The 5 Coolest Places to Work

By Matt Valentine

Employment in and of itself is a tough thing to come by these days, so dreaming of working at a place that you don't dread going to every morning (count me among the lucky few) may be far fetched. With that said I still thought it would be a fun post to a countdown to the " 5 Coolest Places to Work" so keep checking back for the complete list and please feel free to add some of your own or comment on those I may have overlooked.

Yes, it’s an obvious move to put Google on this list, but any “coolest places to work ” list would be incomplete without Google on it.

Corporate Culture- 

Google’s corporate culture has played a large role in the company’s tremendous growth. Though one of the biggest and most successful corporations in the world Google disdains the hierarchical order of most large corporations and substitutes it with smaller creative teams which are highly flexible and highly motivated.

Google fosters an environment of innovation and creativity by encouraging every employee to share their ideas no matter their department or position.

Perks-

The perks of working for Google are almost too numerous to list and are one of the main reasons the company received about 777,000 applications last year alone. So here are some of the “cooler” perks Google offers its employees. 

•  Free Gourmet meals. Forget about paying for some Mickey D’s during lunch break, Googlers enjoy free gourmet cooking in one of 11 cafeterias. Yea we’re all jealous.
• Pool tables, a lap pool, a climbing wall, foosball, videogames,  ping pong and roller hockey twice a week in the parking lot are just some of the activities available to the company’s employees.

•  Relaxed Atmosphere:  Take a nap in one of the company's  sleeping pods, or attend a TGIF party, relax in one of many massage chairs, or use scooters and segways to get around. Hate your job yet? 

Benefits-  

Laziness prevents me from detailing Google’s benefits package, but fortunately they have already done it for me! So if you’re interested to see just how sweet the Google benefits package is follow this link http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=benefits.html

Physical Workspace-

While all of the aforementioned attributes make Google a cool place to work, the actual physical workplace known as the Googleplex may be the one thing that makes Google such an attractive job.

Located in Mountain View California  (there are also offices in Bangalore, New York City and Irvine, Calif. Among others) the company has successfully maintained the feel of a college campus environment, hearkening back to its origins at Stanford University.

Pictures do more justice then my words can.

Be sure to check back for the next addition to the list!

Matt Valentine is the Marketing Manager at KDF Reprographics, Inc. providers of Large Format Printing, Vehicle Wraps, Fleet Graphics, Color Scanning, Posters, Banners and Trade Show Displays. To contact Matt or setup an interview please call 888-533-2667 or visit our website @ http://www.kdf-comp.com/ or you can become a fan on Facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rockleigh-NJ/KDF-Reprographics-Inc/209102776252?ref=ts or follow us on Twitter @http://twitter.com/KDFReprographic

5 Things That Changed Business in the 2000’s

The aught years have been a strange, exciting, and scary time for many businesses. In the 2000’s business experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. The last ten years have brought scandals (Madoff, Enron), booms and busts (dot coms, housing) technological advances, a global recession, and many important lessons that should guide us into the 2010’s.

With the decade coming to a close let’s take a look at the things that changed business in the 2000’s.

Google

Think back, and try to remember how you used to search the internet before Google. Yep, I can barely remember either. Google single handedly revolutionized the way we all interact with the internet and the tactics we use to get our businesses found on the web. In 2000 Google was a small search engine with a loyal following; by 2006 the word Google was included in both the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary. In fact, I had to Google, Google just to write this.

BlackBerry

In 1999 the first BlackBerry device was introduced as a two-way pager. By 2002 the first smartphone BlackBerry was rolled out bringing with it a host of biz friendly applications and the business world hasn’t been the same since.

For better or worse many of us are now attached to our work literally at the hip. Where once we had to be by a computer in order to do anything work related, we can now perform any number of tasks right on our phone. The BalckBerry has been great for businesses for sure, maybe not so great for those of us now addicted to our “CrackBerry”.

Social Media

One of the major themes of the decade was a need for instant gratification, nowhere is this better typified then in the explosion of social media applications.

Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Wordpress, etc.  whichever one you or your business is on and you’re most likely on all of them, these social media platforms have changed the way we interact with friends, family, and most importantly to businesses…consumers.

Booms, Busts, and Bailouts

First it was the dot com boom. In 1995 buying into dot com’s was all the rage, by 2001 it went from dot com to “dot bomb” as the bottom fell out on the dot com market and investors found out just how shaky many of these companies foundations really were.

Next, it was the housing bubble that burst. In the first half of the decade housing prices were at an all time high with property values around the nation jumping in some places more than 80%.

It wouldn’t last long as the bubble began to burst in 2006 and by 2008 the Case-Shiller home price index reported its largest price drop in history, launching the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

The stock market was no stranger to the wild boom/bust swings of the 2000’s either.

In 2007 the Dow Jones Industrial Average soared to record heights. On April 27, 2007 the Dow closed above the 13,000 mark for the first time in history and continued to surge upward.

On Oct. 9, 2007 the Dow hit an all time high of 14,164.53. Yet, like seemingly everything else in this decade as soon as something reached record heights it was poised to set record lows.

And that’s exactly what happened on Sep. 29, 2008. When word spread on Wall Street that the House had rejected the government’s $700 billion bailout plan, the Dow fell 778 points, its largest single day drop in history.

Speaking of government bailouts the 2000’s saw its share of those as well. It began with the $700 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act to help ensure that America’s banking system would not fail. While American institutions like the Lehman Brothers were allowed to go under, other institutions deemed to big to fail, like AIG, were kept afloat by the government’s bailout package.

Then it was the American auto industry which needed a bailout. Though Ford did not take any bailout money Chrysler and GM took billions in tax-payer dollars only to eventually file for bankruptcy anyway. The government then promised billions more to keep the companies afloat.

How did all this change business? Well, it taught us that bad lending practices, and living well beyond our means is simply… bad business.

The Great Recession

Undoubtedly nothing has had a greater impact on business and on many of our lives as the economic recession.

Beginning in the United States in December 2007 and predicted by some to last into 2011 the “Great Recession” has had and will continue to have a profound impact on how we conduct business.

Though the actual origins of the recession are still being debated there is no doubt that it resulted from a confluence of events including: reckless lending practices, sub-prime loans, a sharp increase in oil and food prices, the bursting of the housing bubble and the collapse of the Lehman Brothers.

As a result many businesses were forced to lay off thousands of employees and the unemployment rate in the U.S. went from 4.9% in December 2007 to 10.9% in October 2009.

Though there are signs that the recession is waning the real question for businesses is not when the recession will end, but how can we prevent it from happening again.