Friday was our first ever Tendenci Chili Cook Off! Our team members offered up recipes from vegetarian chili to chicken to unique ingredients like Guinness beer and even queso!
Good thing we have lots of extension cords for all these crock pots!
All of the entries!
Our esteemed judges judging in the categories of Flavor, Creativity, and Heat!
We used PollEverywhere to text vote and picked our fan favorite!
CONGRATS to the winners!
A big thanks to all of our participants! Congrats to Forrest Purserfor being the Judges’ Overall Favorite and new guy Ben Floyd for being the people’s favorite!
Also Congrats to Mary Shamburger for winning the judges’ choice for Flavor!
Part of the culture here at Schipul is to “Learn and share knowledge”, and one of our favorite ways to do that is sending a “Quote of the day” out to our entire office. In fact, we love quotes so much that we have an entire page dedicated to quotes. Sending out and make quotes a part of your company culture can lead to some quotes of your very own! Here are a few “Schipulisms” you may hear when you come to visit us:
“New guys don’t have names.”
Servant leadership is a key consideration when we hire at Schipul. In Ed Schipul’s article “What are People Paid for?” he talks about how doing small tasks relates to how someone will handle a large task. With that in mind, we affectionately refer to a new hire as “New Guy” as they learn the ropes and take on servant leadership style tasks.
Quoting around the office can also help instill core values. Here are some more Schipulisms that do just that:
“Security is #1”
“Trust, but verify.”
“Ease of use changes behavior.”
(As a side note, we never miss the opprotunity for a good “That’s What She Said” around the office 😉 )
Quotes can Inspire, Motivate, and Deepen your Understanding of the World Around you.
He has achieved success
who has lived well,
laughed often, and loved much;
who has enjoyed the trust of pure women,
the respect of intelligent men
and the love of little children;
who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;
who has left the world better than he found it
whether by an improved poppy,
a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;
who has never lacked appreciation of Earth’s beauty
or failed to express it;
who has always looked for the best in others
and given them the best he had;
whose life was an inspiration;
whose memory a benediction.
That inspires me. It encourages me to stop for a second and really think about what I am reading. How do I measure my success? Are my priorities in the right order to accomplish some of the beautiful truths laid out in this quote? I can confidently say that if I had not read that today, I may have not thought about these things.
How to Write a Good “Quote of the Day” Email
So, now that you’ve gotten inspired and are ready to craft an email that will inspire everyone around you, let’s take a look at some handy tips from our very own Ed Schipul about how to compose a great quote of the day email:
It should be positive.
It should be a concise encapsulation of a concept that helps people.
It should be able to stand alone without further explanation or editorial.
It should do good.
It should be simple in words, although frequently quite complex in thought.
It should be in the default font if possible to keep it consistent and emphasize the words, not formatting.
It can come from *anyone* within the company. Or even a friend outside.
Feel free to copy external people if you think it will be a positive thing for all.
It should be FUN and make you feel good sending it out.
Things to avoid, although this is hard, but try to avoid.
If you have to say “I am sending this quote out because….” or “xyz situation made me want to send this out….” then it is NOT a quote of the day. Those are emails with related quotes in them really, right?
Snarky and mean spirited humor is frequently quite funny, but it is NOT quote of the day material. Those are joke emails, not QoDs. OK?
Delete your footer. Anything that creates visual clutter is bad. So remove ALL text of the email except the quote, the author and perhaps link the author name to the source of the quote.
Here is an example:
—————————-
Subject: Quote of the Day – Resourcefulness
Body:
“The defining factor is never resources, it is resourcefulness.” – Tony Robbins
—————————-
Note the subject consistently starts with exactly “Quote of the Day” so people can create inbox rules to save or file them.
Note there are two spaces above and two spaces below the quote. This makes it stand out visually both when you open the email and on Outlook preview.
Finally, check out this presentation by Enjoy Work to get you started with some awesome quotes:
If you know anyone that works here at Schipul, you’ll know we’re a pretty competitive group. Not a whole lot of us are want to lose, and I’m sure there is a sub-set of us who no one wants to see lose for fear of flying objects or obscure injury.
So of course, we started a fantasy football league.
Rookie Commissioner Michael Coppens put together the crew, a batch of 10 Schipul misfits and a couple of the company’s close friends. Draft day was held after-hours in our conference room where dinner and libations were consumed and the crap talk immediately started flying.
We live to draft: The War Room
Aside: For those of you who aren’t familiar with fantasy football, it goes like this: A certain number of teams (usually 10 or 12) divvy out NFL players by position (e.g. you get quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, a kicker, and a defense) and, depending on their individual performances each week, they garner a certain number of points. The sum of these points is put up against the sum of your opponent’s points that week. Team with the most points wins. Repeat weekly.
After three weeks, I’d like to proudly say I’m in dead last place. This is obviously because I’m cursed with too much knowledge. Mr. Coppens himself is in first place which, as I’m sure we’ll all agree, is a little suspicious considering he’s the Commissioner. And although it’s still early, it’s gotta be hard for people like Project Manager Derek who (see standings below) has scored the third highest point total of any team, but has only won one game. Such is the life of a fantasy football owner.
What’s the point?
In all seriousness, Schipul values its culture above almost everything else (customer service is easily number one). And even though not everyone in the league has two televisions turned to one game and the other to NFL’s Red Zone while streaming a third game from ESPN3.com with four separate StatTracker windows open to keep up with fantasy stats like some people, it’s a great opportunity for our employees to hang out with each other and chat it up around the water cooler.
Even though dead last place takes a beating on Monday morning in the smack talk, I can’t wait for that shiny, shimmering moment when one of my players explodes, I smash my opponent, and I can get my own comebacks in.
No wins after the first three weeks? Only sounds like it’s going to be more of feat when I come back and win.
The Schipul family has grown this week with the addition of three new interns: James Nguyen, Chris Minor and Mark Francis will be helping out the next couple of months so let’s all give them a warm welcome and watch their intro video above!
