The Future Power Lunch: Brought to You by Your Developers

My eyes glaze over when I try to comprehend what in the world is happening on the screens of our developers computers. The multi-colored lines upon lines of seeming gibberish is actually the life blood of our system. Every /, { and > is like a cell in the body of our software; each performing its special role in tandem with the rest, truly creating something out of nothing. It’s absolutely fascinating.

It can be an extremely stressful job though and I do not envy them. With over 11,000 organizations using our system worldwide, an incorrect character in the coding is going to affect everyone. It is important to have some time to unwind with a more “playful” outlet for their brilliance.

Enter: The Nintendo Wii

When I need to take a break from writing or talking on the phone, I usually go do something totally unrelated to my job, like play with our Nintendo Wii for example. For our developers it’s a little different. Yes, they love to “play” the Wii, but how I play with electronics and how they do is completely different.

I go at the Wii the same as any other Joe: I play whichever game shows up first and start swinging those chuks like a mad man. Our developers like to “tinker”. This means if it has a motherboard, it can be manipulated to do their bidding. There is no such thing as “stock” with these minds around.

“Because we’re geeks. And making something do what it’s not supposed to is cool”, says our lead developer Brian Hanson. For him and the rest of our development team, making the Wii play old Sega games and stream Netflix on demand isn’t so much about expanding our options for entertainment as it is about having a greater understanding of the technology lying around our office. That is the real entertainment for this crew.

“When we have a better understanding of how something works we appreciate it more. It’s about staying on the cutting edge and making technology do more . . . we’re visiting the future”.

It is awesome to have such talented and inspired individuals to collaborate with on a daily basis, besides the fact that I can now watch The Karate Kid or play Super Smash Bros during my lunch break. The re-design we did to the office is inviting, but without the right “characters” around to bring it to life, it’s just another space with some stuff.