Versatile: Another Core Value

Some time in the last year we decided that we needed to re-examine our existing core values. When we sat down to rethink this, versatility was already one of our core objectives. It’s one of our values that has stuck with us and has been relevant in our agency throughout the years.

So on that note, today’s value is Versatile!

What is versatile and what does it mean? Well, it could mean a multitude of many different things to different people. But to me, versatile means a few things:

Versatile Means Wearing Many Hats

Although we generally give titles and areas of specificity to folks who work here, there’s generally something outside of that group that we have to dip our toes into. Someone might need to do dev ops for a day, or a developer will need to give design insight. Each of us has an area of expertise - but taking part in multiple steps of the process is something that happens here quite often. Part of this is because we are smaller, but also because we focus on being collaborative (another one of our core values).

That said, I think it guarantees that we each have more of our imprint and thus we care more about each project that we work on because everybody has contributed more than just their grunt work.

That means that sometimes we are asked to provide insight into something that we don’t specialize in and that means:

Versatile Means Saying “I don’t know” and then finding a solution

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the web is constantly evolving. New technologies and methodologies are being invented every other day. In that way, we must always be on our toes.

But that also means that even after years of experience, we will all have moments where we will admit to saying “I don’t know.”

The secret is that nobody can know everything all the time in this industry. What makes a huge difference is owning up to it, and then working together (client/co-worker/etc.) to find a solution.

Versatility means not being afraid of “new”

In our ever changing web world, stagnation is dangerous. To get stuck in a rut of old technologies and ways of doing things could keep us from reaching our full potential.

We are always experimenting with our process and our design and development techniques to try to find a better way of doing things.

While we have a rich history working with Ruby and Rails, we spend time working and learning with other languages and frameworks too like JavaScript, Python, or Ember.js.

Experimenting with a variety of things gives us a better understanding of the web ecosystem and broadens our minds to the unknown. We spend one Friday a month investing our time on trying new things and exploring different ways of thinking about our processes.

We all learn things every day from our clients and acting as partners is something that allows us to be flexible when understanding their needs and hearing their ideas. But by focusing on versatility as a value, we hope we can share ideas from all sides, use our combined skills, and find better solutions by working together.