Since it is a Zappos themed couple of days, I am posting Mike Normart recent article which is regarding one thing that Zappos is very good at! Team building! I find it interesting that Mike decided to introduce Mica who coincidentally has been my point of contact for my trip here to Kentucky. Even through email, I can tell Mica perfectly fits at Zappos. She has been very helpful and I am looking forward to meeting her! Keep up with my Zappos shenanigans tomorrow via twitter by following me HERE!  Can’t wait until everyone gets in, but I am totally taking advantage of the peace and quiet to get some work done! -Julia

Team Building At Zappos

Here at Zappos.com we like to spend 20% of our time away from the office with our team members. This way we really get to know each other and we function more like a true team in the office. So as we have grown with more and more people in the corporate offices it becomes increasingly more difficult to “know everyone”. We have a tool that we use in merchandising called “site manager” that has a lot of applications to use to do our jobs efficiently. When we log onto this someone’s picture pops up and you have to say if you know this person or not. It’s a fun way to get to know who everyone is. In our Fashion area (that I happen to work in), we have our Juniors Buyer I would like to introduce to everyone: Mica Morales! Mica has taken the extra responsibility of being our “social chair” putting team builds together with other areas.  This way we really get to know other areas in the company in a more social way.

For March, Mica had the wonderful idea of inviting the team from Direct Marketing to create Pottery works of art at the “Pottery Studio” in town. I must admit I was skeptical at first but I had a blast! We all met at the Pottery Studio and then we got to choose which piece we wanted to paint from a wide range of items. I chose a dragon. From there we had to choose colors and if we wanted to add graphics or any other creative ideas we may have had.      

We had a sponge and dish of water because you have to “clean” the dust off first before you start painting. The best part is we separated the teams so you sat next to the other department as you painted you really got to know each other. Below is a shot of Mica And Jennifer Deciding what colors to use for their pieces. We decided to have a contest on who did the best job in painting.

It was an extremely creative way to have our two teams get to know each other and “think out loud” on what we wanted to do. Below are the final results and the two winners (Monkey came in first place). Our next venture is with the performance team at the next 51’s baseball game.

-Mike Normart