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Lesson #4: “We focus a lot on culture”

Article Overview: “Watching Ev really sink his teeth into the role of CEO, take it very seriously,” says Stone. “He very genuinely wants to innovate – not just from a product or technology standpoint, but from a company standpoint. For me, I’ve learned about what it means to focus on a culture, to build social responsibility and the idea of a company as a super-organism.”

Lesson #4: “We focus a lot on culture”

"Watching Ev really sink his teeth into the role of CEO, take it very seriously," says Stone. "He very genuinely wants to innovate - not just from a product or technology standpoint, but from a company standpoint. For me, I've learned about what it means to focus on a culture, to build social responsibility and the idea of a company as a super-organism." Stone, Williams, and Dorsey are doing just that - trying to build Twitter into more than just a microblogging service, but into a super-organism, into a company that cultivates a healthy work environment and culture as much as it does technological innovation.

"We focus a lot on culture specifically...we don't want to end up like the child actor who found success early and grew up all weird and freaky," says Stone. "We want to remain ok; just because we found success early and in many ways got lucky doesn't mean we're all a bunch of geniuses. It means what it means."

"There's a very healthy acknowledgement that we have to stay focused on what we're working on and not to get too caught up in the spotlight. There's a knowledge that these things go up and they come down again. No matter what, we'll just keep working on trying to make Twitter better," he says. "Some of the cultural things we've got here that we're fortunate to have are just a general level-headed, unassuming, humble, humorous, funny atmosphere. We like to have fun and stay humble."

And just how exactly do they have fun? One way is through their regular Friday afternoon Tea Time. "It's something we kind of stole from Google," explains Stone. "They have something called TGIF - that's when the co-founders and the CEO stand up on stage, greet new hires, talk about what happened that week and take Q&A."

"We took that and flipped it around, so that anyone in the company can talk about what they did that week. It takes about an hour and half to go through it all, but it's a very good culture-building exercise because everyone gets to learn what everyone else is doing - and we make fun of each other."

The Twitter office itself was even designed to cultivate an open and fun work environment. There are brick walls, high ceilings, and no cubicles. Employees work side by side at their stations on modern furniture. Breakfast is catered with everything from soy yogurt to fresh strawberries. Then comes lunch - also catered for employees - including soups, salads and sandwiches.

Thursday at Twitter headquarters is a particularly special day, where a guest speaker - anyone from a businessman to a musician - joins them for lunch. Employees are then encouraged to tweet about the lunch as it happens.

Based on their own personal experiences from working at other companies, the Twitter co-founders decided to place a heavy emphasis on making sure that theirs was a company people want to go to work for every day.

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Article Tags: acknowledgement, afternoon tea, amp, atmosphere, ceo, child actor, dorsey, founders, friday afternoon, geniuses, google, new hires, organism, social responsibility, spotlight, tea time, technological innovation, technology standpoint, teeth, work environment



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Re: Thank you for the review, Evan. - [quote="Evan":3njfr78h]Hi Jason - interesting to see how this new one performs. I'd still like to see a focus on who your target market is and talk to them specifically.[/quote:3njfr78h] Yeah, I'll keep you posted! I love that you offered an extra refinement I could make. I feel there's a lot of value in this. Focus on who, talk specifically. Hmm.... In the video I was speaking to those who had very little guidance. I spoke to those needing to bring their full focus to bear. I spoke to people who wanted to transform. I gave examples of results I've created, hippie-into-fashionista, starving-artist-into-career-artist, and blue-collar-worker-into-rapper. Did you mean more specific than that? Something like, 18-35, hip, game-changing types, digitally connected and pop-culture savvy, tired of the status quo and ready to usher in a new era? I've never met a person I couldn't help be happier about their life through a conversation with me, *about anything.* Give me an hour, and you'll be feeling off the charts progress on any topic, with fresh insights to pursue.
Re: Information about doing franchise business in China - China is moving into the global economy big time.... But their culture is so different I don't know what kind of franchises would be the most successful over there... Restaurants, of course!
Dan Kennedy Marketing Methods - We haven't sent out the physical letter yet as the person owning the list wanted to make modifications to the letter that we knew would work well but the List owner had a point - it didn't reflect her personality so her clients would know it didn't come from her. Lesson learned for me. We're back to the drawing board with the list owner more involved in the development of the letter and emails. I should have known better being a Business Analyst in my day job that you never leave the end-user out. So Evan we haven't had the opportunity to test any of it yet but it's been a fun process for me to stand back and look at.
Re: Focus groups - I agree with Kevin.. There are lots of great ways of getting feedback on a new product other than paying for a focus group. I don't have any experience with focus groups personally, however I can't imagine it's going to be cheap. Phil
Re: New McDonalds McCafe concept... - Well.. it's probably not fair to contrast Japan work practices to the US. Their culture is so different over there - they have a much higher regard for doing things right, don't they? It's no accident that most of the Quality Assurance systems came out of Japan! I lived in Japan for a year... about five years ago. Of course I was in Misawa and never got to the big city of Tokyo...


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