Yesterday we had a company townhall (which we generally have every few months), except we switched it up and rather than have the execs drone on about quarterly goals, numbers, how the soaring Loonie (or plummeting USD) is affecting our bottom line, and how the new Ontario Harmonized Sales Tax is going raise costs for all of us; we got a staff member from a select departments to present for ten minutes each.
The forum was free form but people generally talked about what they did, what their department did, things they frequently ran into, and then included some personal information. I want to thank Eric from Sales, Andrew (AT) from Internal Apps, Bobby from Dev, Mike our Director of Operations, Sue from F&A, and Phil our CEO (well, somebody had to hold the beer bottle opener) – all of you did a bang up job, and were really funny and engaging. Phil also listed off all the folks who have passed or about to pass their fifth anniversary with us, which is a pretty large contingent – we must be doing something right to have that kind of retention.
Eric is a bit of a stand-up comedian and did a great job of explaining the day in the life of an account exec (if you read the fine print on the slide, it actually included bending light; right next to coerce, convince, and close). I particularly liked the ‘if it isn’t in salesforce, it doesn’t exist’ line – which represents how we operate, internal transparency to everyone. The sales group are highly attuned to their QTD and YTD dials! Eric also explained what BANT was (and dev learned that it wasn’t a Star Wars creature) and what an ideal up.time prospect looked like.
Andrew (or AT) runs Internal Applications, which means he is responsible for our web-site, salesforce, Eloqua, Google AdWords, Google Analytics, and the internal business logic that brings all these things together under a core set of internal dashboards. From the moment you first hit our website to being a life long customer, we know all about you, what you’ve done, what you’ve read, how long your bathroom breaks are, and all your interactions with support. Thanks AT for keeping us a few clicks away from reality.
Now, Bobby, from dev is a special character. He’s coming up on his fifth anniversary with us and has recently had a very important Order bestowed upon him – “The uptime Legend” (yes, it’s true, and it even says it on his business cards). I just have to paste in a few slides from his presentation here so you can understand what a legend does:
Bobby, thanks for your extra 1%. There were call-outs to various members of the dev team, a number whom have special gang names: K-Dawg, Kaibosh, Clupo, Jammy, Krolo,Two-n Glenn, and Face. I know the rest of you are waiting for your names, they will come in time.
Mike, Dir Ops, is on Day 19 of joining the organization, but he’s already hit the ground running and has built his Operational attack plan for the next few quarters and year. I’ve known Mike for a number of years and I’m glad that he’s finally joined us. I had no idea that he’s an avid dirt bike trail rider.
Sue, from F&A threatened to give us all HST training; perhaps lending credo to her department’s real name, F’ingA; but she pulled through with some good team stuff that they’re working on over the next little while.
Thanks again to everybody for a great townhall, I was very proud to see you present and interact. And to those who didn’t look too perky this morning, I understand 
Alex
