Out of Normal: Diamond in the rough....

February 08, 2004

Diamond in the rough....

One of my all time favorite movies is Jerry McGuire, for a variety of reasons. The character, Jerry, that the movie focuses around, is a great role-model of what it means to be a man, at least in my eyes. There are several facets of his personality that I find to be idealistic, especially the fact that he, in every instance, chooses what is right over the "Bigger and better deal." The mission statement that he wrote, distributed, and ended his career with a large sports management firm was the first instance of this. The second instance was when he decided to end his relationship with the cold, callous, vindictive, yet really hot woman, and followed his heart to marry the woman that chose to leave her career with the same firm to come help him start his business.

Where am I going with all of this?? Ill get there, I promise. Over there on the side of this weblog, you can see a list of what I call my "Daily Oxygen." Those are others weblogs that I check with every day. Some of them I found totally by chance, some of them I found by following links on others sites.

I have always wondered if someone who had Jerry's ideals and beliefs would start up a business, just how well it would do. This would have to be a business where operations would be based on sound financial decisions, but it would also be a place where the employees would come into the office every day with a huge smile on their faces, and actually be excited to be there, feeling a personal stake in everything that they touched.

One day, a few months ago, I followed a link off of Julies weblog, where she was congratulating a couple on their engagement. The link took me to the personal website of Aaron, who is the president of Wondermill Webworks, a small internet company located in Victoria, British Columbia. Fortunately, the night that I wondered across the website, I had about an hour to kill, so I read the site from "Cover to cover." If ever there were a dream employer, Wondermill would be it. In an effort to not mis-quote or mis-inform, I would just like to highly recommend that all of you take a few moments out of your day and go on over to www.wondermill.com and check out what they are doing. If you only have time to read a little of it, first read about the history of the company, then their online employee manual. I would encourage, though, that you take the time to read the entire site.

For an opportunity to work with people like they have, I would gladly take a fifty percent salary cut, just for the opportunity to witness and interact with a group of individuals who believe so strongly in what they do, and why they do it. It isn't all about the big dollars, fame or fortune, rather quality of life and happiness.

Hats off to you Aaron, and all of the folks and Wondermill as well! I don't have a fancy online award to hand you, nor would anyone care if I did, but do know that what you are doing up there in Canada is being noticed and noted.

Posted by Broch at February 8, 2004 08:03 PM

Comments

Hey Broch, I'll make sure Aaron gets to see your post. I know you'll make his day. I'm Adrian, one of Aaron's best friends. The company did indeed grow chiefly out of a desire to build something where the people mattered more than a sinister corporate agenda. Aaron wanted to prove that you really could win while still treating your staff like family. A friend of ours once said, "If Wondermill doesn't make it, something is wrong with the world." Three weeks ago the Mill laid off half its staff. The long & the short of it is exactly what you pointed out in your post- a business needs to be founded on sound financial decisions, and somewhere in there that didn't happen. I won't be pointing fingers here and I won't be drawing conclusions, because it's a complicated story and it doesn't belong here. It's enough to say that one shouldn't forget that the rest of the world is still playing by the old rules, and you will get eaten if you aren't paying attention. I hope Wondermill survives its present crisis, and I hope the lessons have sunk in. Would I do it all again? Yep. I think all of us would, with a few little changes. And I'm still Aaron's friend, in spite of the fact that he laid me off. Things have changed, to be sure, but Wondermill got slammed and the blame does not solely rest with him, by any means. So, Broch, I love your ideals and I hope you hang on to them, but hold on to your pragmatism too.

Posted by: Adrian at February 9, 2004 08:13 PM

Hi Broch, Adrian pointed me to your post, and it was wonderful to read. Thanks so much for the kind words. It's the kind of thing I'd always hoped the company would represent to people. Building a company on such a premise has been an incredible ride, with the highs higher and the lows lower. Many things have worked out just as I'd hoped, while others sit in the Hard Lessons Learned category. Again, thanks for the post. :) - aa

Posted by: aa at February 9, 2004 08:37 PM

you know, that's bullshit. regardless of how "the rest of the world" operates, that doesn't dictate how you need to operate and if you choose not to, it doesn't damn your business to ruin. i choose not to play in the same sandbox as almost all of my competition and that differentiation is what makes me stand out...they end up competing amongst themselves. my 2 cents: as a business owner you've got one priority that eclipses all others...the bottom line; without it you have nothing and can do nothing. when the bottom line goes away, you've failed yourself, your customers, and your employees. 1. your employees NEVER come first; your customers ALWAYS come first and that promotes the bottom line. 2. transparency promotes too much discussion on the direction of the company. either you have a leader or you don't; but trying to lead by committee is a recipie for failure. 3. the only way to successfully innovate is to learn how to fail fast...to detect when something has gone off the reservation early so you don't waste resources. either your wasting the customers money or your own here, both are bad. 4. lack of protection bites you in the ass every time. you may not be in the same sandbox, but you're in the same world. thinking you can just move faster than your competition is a joke. 5. pofits...they got the right idea, but they didn't realize what gets you there and keeps you there.

Posted by: nose at February 11, 2004 01:14 PM

nose you need to take a chill pill. your are 8 years 5 months 7 days and 15 hours away from a heart attack. Be careful my friend or the worm will eat you.

Posted by: crutch at February 13, 2004 05:54 PM

why is it that you think i always need to chill? i'm probably under the lowest amount of stress right now than at any time in the last two years.

Posted by: nose at February 14, 2004 03:00 PM

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February 08, 2004

Diamond in the rough....

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