The fourth Factory Week was a little bit different for us. We knew it was time for a new SmallBox website, and that this task would most certainly consume the majority of the week.
Leading up to Factory Week, we did some of the planning work. This included a total rebranding, making our sitemap and wireframes and setting general creative direction. We hit Factory Week still needing to redesign our blog, write heaps of content, take new team photos and develop the site from start to finish. We were also designing the site to be responsive and building a new social feed module for our content management system. In the end, we needed time after Factory Week to finish and polish the site, but we did get the bulk of it done during this sprint.
And we were able to squeeze in a few extra projects. Notably, we tried our hand at "Daily Nicing," or coming up with something fun and nice to do for others each day during Factory Week. We hosted a happy hour at Upland with a round of pints on us, ran a community building blitz for Indiana Canine Assistance Network, surprised people by paying their tab at Yats, bought some records for people at LUNA and asked our friends via twitter about their favorite nonprofits and gave a small donation to those that people mentioned.
Due to tons of issues with Posterous yesterday & today, we've moved our posting back to the SmallBox blog.
Good questions are worth more than their weight in gold. Last night, I couldn't sleep, thinking about whether people are inherently good question askers, or if it's a skill that can be learned.
Some days the words just flow. Wish us luck that this day is one of those. We have a heap of content to write and edit for our site relaunch.
Musical Family Tree tends to take a back seat to the various Small Box projects that serve as the central focus of Factory Week.
Day one of Factory Week at the Speak Easy is now complete, and while SmallBoxers begin to put away the styluses, roll up the charging cords, and flip up the hoods on their snazzy new t-shirts, the ideas just keep on rolling.
SmallBoxers love non-profits and charitable groups. We love to volunteer and give our time (and even money!) free of charge to great organizations.
Brainstorming has hit thunderous levels in the Speak Easy's upper deck. Leigh & Sarah were working on what at first seemed a simple addition to the new team bios: questions whose answer could be depicted by a SmallBox-designed icon or avatar.
While not quite as coordinated as Beijing, we kicked off Factory Week 2013 with a rapid filling of the 50-ft. project whiteboard.
This morning we had our first divide and conquer. It's become our habit to whiteboard our project list at the start of each Factory Week. Kasey and Abby got us all set up:
Factory Week is finally here! And it wouldn't be Factory Week without having a t-shirt to mark the occasion.
And this time around Factory Week will be spanning two months! But don't worry, that's only a technicality. We'll be kicking off the Winter '13 Edition on Monday, Jan. 28 and finishing up that Friday, Feb. 1.
