Episode 13- Nerdlympics

Company culture is the topic on this week's From Idea to Done podcast. Erick has devised an extra special event for the company, the Nerdlympics! Erick and Josh discuss the plan for this video game competition that will be taking place at Replay Games in Fargo.

Hey Everyone, I’m Josh & I’m Erick

E: Today’s idea is company culture. As the unofficial/super official culture person in our office. I have devised a little event. We will get to that a little later. Josh as a business owner can you give me your thoughts on how to improve our company culture?

J: I think the main element to company culture is knowing your team and what is important to them, what’s happening in their personal life and wanting to be around each other. 

E: We have chatted a little about culture before on the show before. I think just trying to care about everyone and being inclusive is the first step that basically no one really does. I have kind of taken the lead in starting some cultural events. I actually looked at our projects and tied a mild culture reward to us finishing a big project on time and on budget. 

J: And I can really appreciate that you’ve been able to run with those items and celebrate the small wins we have had. It is far too easy to just say… Yup onto the next.

E: So with some brief chats with the nerds. I decided to create a little event based on our conversations. I went to our friends at Replay Games. I have rented out their facility, and we are having the Inaugural Nerdlympics. 

J: For those listening who don’t know what replay games is can you explain their business?

E; Basically my friend who worked with me at Toys R Us. Started his own company. He owned basically every console gaming system ever created and a lot of games for each system. They have tons of TVs and comfy chairs. You go there, rent by the hour and can play basically any game ever. 

J: Awesome, shamefully I’ve never been, but CJ’s a good guy so looking to change that fact about me.  So Erick let’s talk about the Nerdlympics. 

E: One of the options for Replay Games is a party package. You get a 3 hour block of time to yourself. I want to give all the nerds 15 minutes to get their best overall score on various games on various systems. Scoring would be the same point system as in Mario Kart. We will have a big spreadsheet tracking everyone’s single game and overall scores. 

J: This sounds like I’m doomed to lose unless I can bring the 6th grade version of me and Super Mario 2. I setup a neighborhood competition when i was 12 and the winner took home a years worth of Nintendo Power magazines, what I didn’t tell anyone that it was the prior years used NP magazines. Good thing I won, anyway… Which Mario Kart are we looking at.

E: Obviously Mario Kart 8. 

J: Growl….. So you are building a competition, picking the games, and probably play video games most out of anyone on our staff right now. 

E: Seems like an amazing idea to me. Can we have the prize be all of the 1989 Nintendo Power magazines? 

J: How old do you think I am… It was obviously 1993.

E: Fair enough. We will have a follow up episode with the results of the Nerdlympics. 

J: Thank you for listening to this episode. If you know a startup that could use our random advice and thoughts have them subscribe and leave a review on iTunes.