5 Lessons in Comparing Office Cultures

Having just changed companies (from Maximizer Software to ActiveState), and now getting used to the culture at the new office, here are five specific ways in which the two companies are different.

1. Political Hierarchy
Keep in mind Maximizer has 100 people in Vancouver, and another 75 in international offices (UK, Australia, South Africa, and Hong Kong), while ActiveState has less than 30 people in Vancouver only. That said, Maximizer is no Microsoft or Oracle. But the flatness of the ActiveState culture at first caught me off guard. At Maximizer, as a member of the senior executive team, I mostly socialized and collaborated with the other senior executives, and those that were one level under me (directors and managers). I rarely spoke with staff level (unless they were in marketing), and the staff in sales and support (the largest groups) would never speak to me at company social functions. In fact, most of them never came into my office, and if they did, they acted very nervous. ActiveState is entirely different in that everyone is more on equal ground and anyone can go into the president's office even.

2. Gay Office Managers make for Fun Times
At ActiveState, our gay office manager/receptionist/accounting & customer service assistant provides a core element of our open, fun, friendly, and humorous workplace. He jokes around with everyone, from the marketing staff up to the president in the same tone. At my old company, a gay office manager certainly would not have fit into the culture.

3. Perks are Good
Maximizer was getting to the point, and with the economy and all, where we were pulling away things like food and snacks for staff (though we did still have massages). At ActiveState, I was pleasantly surprised with fully stocked kitchen with fresh fruit, tons of snacks, breakfast, and lunch options. Then, I learned that there was staff yoga/pilates three times a week that the company subsidized! This feels like the tech boom of 1999 or a video game company, and I'm liking these perks.

4. People Invite Each Other to Parties
At Maximizer, in all my years there, I don't recall ever being invited to a house party that a staffer was having. In one month, I've already been invited to three. Very surprising and different coming from my old world, but seems to be the norm here.

5. Operations need to be Streamlined for Growth
ActiveState, having grown up in the open source space, and being a smaller company, has some streamlining to benefit from in operations and IT. Even before I started, and they asked me what type of software (OS, apps, etc) I wanted on my laptop, I was surprised. And I was allowed to bring in my new BlackBerry, while others were using iPhones or other mobile platforms. Choice is good, but I definitely wasn't used to the ad-hoc nature of IT operations.

Top 5 Handy Apps on my BlackBerry

With all the buzz a few months ago about BlackBerry Apps, I downloaded lots of different apps to try. With the buzz faded, here are the ones that I actually kept on my BlackBerry and still use to manage my life, and when they come in handy.

1. WorldMate Live
As a traveller, I can't live without WorldMate now. It takes e-tickets one step further so you don't have to print out your email confirmations. Instead, you track all your flights, hotels and rental cars in WorldMate Live, sorting it by trip. You can even book hotels through the app - which gives you great deals since it's connected with Hotels.com.

Handy for those times when US Customs is suspicious of your constant entering their country, and they ask for proof of my return trip. Tell them you don't have a printed ticket, and instead, show them your flight in WorldMate app on BlackBerry! Very cool.

You can get this one in BlackBerry App World or http://www.worldmate.com/.

2. Shazam
Finally, the must-have app for iPhone fans is available on BlackBerry! And it's as cool as people say. This is the app that "listens" to whatever tune is playing on the radio or at a bar, and tells you the song and artist! Very handy when you're thinking - "I love this song, who sings it?" and don't want to ask your friends because it's probably Kelly Clarkson and you'd be embarrassed, but you still want to download it and rock out to it whenever you want, and not have to wait for the next time you hear it on the radio.

This one is available through BlackBerry App World.

3. Facebook
For Facebookers, this is great for those times when you're waiting around for something or someone with nothing to do or read. I pull out my BlackBerry and Face-stalk the latest status updates from my friends, and update it with useless information on what I'm doing while waiting for a flight, a green light, or a ferry. Handy for those times when you want to brag about the cool things you're doing when you're not at your computer.

This one is available through BlackBerry App World.

4. Yap with MyCaption
At my company, we're testing various voice-to-text apps for mobile devices. Handy for those times when you need to say something long (like a long email or a long meeting follow-up note for your mobile CRM), and it's too much to type (whether you have fat thumbs or regular thumbs - sometimes, you just don't have the patience to type out more than a few words on a BlackBerry).

For testing, we downloaded various apps and the best one turned out to be Yap with MyCaption. Yap on it's own is OK, but had troubles with punctuation (creating big run-on sentences in the text version of what you said). But MyCaption (powered by Yap) was better, as it has some humans to help with the technology (probably some humans in a big call center in India listening to your messages and fixing the errors that the technology makes). It still thought that "Murray" was "Marie" (prompting all those CC'd on my message to Murray to start calling him Marie in the office) - but converted a 2-minute message into a pretty accurate email.

You can get a trial for this one at http://www.mycaption.com/.

5. Maximizer Mobile CRM
Of course I can't write a blog posting about BlackBerry apps without mentioning the app that pays my paycheque, Maximizer Mobile CRM. Handy when I'm on a business trip, I can see updated info on the customers and partners I'm about to meet, including the past emails, letters, phone calls I've had with them. So now I can be lazy and not print out all their files and info beforehand - I just look it up in the morning on my BlackBerry. It helps me remember important details from past conversations, and record details of the meetings I'm having, so I can remember them easily in the future.

More info at www.maximizer.com/mobilecrm.