We maxed it this year having finally got to the size that we can sensibly hire a big house for a massive December Party. Alongside some extreme Scottish weather, 34 of us headed up to Glasgow on the big orange bird in the sky. The 120 mile an hour winds had disappeared by the time we landed leaving 3 roads closed and blizzards closing in. The plan evolved with two Coach companies dropping out last minute seeing Sapna and Prateek wheeling and dealing our way to the transfer from Glasgow to the Scottish heartlands; Argyllshire on the west coast of wintery Scotland.
For those of us lucky enough to be with a local driver, we took full advantage of the 3 hour earlier arrival time and checked out the pallet of local booze that greeted us. By the time the last of our crowd arrived we matched their low on spirits with ours, greeting their cheery little faces with highballs filled with Single malt. A 6am bedtime preceded a hearty breakfast and a snow covered treasure hunt and theatre experience all fuelled by enthusiasm, cheating and Team Italy’s faviourite Bunnahabhain.
Alongside extensive training sessions, business updates and state of the nation presentations. Friday night kicked off with a mobile-made-video competition celebrating Hive’s 4th birthday (Entries to be YouTubed later this week). Dinner by Louise and her team included loads of game, pastry, chocolate and a few bottles of wine. Hearty dancing supported by the democracy of our Spotify account.
Dangerous moves lasted until morning (even the Malt was single!). A beautiful dawn saw bedtime, a waking fire alarm and scenic trip through the countryside and across the ferry to the mainland. Diet Coke, airport-floor-sluping and the slow journey back home saw it over until another year.
I think this trip has been the best ever. All of us together, a new venue, snow and whisky – perfect. With photos slowly being edited, deleted or uploaded our Christmas story can be enjoyed courtesy of Flickr.
Way back in January 2008, when Hive was set up I fell in love with WordPress. Its simplicity and google matey-ness made it the perfect publishing platform for a growing business. Our requirement for idiot proof content management helped people get to know us, what we thought and who we were. All the important non-powerpoint stuff.
February 2009 saw us update and evolve the look and feel, bolting on some additional social media and a little more functionality.
It’s now time for another change of wardrobe. An easier interface, more access and search functionality for our 50,000+ word-bank of blogs, links to Patient Centricity News our curated Scoop.it publication and a load more bits.
The migration takes place over the next 24 hours. Once it’s done make yourself at home, have a play around and let us know what you think.
…breaking my heart this month. I can’t move for workshops. The delights of post it notes, flip charts and democratic strategy. All facilitated with patience and joy.
My bugbear with these multi day extravaganzas is with the foundation icebreaker sessions. This is more rant than thought through critique. (I am sugar rushing from some charity cake from brought over by the guys at The Nursery)
Surely we all get paid to attend, think and deliver. Surely we all consider it a default to work within a team, even an unfamiliar one. Whether that be off the cuff or after permitted thought. At no point is the voicing of ideas, public thinking and discussion considered god given, it’s not easy or natural for anyone. But it is a paid for requirement. The day job.
I increasingly struggle with the rationale for; sharing the content of my wallet, climbing through imaginary tires, providing public facing previously unknown facts and almost feigned cardiac stress prior to a ‘colleague’ shoulder massage.
Are we all caught up in the entertainment aspect of this lunacy? This initial agenda item is slowly morphing from a simple required introduction into a corporate versions of Big Brother. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next meeting started with us all having to milk a boar. It’s getting a bit unnecessary.
You can’t manufacture or facilitate intimacy, if anything this can achieve the opposite of what’s required. Strangers soon become partners once you are midst a task. Is it unreasonable to consider human beings a social species?
As we haven’t had a poll in a while I though I would take this to you our reading public.
Loading ...
It’s been a roller coaster week this week, filled with elation, reactivity, worry, drive and planning. Midst way through the week we met with a future star of our group to fine tune a new venture. It’s exciting stuff, and its writ large that out culture is playing a big roll in the decision to move forward and make something happen. It got two of us ‘loudly discussing’ culture and what drives it on a very long trip back from Hampshire. Two hours on culture, midst the fairly hefty after effects of a ‘draining’ meeting was enough for both of us. The thoroughness of the debate was facilitated by my inability to pick a road that wasn’t snarled up or moving at more than the pace of a mortally wounded snail.
We netting out (I think?), with a conculsion that cultures a bloody difficult thing to define – but it drives all the organisations we are involved with. Our digital innovation agency Ebee’s culture is pretty unique and different from ourselves at Hive, yet both add terrific value in terms of our identification and cohesion. Its been interesting recently for us, as over the next few months we have a mate in the office setting up his own agency and sharing the space. Dom’s been really interesting to chat to on this – to see a partisan view on what makes us tick, in terms of a clear perspective on our ‘working environmental soup’. How ‘it’ maintains itself in the absence of us, hows it’s intelligent and spirited, how our philosophy connects us all. How its what makes ‘beapart’ not just ad toss.
At hive we manage this with a mixture between individual behaviour, spirit, personality and a collection of ad hoc and planned occurrences that drive all that we want our business home to be. I came out of the van (still not considered a business expense by the guys – despite its clear status as our mobile boardroom), with a better understanding of another perspective. I had prioritised a proactive event supported culture (but definitely not compulsory fun or timetabled pizza) over individual behaviour and the impact on the environment we create by being us. Both sit within a framework of unwritten rules, that we could take months to define and hone, but we are probably better just getting on and driving it by being us and not being too bothered about the minutiae of our special soup’s recipe.
Its the sum of these parts that make us dead special and a our space a destination for new entrepreneurs, the best talent in the business and some seriously good times. Its not the cliche of pizzas at meetings, but effort to be constantly bothered, to behave and deliver what feels the right way.
So what did you do to drive culture today?
