Written by: Shayne Flaherty, CTO at IndyConn
When building a workspace (especially for a new company) it is important to think about the fact that the employees of your company will need to spend much of their waking life there. I have worked at many dark and depressing offices in the course of my career and I am sure you have too. Darkness is good for many things but being productive is not one of them. If people dread going to work, they aren’t inspired to develop new ideas and solve big problems.
Tech companies are cool, or at least, should be in my opinion. We were lucky enough to stumble upon this very cool office in Pittsfield, MA (lovingly called The Pitt). The space itself had a ton of potential but needed a lot of love. We had tons of love to give!
The space itself consisted of three rooms and a small alcove in the corner, it was (and still is) a little on the small side but we loved the space so much that we decided that we would just make it work. We have made it work, and everyone that comes into the IndyConn office loves being there. Its open, light, and full of 80’s hairband music.
for assembly
with a view
There is a ton of natural light and we choose to stick with white, adjustable, stand-up desks so that people have a lot of options while at their desk. We had to assemble the jigsaw puzzles that became the desks and conference table, but they really give the space the look we were going for. What we realized was that if we wanted happy customers, we needed happy employees that loved their jobs as well as the space they worked in.
(Yes, top Gear!).
Fake News: All chairs need wheels
We built out a monitor wall that we can use as four separate screens or as one large screen, this ended up being perfect for Mario Kart tournaments on game night. The team also added our logo to the walls and exterior along with some wallpaper art, jellyfish and our “Moon man,” Buzz Aldrin. We are very happy with the end result. The real goal is to have a great office space to provide the best information technology services around.
In order for us to be the best, we need to be able to attract and retain awesome talent. We have assembled the best team I have ever worked with that is able to solve any and every problem that we are faced with. The company culture is the what we primarily focus on, and are most proud of, but I am positive that the workspace has a huge effect on motivation and mood as well.
Once we had the office sorted out, we had to begin working on our on-premise Genius Lab. The lab is primarily Cisco UCS equipment along with EMC and HP. Much of the work we do is in the cloud and therefore the footprint of our lab is just a fraction of what it would have been in the past, but it is critical for testing hybrid cloud technologies like VMware on AWS and proving out all kinds of Disaster Recovery strategies.
The office and lab space are where we hold our ongoing “Technical Tuesdays” training where we vote on technical certification topics and once we choose the topic, the entire team works on obtaining the certification. Many employees join the certification race even if it is out of their wheelhouse, which is fantastic!
In addition to training, we also have been doing community outreach events for the children of the Pittsfield community where we work on projects like Raspberry Pi, breadboards, and sensors. We plan to continue to add outreach learning programs to include many different technical topics, so stay tuned for that!
We have now been working in the office now for close to a year and I think the space has been ideal for IndyConn and our staff. I know that we will continue to make changes as we add new people and services, but this office is a place that people are proud to work, show their friends, and share ideas—even if I did order conference chairs with no wheels. If you are interested in following all the things that we do, follow us on Instagram @indyconnections, or Facebook.