place I now call ‘my awesome job’. When I started, the entire staff could fit in a single conference room. From my previous experience at large multi-national corporations, I had never experienced anything like this. Working with a small group of people on projects we are passionate about has been a very welcome change.
Many people are still in a situation similar to mine a year ago. You can view a video of the unemployment rate over the last two years as it grows. I think this is very scary to most people (especially considering the colors used). To me, though, this is a unique time when great things are born. People are pushed to their limits of creativity and forced to think an create things like never before. Many of us are not comfortable, and this discomfort can be the driving factor in invention and creation.
Below is a list of companies you may be familiar with. If you have never heard of them, check them out. I’ve used products or services from all of them in the past couple of years. They are all in different fields and are scattered around the country.
Publix – Grocery stores in the South East. Over 1,000 stores as of October 2009.
Texas Instruments – Makers of many tech gadgets, but the calculators are the real deal.
Tyson Foods – Had chicken recently? It was probably from Tyson, the largest meat producer in the world.
Zippo – Fantastic lighters, great styles, and there is an app for that.
Dillard’s – The bookend to many malls around the country, it’s a great place to shop.
Academy – Sports and Outdoors equipment at decent prices.
Columbia Sportswear – Nothing like a fleece pullover to keep you warm in a Texas winter.
Hewlett-Packard – PC and printer maker. I see this brand around my home and office.
Marvel Comics – I’m not a huge comic book reader, but I love a good superhero movie.
Dollar General – What’s not to love about a store filled with things for a dollar?
Sara Lee – What started off small now sells food products in over 180 nations.
This may look like a fairly hodge-podge list, but all of these companies have something in common. They were all founded in the 1930’s. During a time in our country where jobs among other things were very rare, 20 different groups found an opportunity for a new business. Surely many of them never could foresee the reach and size of their companies today.
And now today we are presented with the same chance at being able to build something new. For me, it was a new career in a field I am very excited and passionate about. For you, it could be starting the next great service company or electric car manufacturer or inventing a new technology that will change our lives. I urge you not to fear the state of things now, but to instead see this as a blank canvas, ready to be transformed at your hand. Great things rarely come easy, and now is the perfect chance to let your passion push you in a new direction.
I grew up in Houston, and as a little girl I couldn’t imagine ever living anywhere else. There was just so much here – why would I ever need or want to leave? And then of course I turned 18 and took off the moment it was legally acceptable; headed a few hours North for Austin and started college at the University of Texas. And like most people in Austin, I went for school and just didn’t leave. Fell in love, started a career; one thing led to another, and poof – thirteen years later and I was still there.
A year ago I was all set to move to California when fate intervened and changed my course, directing me back home. I came with my dog, knowing only a handful of people, and a job that I wasn’t really excited about but was grateful to have in this economy. And I came with the sense that there was going to be something really awesome for me here – I just didn’t quite know what it was yet.
Oh. Em. Gee. Y’all.
I’m thankful for so much in this town. For starters there’s the little coffee shop that was following me on Twitter while I was still living in Austin, which I thought was a little odd – I mean, why would @coffeegroundz be interested in little ole me hanging out in Austin? But, since I was visiting Houston a lot I followed back and made plans to drop in at some point. Which I did, shortly after I moved back, during the last big major TweetUp and met, oh, EVERYONE. And I do mean that – practically every person I am friends with today I can trace back a first meeting with to that day. We aren’t kidding when we talk about how influential Coffee Groundz is in the community. For me it was Groudz Zero.
And that just leads to the people. The amazing fantastic wonderful people. How lucky am I, huh? I get not one but TWO groups of rockstar folks in my life. I am blown away every day by how many talented artists, photographers, chefs, writers, designers, businessmen and women, and musicians we have in Houston – and that I call friends! And then there’s the knitters, the bakers, the cheesemakers, the crafty types that will knock your socks off with their skills (and then make you new ones!) – I am forever in awe of my friends, and honored by them. I’m thankful for each and every one of them, and so glad I have them in my life.
Finally, I’m so thankful for my awesome coworkers and the amazing work we’re doing at Schipul. Thanks to a corporate culture that allows us to have fun while working hard, pushing ourselves and each other. Thanks to great clients that trust us to make it happen for them. I’ve got to give a special shout-out to Fayza and Katie M for their parts in leading me on the path that got me here – this is really a very special place to be and I’m happy to a part of it, and thankful I’m able to contribute.
This past Monday I was lucky enough to join a dear friend on the front row 40-yard line for the Texans/Titans game. At halftime he remarked “I’m so glad to live in a major metropolitan area.” It’s the biggest thing I missed about Houston. The culture, the options, the variety. I’m thankful for the Medical Center that takes care of my mom. I’m thankful for the various stadiums that house all my favorite sport teams, no matter how often they break my heart. I’m thankful for 7-lane highways and drivers that view speed limits as minimums, not maximums. I’m thankful for the various cultures scattered about the city that give it a unique personality. Most of all, I’m thankful that you can go home again.
It’s the eleventh hour. Literally. But you’ve been up and moving for far longer. You find yourself on foot in the thick of a misty, foreboding forest of trees and blackness. You have a tiny yet powerful lamp strapped to your forehead as your only source of illumination, ’cause the sun dipped below the horizon hours ago. You can only hope the rustling leaves that perk up your ears are errant armadillos scurrying out of sight. And not alligators. Or bears. Or the Loch Ness Monster. The hair on the back of your neck stands on end. Are you cold? Are you scared? You’re not sure.
Thankfully, you’re not alone, and you’re not completely lost. You don’t think. Your partner in crime carries a zippered plastic bag around his neck, complete with maps that you both have poked and prodded multiple times, Sharpies, a compass, and a plotting ruler. Too bad these maps don’t have roads on them. Too bad roads aren’t always the easiest way to get from Point A to Point B anyway. And too bad the objective isn’t to get out of the forest completely unscathed or uninjured. Don’t even get me started as to the myriad of gear that you’re carrying on your back, either.
So what is your goal? To do whatever it takes – on foot, by land, via bike, through water, up cliffs, over uncompromising terrain – to find as many points as possible before the end. Whether the end is three hours, six hours, 12 hours, 24 hours, or even 30 hours away is up to you. All while “staying found.”
The shorter name for what some may call voluntary insanity? Adventure racing. And by golly, I am incredibly and almost inexplicably grateful for its existence, and its presence in my life.
Life before adventure racing.
I joined Houston Fit Adventure Racing in May 2009 on somewhat of a lark. I hadn’t done anything active since June 2008, when I ran a half-marathon in Alaska, and even that was an anomaly. I’d never been much of an athlete, although I’d always liked being active. Mostly because I’m always on some sort of genetic crack. Call me lucky; it’s natural. But post-high school, no activity ever held my attention long enough for me to call myself a runner or to declare my love for yoga, for example. I just wasn’t feelin’ the monotony of any of it.
Then something happened. I fell in love. Hopelessly, madly in love. With the possibilities that were adventure racing. The variety of disciplines. The fickleness of the races. The fact that you knew you would start, and you knew you would finish, but you didn’t quite know what would happen in the middle. Would you and your partner be in one piece? How hard would you run? How difficult would those mountain bike trails be? What would the current be like in the Bayou as you two paddled upstream? Would an alligator gar snap at your paddles and try to eat you both?
Sure, adventure racing is full of rules, and if you know me, you know I hate laws rules with a passion. But adventure racing’s rules never quite impeded how a race unraveled. We adventure racers know this. In the span of time between the starter whistle and exhausted crossing of the finish line, anything can happen. Top teams get flat tires, Texas novice teams handle the extreme humidity levels on ranches better than killer teams from Colorado. And because of this, one of the sayings you hear most often is, “That’s adventure racing!” ‘Cause that’s exactly what it is – a capricious crapshoot of a sport. You can’t predict an adventure. And it’s that elusive nature that makes you thirsty for more.
But wait. Was I actually – gasp! – exercising? On a regular basis? Heck, I couldn’t tell. I was having way too much fun.
Me & some of my Houston Fit Adventure Racing teammates. We really dig spandex.
If adventure racing was a male suitor, I would gladly offer my hand in marriage. Nah, I actually would’ve done it already. Without regrets, misgivings, or a second thought that it was “too soon.” Because of adventure racing, my body is strong. Because of adventure racing, my will is even stronger. Because of adventure racing, I have met some of the most inspiring, multifaceted individuals I’ve ever known. Because of adventure racing, I’ve learned how to trust people more than myself. Because of adventure racing, I look arguably decent in spandex. Because of adventure racing, I’m broke and I love it. Because of adventure racing, weekends that were once consumed with intoxication and exorbitant bar tabs are now filled with trips to bike trail havens in the hill country and surrounding environs. And guess what? I don’t miss the boozin’, one little bit. Which is quite a revelation for a former sorority broad that was voted Biggest Party Girl in her heyday.
Poison oak, sprained ankles, bruised ribs, broken collarbones, legs scratched like constellations in the sky, canoe flu, and every injury in between? It sounds like complete madness, but it makes complete sense to me. ‘Cause nothing in the world has done more for me than adventure racing has. And for that, I am nothing short of thankful.
It’s almost the end of the day and a combination of code just finished owning me in the worst way. It’s one of those days where you hope you’re not losing brain cells and you remember being much smarter in college.
I spent the majority of the day working on one of those projects that could best be referred to as “cake.” Yes, I said cake; no you’re not hungry, now focus.
Or at least that’s what you referred to it as in your head while you non-nonchalantly strut to the so-called challenge.
You walk up to this “cake” and realize it’s a not as nice as it looked from far away. Before you know it, you’re close enough to realize you bit off more than you can chew and the only thing you have left to do is to continue chewing until the pieces are small enough to swallow.
I have a few of these a month. Then of course I come back the next day with a new way of thinking and a fresh coat of deodorant and tackle what once seemed impossible. It’s at these times that I am happy I went through the whole ordeal only because I feel that much smarter/stronger/what-have-you.
I am thankful for so many things but if I had to point out one thing I’m thankful for at this very moment it would be resilience. It’s the thing that every child has an over-abundance of, it’s the thing that keeps us going, it’s the thing makes us all look like He-man or She-ra.
So, thank you resilience for reminding me that everyday is a new day and a chance to make things right.
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
~Isaac Newton 1675
One right of passage for designers at Schipul has been uploading and editing “before and after” plastic surgery photo sets for clients like MyBeautifulBody.com. It seems like a pretty far stretch, but I would say that most of our non-profit clients like the Zoo and Children’s Museum owe a great deal of thanks to plastic surgeons.
Why?
As innovators and early adopters, groups like MyBeautifulBody.com help to develop innovations that benefit other clients. So you might say that liposuction is good for donations, and doctor videos help museums give visitors a taste for the exhibits. Plastic surgeons are one of the groups that I think help to “blaze a trail” that others can follow. For those “trail blazers” I am thankful. So, let’s take a closer look at what causes innovation from a pretty personal level.
Innovation happens at Schipul as a result of three major catalysts:
Early Adoption
Stress
Culture
1. Early adopters pay more money, face more risk, undergo more stress and experience lower efficiency. So why do groups like plastic surgeons take the chance. Because it can pay huge rewards to be number one. MyBeautifulBody.com has placed well in Google for years, now getting pretty close to a decade. They have had a dynamic web site long before competitors ever saw the need to generate “gobs” of content for visitors to digest. MyBeautifulBody.com has thousands of photos that help visitors determine the quality of their surgeons and also to find before and after images that closely resemble themselves. They have run pay-per-click campaigns, tracked online contacts, built multiple sites, sold product, and interacted socially. Each venture has had different levels of success, but success was there.
In 2003 Schipul developed the “contacts report” that tracked submissions from contact forms in order to optimize the traffic flow of a web site (today this is common place). After this report was developed we had a method of measuring how effectively we got business leads for clients. We could also get an estimate of our “cost per lead”. Today, clients benefit from the knowledge, experience and reporting that was funded by groups like plastic surgeons. In effect, standing on the shoulders of giants.
2. Innovation also happens through Stress. Imagine not getting sales for six months!!! That could be a little stressful. The 2001 post 9-11, dot-com-burst, Enron, MCI, internet world went through massive change over night. Projects before 2001 were mostly custom, extremely flashy, and pretty shallow – and also expensive. After 2001 buyers were pragmatic and painfully skeptical. The change was as surreal as watching Buckaroo Bonzai. (Ah hell, here is the video so you know how weird it was)
Post 2001 stressful innovation at Schipul resulted in a focus on “search marketing” after 2001 and development of our software now known as Tendenci. The search marketing push was directly tied to getting business for existing clients to maintain longevity. The development of Tendenci resulted from the extinction of custom code projects and the leveraging of reusable existing code. Stress innovations are difficult internally as they often do not afford the time luxuries of innovation developed through early adoption or culture. In addition, these developments are also most closely tied to supply and demand economics.
Another great example of stress innovation is our use of open-source software to fill the needs of clients after 2007. Content management systems since 2007 have grown to a saturated marketplace, with open-source projects dominating lower cost and semi custom development. In 2007 we added WordPress and Drupal developers to be able to add aditional product lines and service the demands of the customers. It is important to not give in to internal stress barriers, but change with the external stress factors.
3. Finally, Culture can lead to innovation. They don’t let me design projects anymore, but when I did I looked forward to the phrase, “Aaron, that sucks.” I needed to hear other designers tell me that the work wasn’t yet good enough. That indeed, “I sucked” and needed to put in more time and effort to make my work better. The culture at Schipul is fun but direct. From the stockdale paradox, to candor, to no excuses, to a very transparent work environment – the culture here is a great culture for innovation. Also, I believe the culture for innovation does not include “silly shit” like team building workshops, or thinking cap analysis, etc. A culture of innovation is a culture that faces the facts and does something about it.
At Schipul we believe in complete knowledge transfer, both internally and externally. This type of culture gives the crazy-diverse people we have the opportunity to manipulate knowledge through differing viewpoints and to develop new strategies to solve problems.
What does that mean?
If you have programmers that are willing to write a navigation as a dynamic list,
And you have the CSS coders that can design rollout menus from a dynamic list,
And you shared the knowledge the two of those “knuckleheads” have locked in their brains
Then you are likely to develop a CSS based navigation that clients can edit themselves using pretty ajax.
That is a culture of innovation.
So, thanks for reading. And thanks for giant shoulders to stand on.
“There is no, life I know, to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you’ll be free. If you truly wish to be.”
That line is from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory, one of my favorite movies of all time. I first watched this movie when I was real young after borrowing it from a neighbor and went on to watch it so many times that I wore out the tracking on the VHS (yes… VHS).
That was probably the first instance I would say I was really influenced by the power of imagination and I believe it has had an effect on who I am today. I have now come to place great value on imagination and creativity and the uniqueness it brings to the world. On Colin Cowherd’s radio show, he frequently talks about the importance of being interesting and the value it brings and I completely agree.
We have the ability to use our imagination to solve basic problems or fill certain needs, but we also use our imagination to go further and answer “What if…”. Imagination can take us beyond what just has to be done to “Yeah we can do that but wouldn’t it be cool if…”. Imagination drives us to do new things, fills our need to create and keeps the world interesting.
The Internet provides a great outlet for people to unleash their imagination and share with the world. Sometimes it is entertaining (Pearl the landlord) and other times it is helpful (how to carve a turkey maybe). Sometimes it is a cool t-shirt, a new website like Twetches that allows you to further use your imagination, and sometimes it is just cats playing keyboards. However it is expressed, imagination keeps things fresh and interesting and often leads to bigger things.
Because of people’s imagination, really amazing things are brought to life. World changing events and inventions come from questions like:
“Imagine if we got in a rocket and actually shot ourselves into outer space?”
“Imagine if we could just pick up some object and speak through it, with the ability for someone on the other side of the world to hear us?”
“Imagine if there were a group of people that could travel around the universe, moving objects with their minds and fought battles with swords. But not just swords, light sabers!”
Maybe life would go on without Star Wars but if no one ever imagined the possibilities in “What if”, we wouldn’t have the telephone and we wouldn’t have ever walked on the moon. Imagine that.
Got something that has triggered your imagination? Some great example of imagination at work you really dig? Let’s hear about it!
One of the greatest things about working for a company like Schipul is the emphasis on growing our professional and personal selves by pursuing our passions. For many of us, geeking out over photography makes us passionate in a big-big way and I am incredibly thankful for such an outlet and a team that inspires me daily through it.
The great thing about the magical world of the Internet is that even if you don’t work for a company that pushes you to pursue your creative outlets, you still reap the benefits of fantastic photo-focused communities, online tools and inspirational resources.
Here are a few of my personal favorite online spots for tapping into new photographic trends and skills. So yeah… let’s get our photo geek on, folks:
Flickr (www.flickr.com)
Certainly a photo online Community standard at this point, Flickr provides a great space to share your photos (with handy privacy features to define exactly who you want your audience to be), join groups of like minded photo nerds and do fun things like geotag your images, create slideshows to embed online and even print images.
Flickr is a free and super way to build Community, search for jaw droppingly beautiful imagery (looking for a great Creative Commons search resource? www.compfight.com will rock your little world) and keep you inspired day in and day out.
On Flickr already? Hook up with a few of these Schipulite Flickr nerds (just to name a handful):
Lomography.com Many photographers have experimented in the world of Lomo with vintage cameras, funky fish eye lenses, playful color and light dispersion – it’s a great (and sometimes kitschy) way to get the childlike photographer in you out and about!
Photojojo (www.photojojo.com) Most of us will never be professional grade photographers, but darnit we still want to be clued in on the cool stuff too!! Photojojo is the perfect solution for passionate snappers that just plain like to know neat tricks, tips and cool happenings in the photography kingdom.
Sign up for their newsletter (which is one of those newsletters you actually look forward to seeing in your inbox), shop for cool gadgets in the store and use their cool Time Capsule tool to get photos sent to you from 1 year back. I’m a Photojojo addict and I know you will be too.
Picnik (www.picnik.com) Sometimes you would rather stab yourself in the eye with a blunt object than open up Photoshop or some other uber-clunky and expensive piece of software to edit your photos. Picnik is the remedy to all of those memory hogging photo editing woes.
It’s a free online tool (with a snazzy well-priced paid version as well if you wanna’ be all ‘PRO’ like and whatnot) that makes it beyond easy to do your basic photo crops and edits, as well as have a little fun with your images (case in point: my “classy” and “mature” Halloween portrait – all thanks to Picnik).
I feel so fortunate and so thankful for the technology that exists to enable us to teach each other, grow our craft and connect on very personal level. Whether photography, skateboarding, graffiti, cupcakes or knitting is ‘your thing’ chances are there is an online community for you to engage and grow in. What a wonderful world we live in…
I would do myself and this company a disservice if I didn’t take time to thank the people at Schipul.
I believe everything happens for a reason and words cannot describe how much of a lifesaver this company has been in my life since I heard about it at the beginning of this year.
I graduated last year at Famu in this horrible economy and found it hard to find any type of employment as many recent graduates did. I worked a lot of odd jobs that were only temporary and that weren’t enjoyable. Through this tough time I started to get back into freelance web design as a way to keep some type of income and reconnected with Albert Hughes for consulting.
Reaching out to him I found out that he was employed at Schipul and he was more than generous to help me out. From there I researched the company and felt that it would be an awesome place to work. I liked the young energetic attitude the employees had, I liked the training they offered, and who wouldn’t want to work at a company when the first thing you see when you walk in is a Nintendo Wii? I applied for a SEO internship position but didn’t get it, but it turned out to be a blessing, because I know I wasn’t ready and I needed to do more research and practice on my own.
Although my web design skills were not perfect, I felt like I was more prepared when another internship position came up. It came at a perfect time because plans for grad school weren’t working out, and I was at the end of my rope. Some people might not have Faith that good things follow the bad, but I do. As a result I was in the exact place at the exact time for me to apply and enjoy my current internship on an interactive client team at Schipul as much as I do. Now I’m with a group of people who care and want to teach you. I love our clients and atmosphere and I am fortunate to say that I am at my dream job. Not many people in life have the opportunity to say that.
I’m blessed enough to say that on my first REAL job. So thanks to Schipul for letting me experience this.
It’s almost the end of the day and a combination of code just finished 
