1. Howdy, Allen and Jerome
2. ZURBification Week
3. Surprise your audience - send them a newsletter
4. We're hiring!

Howdy, Allen and Jerome

Things keep rockin' and rollin' at ZURB. This month we'd like to give a big welcome to ZURB's two newest team members, Allen Petlock and Jerome Miller.

Allen, our resident developer, hacks away into all hours of the night creating the engines that run our sites. While Ruby is his preferred language, he is comfortable with most others and at one with a database. Some suspect that he doesn't actually sleep, but just recharges at night.

Jerome has been a long-time fan of ZURB. Originally hailing from Kentucky, his lifelong dream finally came true when we tapped him for the role of Design Manager. He brings a sharp eye for design detail, a buoyant personality (he busted into the Running Man during his interview), and orderly ways to keep our design thinking efficient and on the ball.

ZURBification Week

In our 11th year of business in the Valley developing unique experience working with 75 start-ups, we wanted to put a stake in the ground. We care about on our team as people and we want to build something great together. At the core of that goal is strengthening our team and culture with programs and benefits that bring unity to the organization.

Each day last week we held a team event to unveil a piece of our company vision and announce new benefits to full-time employees. Because we're visual thinkers and problem solvers, our calendar for the week is focused around the outline of a person:

On Monday each team member received a necktie and were challenged to tie a solid Windsor knot right there on the spot. The point? Sometimes a strong outward presentation reflects a strong inner presence. If you look good, you'll feel good and it'll show. To help the team do that, we've instituted a free weekly dry cleaning service! We want to help set the team up for more wins.

Hunter said, "Right on!"

Tuesday was all about how ZURB can help our employees find a little inner peace. We all let creaky hinges nag us and stuff to pile up without taking care of it. To help take one kind of stress off the plate and focus us on our other goals in work and life, we introduced a monthly house cleaning service for everyone in the company.

Mark quipped, "Oh wow! I'm gonna leave my place a pigsty every month."

Wednesday we referred to as "drinking the Koolaid." The entire team piled into the movie theater at the Pruneyard armed with clappers and boxes of candy for a rousing two hour presentation. We covered our company's framework, people, tools, communication and the work we do.

When it comes to benefits, we want ZURB to be second to none. We said, "show me the money," and announced our new profit sharing program. Every full-time employee shares in the company's quarterly profits in both cash and 401k investment.

Presentation tip: ZURBify your PowerPoints with clips from Rocky and Glengarry Glen Ross to really get your team's blood flowing.

Thursday made a statement that learning is awesome. We recently added a book library to the office with simple checkout system. Every team member can submit requests for books to a shared company Amazon.com wish list which gets ordered and shipped every few weeks. To help stock our own personal libraries and put our game faces on, we each received a copy of Sun Tzu's classic treatise on strategy, The Art of War to discuss next week. Take that Oprah's Book Club!

Friday we finished the week back at the offices. Everyone on the team got up for three minutes to present a nonprofit they would like our company to work with. The presentations were outstanding across the board. Our goal is to identify one lucky nonprofit to join us for our second 24 hour marketing marathon. We'll donate our time to help jump start them to another level.

We're excited about the ways these benefits will improve ZURB and our service to our clients. When it comes to bringing your company team closer together,
what kinds of 'ZURBification' are you doing?

We're digging into the vaults like Indiana Jones for one of our own articles published almost five years ago. Why? We wanted to take our own medicine and get back to basics with our own newsletter. Newsletters have become a common part of online company's marketing repertoire, but the goals of sending one aren't always clear. The ideas Bryan wrote about in this article way back in the day are still relevant. He urges us to educate, enlighten, and inspire our subscribers.

Surprise your audience — send them a newsletter

By Bryan Zmijewski

In the design world, a few words go a long way

It takes more than just great imagery to get noticed. For designers, newsletters can create relationships, increase your "value" and build your personal brand. Promote yourself and your ideas through words as well as images.

Now more than ever, businesses want designers who can not only come up with slick graphics, but also develop concepts that carry a message. A portfolio of images rarely shows depth—the opportunity to articulate your ideas, build strong relationships and sell yourself often gets lost in the visual presentation. A newsletter can help you overcome this by providing showcase for your talents and skills. It's not a one-time affair, but rather an ongoing activity that keeps you connected to people who find your work interesting.

Continued...

We're hiring!

We might be small, but we offer cool benefits that big companies don't even provide. We're a hard working group that makes a big impact for every company we work with. Checkout our open positions.