At Pixvana we use a company culture mini-pulsing product from one of my favorite seattle startups, TinyPulse. Each week the tool asks our team a fun question that can be answered anonymously via browser or iphone and usually takes less than 1 minute. The surveys invite a participatory, transparent, proactive company culture. I’ve written about TinyPulse use at buuteeq, but since Pixvana is a new company, we are enjoying it anew with our 12 person team.
This last week’s question is a really fun one, and I thought i’d share. Photos of the animals were added by me (not the team member who submitted)–i hope it captures the intent of the suggested animal!
If you had to describe Pixvana as an animal, what animal would it be, and why?
Pixvana is like a baby elephant. Although we may be small now, eventually we will grow up to be very big. Elephants are one of the most intelligent animals in the world due to their large brains. If you combined all the brains at Pixvana, it would be like one big engineering elephant brain. Elephants learn to use tools in creative ways without being taught first, which is something that we are doing at Pixvana. They have excellent communication skills and work together to make sure their entire family is successful. Elephants are also snack lovers, and can be found constantly grazing on delicious healthy snacks such as bamboo, leaves and bananas.
Ants... we’re small (but in a good way) and we work well as a team.
Owl. it’s has great vision and is swift and can turns its head 360!
We should be an Owl.
* like owls we are far sighted in that we can see VR is going to be big and we are running to be there when it happens
* Owls are traditionally thought of wise in stories and we have a gang of wise old men (Paul,Mike,Bill,Suki, Forest, Scott, Sean) [sorry, yea you guys are old :)]
* Owls are a bird of prey. We will prey on the competition
* Owls can swivel their necks and and view the world behind them just as VR video opens the world behind the viewer
* Owls are stealthy just as we are silently building a killer
Chimera – adaptable to any situation.
Parrot– because they are smart adaptable animals able to use a foreign language from a different species, can fly which allows it to be extremely nimble. Parrots don’t get the credit they deserve as avians.
Forest Key's Blog 