Thoughts on my first days with Effective UI

Sitting here midway through day two, i gotta say, EUI (I had UM, there, oops, was talking about them, guess the initials stuck in my brain. UM is certainly a cool group too, but not my employer, LOL) is a pretty damn cool place. Coming in to say hi to the crew i already knew I never got a feel for the rest of the company. Dealing with Marketing for 360|Flex I knew them already through emails. Now they’re my colleagues.

The first thing that truly struck me is the size of EUI. I’ve known these guys for over a year now, and always thought of them in terms of the people I initially met, so EUI was always Andy, Tony, Drew, Brook, Anthony. Then Juan came along and made it all a happy family. Then I started dealing with Rebecca and Catherine, as they haranged Tom and I for a decision on who’s been approved as a speaker for our latest 360|Flex.

That’s barely a 10th of the EUI crew! There’s arond 70ish folks here, doing some really cool things!

I’m in the process of finding out what I can talk about and such, which sadly isn’t everything! Some things are under strict embargo (WEAK) on talking about them. What ya gonna do?

As I sit in on meetings and breifings and such here, meeting my new colleagues, I’m getting more and more excited to bring what we’re doing to the forefront more. You thought Ebay desktop rocked? You ain’t seen nothing!

Tags: EffectiveUI

Thursday, September 4th, 2008 EffectiveUI, Technology, Work

Comments2008-09-04+00%3A00%3A00John+Wilker to Thoughts on my first days with Effective UI

@jonathan,

Really?! No one mentioned that! I’ll have to add something sweet!

bwa ha ha ha ha. Good to know…. I’ll keep my trash talk to myself. :D

Done! He’s sitting right next to me, I’ll bring him some cookies! HA HA HA.

Excellent to know on the serious side. All huge benefits in my mind having been places where more or less the opposite was the case, ack!

Me too! :D

John Wilker on September 4th, 2008

Some tips to help you through your first days:

- Add something to the purple purse for the next guy/gal
- When you include all the remote offices, sister companies, subsidiaries, etc., we’re more like 110 people… but what you’ll discover is about a third of them are either related to or were brought in by RJ Owen from his vast familial and social sphere, so beware of what you say about him in public, no matter how obnoxious he may be.
- Make friends with Jim Cheng… he’ll save your ass one day. If you think of our development team as a police force solving day-to-day challenges, Jim is the SWAT team. You don’t necessarily want him patrolling your streets, but when the shit hits the fan you’ll thank God when he rolls on scene. The guy thinks in bytecode and dreams in binary.

and some more serious ones:
- People working in EffectiveUI have an awesome level of control over their work life and their future (some realize this better than others). Whereas in many other companies job function and ambitions are held back by politics, egos, and turf-guarding, in EffectiveUI everyone’s grateful for someone who’s willing to step up and take charge of something he or she is passionate about, even if someone else was already working on it. And the managers don’t like 9-5 timecard punchers who just do their job enough to stay under the radar, but rather love people who identify opportunities for personal, professional, and company growth and pursue them. People have a lot of control over what they do here so long as they’re driven and can build a case for the opportunity. Your position in particular gives you a lot of freedom to define where you’re heading.

- The no egos, no politics thing isn’t bullshit. There is a bit, here and there, but generally people relate to each other in terms of the strength of their contributions, experience, and intellect, rather than based on hierarchy, cliques, or who plays golf with the boss. Nobody’s work, not even and especially not the managers’, is immune from scrutiny and constructive feedback. So never be deterred from meeting people, whoever they are, head-to-head and respectfully over ideas and issues, because even if the feedback is negative or there isn’t agreement amongst you, everyone respects and invited the contribution of thought and engagement.

I’m looking forward to seeing what you can do.

-jonathan

Jonathan Anderson on September 4th, 2008

I've heard a lot about EUI, mostly through working for their self-defined "arch competitor", Spire Media. I've recently left Spire and would love the opportunity to check out EUI with the aim of getting hired as either a contractor or regular fella. Anyone wants to drop me a line, I'd love to hear from you.
ztaschdjian@gmail.com

Zac

Zac Taschdjian on October 28th, 2008

@zac,

yeah i've no idea where that "Arch competitor" stuff came from, I never understood it. Totally different clientele. What made you leave Spire? I did some consulting back in the day, great folks!

Fire off a resume to blog@effectiveui.com, I can pass it on.

jwilker on October 28th, 2008

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