deeplocal: Design and Development for Humans and Machines

Last post I spent an inordinate amount of time writing about the people in the office, but if you’re like me you’re thinking “Yes Dave, sure, but what are the THINGS that are in the office?” – ok maybe not, but its easy blog post fodder! Honestly I don’t have a tech post ready, so I’m killing time with fluff (its an old-media trick).

I’ll start by saying that this is the office from my current vantage point. I am sitting in our super startupy “Ultimate Sack” which is the generic version of the “Love Sack” beanbag chair. It is not filled with beans of either the pinto or styrofoam type, it is full of a very comfortable foam not unlike a pillow top mattress.

Note that my feet are on the coffee table and this is primarily due to the fact that beanbag chairs are not made for the tall. I tend to sit in it and feel a brief “ahhh” moment and then realize that I’m sort of half standing because my feet are on the floor. Its grey and puffy and you can sit in it if you want. Anyway, I am in what is known as the living room. This is where we have our big TV, couch, 8bit Nintendo that you may have heard about on twitter, computer for big Hulu watching, and DVD player. These things are mostly for show because we’re rarely bored enough to actually watch DVDs or play Nintendo. Contra is mostly for weekends. We also have a nice IKEA couch.

The shelves under the TV are where we keep our various piles of print materials that are either current or very outdated. Stacks of Follow booklets, SPOT booklets, Children’s Museum maps, BikePGH maps, and the famous “sort of witty” business cards live here. Its actually kind of impressive to think about how much non-software stuff we’ve produced in the last few years, and how much of it is really neat looking. Come visit, we’ll load you up with this stuff while you sit in the bean bag chair.

Moving on. To my right is a full wall of whiteboards. Truthfully, they are bathroom wall panels that are mounted to regular walls. This way we have huge space for big timelines, drawings of user interactions, system architecture diagrams, lists of things that no one labels so that later you cant tell what they’re for, and messages to people to return phone calls. We clean them as we need them. There are three, and the one in the middle gets the most traffic. Its got a haze of various “hard to wipe off” colors on it, and in certain sections you can still sort of see a bus or a little person icon from who knows when.

Counterclockwise (back right of photo) is our electronics tinkering area where we build little electronic whatsits and generally solder things for the fun of it.

Our seating arrangement is a big open line of desks all facing the windows because everyone loves looking out the window (especially when it snows), and no one really liked my “ONLY I MAY LOOK OUT THE WINDOW” policy. We all learn with time.

From there we have our set of shelving that contains our snacks (almost out of fig Newtons *hint hint*), printer, fax machine, coffee supply, and paper supply. Following on is our kitchen table that is that one from IKEA where you can tuck the chairs in an it looks like rounded corner box. Its a nice table. The chairs are basically unusable. Kitchen has dishes (which I hate washing), general use garbage can, recycling, water cooler where we discuss sitcoms and goings-on, and a fridge that is always mysteriously jam packed with food that no one claims. Next to the fridge is our Bathroom/Video Conference Room. Its not as dirty as it sounds. Our bathroom, to be clear, is huge. It has a shower, sink, toilet, & paper towel dispenser sure, but it ALSO has a file cabinet, coffee table with a bunch of magazines, a monitor, a rolled up quilted map of a town in sweeden, and a mop. I’m pretty sure our trademark certificate is in there too. Since our office is echo-y its one of the better places to have a phone call and the best place to brush your teeth if youre like me and feel like brushing your teeth at a kitchen sink is just a strange feeling. (Note: The best place to make a phone call is the wiring closet in the hallway.)

Anyone still reading gets the following gem: we have a foosball table. If you are in the software world you’re very likely saying to yourself “Awesome, I’d love that” and if you’re not you may be thinking the same thing. The fact of the matter is that the foosball table is primarily for show. We never have time to play (I actually don’t like playing with the uber-competitive people here that shall remain nameless). It kind of makes me feel like one of those “software startup” people. The most use its seen in its entire life here was when we hosted 24 high school kids for a session on leadership. They were way more interested in playing foosball than breaking off into groups to design mini-business plans, so we decided it was in our best interest to let them foos it up. They liked it.

…and thats what leadership is.

Nathan’s post from last week shall be posted this week instead, and this should be the last “time-killer-free-form-post” from me. I just didn’t want to be that company that blogs once and runs away.