Auren Hoffman's Summation Push for the week of October 4, 1999

This issue:

* Fun = Productivity
* Response to Taiwan Push
* Invest-in-This: GetRelevant
* Summation Push Pick Links
* Hoffman Reading List

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This article originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on 10/12/99:

Generation X-led Companies are More Fun AND More Productive

By Auren Hoffman

Generation Xers are no longer the slackers portrayed in Douglas Copeland's 1992 novel "Generation X." Today, people of our generation are running companies and driving the new economy.

Generation X is the generation that has been responsible for the Internet boom -- the largest wealth creation of all time. We've done it through hard work, ingenuity and good sense, but we've also brought something new into the workplace: fun.

We didn't invent fun. Fun has been around for many millennia. Fun is older than Pac-Man, Scrabble, football and the whoopee cushion. It probably started thousands of years ago, when the first caveman invented the game "telephone" before there even was a telephone.

Companies run by Generation Xers have used fun to create an unprecedented productivity gain. Most Boomer-led companies have yet to incorporate fun into their culture (and probably never will) and are therefore suffering from productivity and ingenuity losses.

At my company, BridgePath.com, we have a good time all the time. At any moment people might start a squishy-ball fight, a spontaneous game of hockey in the halls or an elaborate prank pulled on a co-worker. It would be hard to ask someone to pull an all-nighter on a marketing document or on bug-testing a new feature if they weren't having fun.

Boomer companies attempt to have fun, but almost everything fun has to be planned because they feel it will be too "disruptive." Fun is disruptive -- that's the point! It is important to break up a day with something unexpected and enjoyable. Even though planned events sometimes make for a good time, they often turn into scenes from Dilbert.

Boomer companies have cake for co-worker birthday parties, BridgePath.com and other Gen X companies have a huge pinata attached to the rafters of the ceiling.

Boomer companies have coffee and tea, Gen X companies have Tang, beer and Mountain Dew. At BridgePath.com, we make meetings more bearable by building LEGO structures and making Play-Doh art. Music fills our office and people dress any way they please. Last week, we spent our lunch painting clay pots for other co-workers and planting flower seeds to watch them grow during the next year.

Some activities, like after-work happy hours, still appeal to all generations. But while Boomer companies have Thank Goodness It's Friday (TGIF), BridgePath.com has So Happy It's Thursday (the acronym we use is not appropriate for a family newspaper).

BridgePath.com is not the exception. We're not the only ones that have a super time while working (though we like to think that we have the most fun). Many companies led by Generation X managers think of fun as a strategic weapon -- a way to get more out of employees, get greater productivity and attract the best talent.

People at Gen X companies work hard because they want to work hard. At BridgePath.com, our employees work hard, but there is no one forcing them. We work hard because we enjoy it. No employee is going to stand for whip-cracking anymore. The job market is too good. If a company is not enjoyable, today's employee will find a new home. Work is where you spend most of your waking hours, so it should be enjoyable.

The "strategic advantage" of fun is even apparent when Generation X-led companies recruit new employees. Remember the job fairs you used to attend in hotel conference rooms? Boring job fairs attract boring people and boring companies. Those job fairs are dead --killed by a new type of job fair promoted by my company. Wiping the slates clean, we produce extreme job fairs at fun venues like the Exploratorium and at "Day of Decadence," Channel 104.9's '80s concert revival. Yeah, a job fair at a concert!

These new events attract new companies and top candidates. But companies can't just sit behind a booth and attract top talent like they did in the olden days. These companies must prove to prospective employees that they are cool. At a Bridgepath.com job fair you will see Entango, a new start-up, hosting a full wet bar, or Trapezo bringing clowns on stilts and jugglers to draw attention to their company. Our job fairs feature companies like Topica (with a live DJ spinning records), GetRelevant (highlighting "It's a Start-Up" in baby colors), and other firms raffling off $100. Firms even bring their bean bag chairs to the show, and peg unsuspecting passers- by with Nerf toys.

Many people think that fun and productivity are inversely proportional. However, the opposite is true -- there is a direct correlation with fun and workplace productivity. Generation X-led companies tend to be the most fun and the most productive. They have generated a greater percentage of wealth creation than any other type of company over the last four years.

Then there are other industries, and where they fall on the productivity ladder. As you might expect, prison workers have the least fun and are the least productive (granted, there are probably other factors that contribute to this). Government might be a safe place to work, but it is rarely fun and thus ranks lower on the productivity cycles. Really fun places like entertainment companies and Generation X-led start-ups lead the pack in productivity.

There is such a thing as having too much fun, though. If you finger paint and have nap-time every day like in nursery school, your productivity might go down a bit (but you might still be more productive than if you are working for the government or a Fortune 500 company).

However, like any rule, exceptions apply. You don't have to be a Generation Xer to enjoy a Gen X- led company. Everyone likes to have fun while working. Some large corporations, such as Southwest Airlines, really get it and have consistently supplied the best service with high returns while their employees and customers have a lot of fun.

Gen X managers didn't pioneer fun in the workplace, but they skillfully adopted it and made it one of their core management values. Some big-name blue-chip companies were founded on the premise of fun. When Hewlett and Packard founded HP out of their Palo Alto garage, they made sure to have fun. Robert Noyce always had a good time at Intel and helped institute a no-doors policy that exists today (Intel's current CEO, Craig Barrett, works in a cubicle). Even in the early 1900s, the age of the anti-fun assembly line, people like Edison and his staff always had a good time.

Though you won't find the "fun quotient" in a McKinsey study or in a management guru book now, you probably will in a few years. Within the next two to three years, there will be classes in top business schools focused solely on fun. Button-down managers from all over the world will be interviewing triple- pierced Gen X leaders on how to have fun in the workplace.

The problem is that there is no easy formula for fun. You can't say 1 stereo + 2 pinatas + 3 pranks + 4 Atari 2600 games = FUN. By the time Boomers figure it out, most of them will be in retirement. And the next generation will develop management styles that will surpass ours.

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Last issue we suggested that the U.S. was selling out Taiwan. I got a lot of congratulatory emails but I also received loads of emails saying this was just wrong. Here are a sample:

Jed Stremel writes:

I think you're commentary regarding China is brash. The Chinese have a saying, "Agree on principle, not in fact, and you have won without fighting."

Following WWII, the US threatened the use of nuclear weapons over this conflict, and the "moral, right" thing to do is avoid that situation from ever occurring again. The Two Chinas Policy crafted by Kissinger in the 70s is perhaps one of the most artful exhibits of diplomacy ever, exchanging ambiguity for balance of power, ultimately producing peace.

The Taiwanese push for independence further reflects domestic political ambitious as much as any deep-rooted nationalism. Politicians play the United States for a fool, manipulating our commitment and drawing us into unnecessary confrontations with the mainland. The longer the United States protects the status quo, however, the more these two countries reform themselves closer to a common economic and political structure.

Patience and humility will save democracy in China - not the American cavalry. That said, hard-line positions appearing in the op-eds, resembling your own, help deter the mainland Chinese from ever testing United States resolve. So, while I disagree with your opinion, I am happy to see it expressed.

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John Eberhardt from Morgan Stanley Ventures writes:

You know as well as I do that the U.S. has a stated policy of only attacking countries who can't defend themselves. The other unfortunate parallel to 1938 is that, just like Britain and France at that time, the U.S. has no political will to do anything controversial. We didn't have the will to punish the President for abusing his power, we didn't have the will to save the Bosnians (but the Germans did), nor did we have the will to take definitive steps when it was revealed that some of our top defense laboratories have security policies that are somewhat less stringent than those of your local 7-11.

(Got a good idea? Write auren@summation.net)

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Thought: Why is it so easy to get illegal drugs in jail?

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INVEST-IN-THIS!
Profile: GetRelevant

In SUMMATION feature "Invest-in-This," we feature private companies that merit attention for their business ingenuity.

This SUMMATION, we look at GetRelevant (), who runs a rapidly growing targeted promotion network. The Company plans to be the leading online distributor of free product samples, trial memberships, and discounts on the Internet through an extensive network of Web site partners.

GetRelevant provides medium and high traffic web sites with the opportunity to make money by offering their members relevant promotional offers (i.e. two free months of a magazine, a discount on your next purchase at a major retailer, or a trial pack of a new over-the-counter medication).

GetRelevant aggregates and serves these free offers, generating attractive pay-per-lead fees from the companies promoting the offer. GetRelevant splits its revenues with the Web site that helped distribute the offer, generating tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue for the site.

This is a hot company that recently raised its Series A and is trailblazing. They are adding a few sites a week to their distribution network, including a number of Top 50 properties. They have a strong management team and great backers. I am a shareholder and an advisor. Expect GetRelevant to make a lot of news and a lot of revenues while providing a great service to consumers, web-sites, and companies that want to market their products and services.

(Thoughts? Write auren@summation.net)

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THIS WEEK'S SUMMATION PUSH PICK LINKS:

* Zipple.com (http://www.Zipple.com) - portal for Jewish people (tells you how to get a bargain, where to find a good bagel, and how to meet a nice Jewish girl).
* Tree Loot - (http://www.treeloot.com/) -- this is a VERY smart way of getting ad revenue.
* Get a Free House now! -- (http://www.summation.net/freehouses/) -- Is free stuff getting ridiculous? Get a free house.
* What am I reading? The Hoffman Reading List (http://www.summation.net/reading.html)

NOTE: Auren Hoffman works for BridgePath.com but the opinions expressed herein are solely those of Mr. Hoffman.

NOTE: You may reprint in full or in part (for free) with permission from author.

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