Having seen Chris’ post yesterday, I thought I’d bring another perspective to the table. I joined Red Gate a few weeks ago, and from all I’d learned before joining I thought it was a cracking company, doing things in a different way. In particular I think it’s taking the consumer-led approach to products and business and applying it in a space which has traditionally been addressed in a very different manner.

So, people in organisations are being sold to as if they were consumers, with products which have a quality, an intent, and hopefully a pervasiveness which mirrors them as consumers in the working place. That interests me an awful lot.

I’ve spent a lot of time with more ‘enterprise-y’, more classical ways of offering, making and developing products (both hardware and software), almost always in leading high-tech early markets. But this is the first organisation which I’ve been exposed to which is approaching those problems in a very different way, and that interests me and attracted me – and the more I’ve learned, the more that instinct has become validated.

So I’m intrigued by that approach, I’m intrigued by the fact that it’s different, I’m intrigued by the fact that the image and execution of the company is distinct, and I’m intrigued by the mantra of ‘simplicity’.

If I were to describe the culture of Red Gate, I think two words would spring to mind. One of them is ‘Different’, and the other is ‘Friendly’, or ‘People-Oriented’. I’ve never before worked for a company where, after accepting the job offer, I was sent a helium balloon as part of a package of goodies as a way to say ‘Hi’. I think that’s very interesting, because I think at one level it says “people are people”, and the organisation promotes its ‘people-ness’, as much as anything else.

And that principle I’ve seen in the last few weeks in spades; People have approached me, they’ve looked after me, they’ve said ‘hi’… all that stuff. It’s a very different experience from many (particularly larger) organisations, where you’re dumped at a desk, told “here’s your email, here’s your phone, and off you go”. It’s very different from that, very welcoming; but I think it’s indicative of a principle, a theme, a trend in the company which is very strong.

When I say ‘different’, I mean it in a good way. Little things are done differently and, most importantly, cleverly differently. Just to give you an example, on the website, there is a list of references. Many companies have references. Often times those references are highly contrived, very strongly marketed and they say “the product’s good, it works, it does what it says on the tin”. What I noticed of Red Gate was that the recommendations still say the products are good; but they – or rather we – say it by having lots of verbatim comments from many, many people. And my initial reaction was,

“That’s odd”

My next reaction was,

“You know what, there’s a lot of content there”

And my third reaction was,

“It’s different, and it’s different in a positive and clever way”

And now I’m inside the building I’m beginning to see what I think is an underlying theme; that:

A) It’s ok to be different and –

B) Difference could be a strength, a discriminator, an opportunity.

I’ve seen differences accepted. I’ve seen real consensus-led meetings, and that, in a sense, shows a culture which is valuing difference when applied objectively. And I suspect I will see other instances where being different has been taken to become a virtue, for very good and thinking reasons.

Another difference, and I’ve never had this before: on my first day there was an envelope on my desk with a card, signed by a bunch of members of the team, and with a picture on the card as I recognised (on about day 1-&-a-half) as caricatures of people in the company. I thought that was an extraordinarily nice thing to do, which was also very, very welcoming.

I think the thing I remember the most about my first day here was the efficiency. I could see my arrival had been planned to more than just having a desk and a chair. I was taken by the HR department into a meeting, and run through all the practical stuff, which was good because it’s a good chance to ask all those very boring questions about where everything is. But that was done very quickly.

One of the other things that impressed me was the briefing paper I was given, which was almost a mini project-planner with the sorts of things I should be doing on day1, day2, week2, week3 etc. There had been significant thought given to that plan, and work doing it, because it was for ME, not just a new person. It was personalised, it was directed, and I’ve found that very useful, because it’s given me something to hang on to and do. And I’ve never had that anywhere else. I’ve been in meetings where people have verbally said, “Here’s a bunch of things”, and I’ve been in situations where someone has said “well, the ‘project manager’ (or whoever) left, here’s his departure notes”…not the same thing at all.

Paul Galwas