Intro
While most businesses would pride themselves on producing great products, providing great services, or just generally making a profit, the good people at Saturday Drive know what’s really important, bananas. Yeah. You read that right. Rob opens this episode by describing how much the community loves the fact that the Saturday Drive crew eats bananas.
The word that’s spread isn’t how great their products and services are. Nope. It’s the fact that they buy fruit. Did you know that anyone can just walk up and buy fruit?
You can’t make this stuff up.
The Show
Jeremy’s out of town, again, and so James, Rob, and Kevin dive into the world of company culture without him. During his previous hiatus, I reported that Jeremy was in the Mediterranean, but that was a mistake. I can confirm this time, however, that he his indeed basking on the sunny shores of either Italy or Greece. Maybe both. Can I get in on the company culture that involves travelling to far-flung destinations every other week?
Kevin pulls back the podcast curtain by explaining that it’s only been a few days since the hosts recorded the previous episode. Turns out, not much has changed in the three days between episodes.
If both of your marketing companies were sponsoring, and speaking, at a local conference about social media, you’d probably know about it, right? Well, Rob didn’t. He uses his birthday as an excuse, and then jumps into how that’s a good example of their company culture. They are a small team who works fairly independently. With Rob’s astonishing attention to detail, that’s probably a good thing.
When the hosts do get into the meat of the topic, they share that every company has a culture. Often, this culture isn’t created intentionally. James tells about how sarcastic the Saturday Drive office can be, tracing its roots back to the early days when it was just Kevin and him. It seems obvious that James and Kevin really wanted everyone in the same office so that they could be mean to them.
The laid back atmosphere that existed when it was just the two of them continued to hang around after they hired employees, and that eventually caused problems. The experience and knowledge that James and Kevin had that allowed them to break up their work however they wanted wasn’t passed along effectively. If you aren’t careful, James warns, the culture that you accidentally create can cause inefficiency and lack of focus. Of course, James is just so darn sarcastic, who knows if he’s serious.
If you want to make Rob happy, invite him to a place that has a fridge stocked full of sodas. That’s apparently all it takes. If you fill it, he will come. Throw in some bean bag chairs while you’re at it.
Have you ever wondered why James and Kevin decided to call their business Saturday Drive? Me neither, but they’ll be sure to tell you; it’s because they like to drive around and talk about stuff. Most of their good ideas come from riding around in a car listening to Tracy Champan.
Our Recommendations
Kevin has mentioned before that he has trouble sleeping, and his recommendation is for a meditation app called Headspace. James chimes in with a different suggestion for a meditation app. James uses his passion for this meditation app Breathe to sneak in two recommendations this week. In all fairness, it’s pretty clear that he’s more passionate about his meditation app than Kevin.
Rob suggests that you listen to a podcast about directing movies called The Director’s Cut. It features directors who are at the top of their game interviewing other directors about movies you may or may not have seen. I’m going to start putting “Rob recommends something movie related” in the same category as “Rob tells a story.” If you read these notes in the future, just assume that Rob tells a story about a movie he saw anytime he discusses anything. That’ll save us both some time.
When James picks up a new service or technology that he likes, he tends to be an evangelist. Sometimes this fades pretty quickly as he realises that the service or technology isn’t really useful. Sometimes he decides to stick with a service. This week, he recommends Grasshopper, a service that sounds like a special cell phone for old people. In reality, the service gives you a phone number that will ring to any number of cell phones, as well as a voice mailbox. If you don’t really have a use for a landline phone, Grasshopper may be a good choice for you.
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