Every firm needs a Wii

This spring our architectural firm had our 3^rd annual spring vacation trip to Grayton Beach, Florida. As usual it was a great time for all principals, staff and their families to have fun and continue to create the strong bond that allows us to work better together and be more productive.

There was one new addition to the group this year that I want to tell you about. This new addition may be the best addition to our firm that we’ve made in years. It’s not an employee, it’s not a new office policy or even a new piece of software. It’s a toy! It’s the Nintendo Wii (pronounced “we”). If you don’t know what a Wii is see the sidebar below.

The reason that I find this new addition to our firm so incredible is this. As most of you should know by now our greatest asset is our employees, and to have a truly great company you need to have intelligent and happy employees that work well together. While the Wii can’t do anything about making your employees smarter it can help them enjoy coming to work. I realize this sounds a bit odd, but I now have visions of lunch time and after work Wii competitions between project teams playing, tennis, bowling, baseball, golf or even other more silly games like shoot outs with bunnies. Eventually we may be able to start an Architects Wii League and compete with other firms just as we do now for things like softball.

In 1984 I had one of those “our world will never be the same again” moments when I saw my first Apple Macintosh. I had this same feeling when I saw the Wii and the potential it has to make our firm just a bit better than we are today.

Go out and buy a Wii for your firm. You, and especially your staff, will not regret it!

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What is a Wii:

For those of you who do not know what a Wii is, it’s an interactive video game where unlike Playstations or X-boxes you have a controller and sit in a chair and play, the Wii has two separate handheld devices and allows for the players stand and physically interact with the game on the screen. For instance in baseball game one player actually make the movements of a pitch swing and the other play stands as you would at home plate, with your arms up and behind you, and swing at the ball just as you would in a real game of baseball. In the bowling game you hold the controller in your hand just as you would the bowling ball, swing your arm behind you and then release the “ball” as you move towards the pins.

For more information see http://us.wii.com/