Here are some of the things we’ve done to cook up a delicious workplace culture at the office. Feel free to copy these ideas in your own workplace.

Introduce new team members with fun facts and favourite foods

As the team expands, there’s a bevy of new faces in the office and it’s always our goal to make each new addition feel welcome. New team members are introduced via company-wide email and, as an icebreaker, we share some fun facts about the person, including their favourite foods. It’s a terrific talking point and something that most people can identify with or feel comfortable inquiring about.

Deadlines meet dinnertime

We’re a tech company with deadlines to keep , so it’s no surprise when people surpass regular 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. hours to get a job done. Here at Invoke, we sometimes bring in dinner to keep everyone going while they diligently finish up projects. To make it easier, we’ve been testing (and using)  Food.ee and having the food come to us. There’s nothing like sharing a meal while working to galvanize a team and remind everyone of shared goals.

Find food trucks together

Remember going into fits of delight when you heard that old, familiar ice cream truck jingle roll by on your street? Well, finding a food truck together can be nostalgically thrilling. Just ask our developer, Jon Chui, who goes into paroxysms of joy when he spots the Tacofino truck rolling by.

Come Friday lunch, Invokers can be found joining our friends at HootSuite for Food Cart Fridays or using the Eat St. App to locate food truck finds near our new location and sharing our discoveries, and our lunches, with the team.

No team member left behind

Inquire about food allergies and dietary restrictions. You can’t bank on everyone being able to eat absolutely everything. To ensure that you don’t feel terrible every time you offer your peanut-allergic coworker some of your trail mix, do be mindful of your coworkers’ dietary restrictions. There’s no reason why everybody can’t be included in food sharing and food fun at the office.

(American, Humorist, Writer, Lecturer; 1835-1910)

Although our first memories of riding a bicycle most likely involved a box of Band-Aids, a tube of Polysporin and our parents losing our utmost trust, most of us have grown a strong relationship with this two-wheeled mode of transportation.

Bike month was in June and is put on every year by the Better Environmentally Sound Transportation (BEST) association. BEST began in 1991 with a small group of dedicated cyclists intent on sharing their passion and vision for community building and environmental sustainability through bicycling. Quickly BEST became the local voice for cycling issues and the organization coordinates various events throughout the year including National Environment Week and Bike Month in June.

Vancouver bike stats

The city has generated some interesting statistics that you may or may not have known about cycling in Vancouver:

• There are currently more than 400 lane-kilometres of bike routes in the city.
• Approximately 60,000 trips are made on a bike every day in the City of Vancouver.
• 15.9 per cent of residents in Vancouver cycle or walk to work.
• 41.4 per cent of residents in the downtown core and West End cycle or walk to work.

Invokers ride

The team at Invoke love to bike – every month is bike month at our office. Besides the fact that the parking situation and bylaw officers in Railtown do not support gas-guzzlers, Invokers bike to, and from, work, to lunch and even to sales meetings.

Our lobby has become the parking lot for all our bikes and at any one time there are at least 10 bikes sitting amongst the sleeping office dogs. Some people have mistaken our lobby for a bike store, while others have attempted to walk in and snag one for their own, along with an aforementioned office dog.

Meet the Invoke Cyclists

Name: Kate
Bike’s name: Gwen
Type: Single speed, bright blue Norco with a pink lock
Why do you bike: I bike because then I can sleep in more in the morning.
One time, at Invoke… there were so many bikes I couldn’t get into the office. #firstworldproblems

Name: Jon
Type: Three bikes, two motos
Why do you bike: I ride because it’s fun and I can have more than half a pint and still be legal to ride it.
I love my bike because… It only takes 7 minutes to bike to the office (one Stones song). In this hood it takes longer than that to find parking, and you’ll probably get a $35 ticket too.

Name: Andre
Bike’s Name: Wally
Type: Hybrid blue norco – more on the roadie than mountain bike side
Why do you bike: I bike because it makes me feel good in the morning, and I really dislike transit.
I love my bike because… It lets me zoom by drivers stuck on Main Street and lets me sleep more. It’s also pretty fast.

Name: Sean Tyson
Bike’s Name: I don’t name bikes. That’s weird.
Type: Vintage 1960s Raleigh Triumph (british racing green, original Brooks leather saddle, 3-speed Sturmey-Archer hub)
Why do you bike: Biking is the most therapeutic thing ever. It helps me decompress after work, helps me wake-up before work, and it allows me to drink copious amounts of alcohol since I don’t have to worry about driving. It’s also really fun. The new bike lanes are great but I actually enjoy navigating douche bag drivers on the road. I also like not polluting the world.

Lastly, living in Holland made me a much more pragmatic biker. Over there, if stuff is in your way (people, cars, garbage, etc.) you just go around it. You don’t give dirty looks, you don’t get upset, you just navigate the object like it’s a game. Keep on pedalling and keep on smiling. No need to get agro.

Bike apps to help your commute

Fancy tracking how many miles you’ve put down? Stranded on the side of the road with a defunct chain? There’s an app for that. Here’s a list of some neat bike apps we like to use:

Bike Doctor
Bike Doctor is like a pocket mechanic – ready to help you out whenever and wherever. The app provides detailed instructions and repair tips for any part of your bike. Tap on the “Bike” button to bring up a picture of a bicycle, tap the part of the bike with a problem, and a list of repairs relating to that part appears. From cleaning and lubricating, to doing a brake upgrade and repairing a flat, Bike Doctor has you covered.

iBiker
iBiker was voted the best wireless fitness product in 2010 by The Wireless Association. This app tracks your rides and maps your routes outdoors using geo-location, and records metrics such as weight and blood pressure. It’s free, but if you want you can upgrade to full functionality with heart rate monitors, speed and cadence sensors, power meters and foot pods. Workouts will never be the same.

Spokes NYC
Biking in NYC has never been easier now that there is Spokes NYC. The app is a bicycle routing application designed to generate ideal bike routes with turn by turn directions. Other features include a bike rack locator pointing you to one of over 5000 bike racks citywide and a bike shop locator. Our favourite feature is the ability to report thefts from a given bike rack or location allowing you to alert fellow cyclists.

On May 2, Canadians are given the opportunity to vote. And that’s exactly what it is —an opportunity. We are lucky to live in a democratic society, but some people still choose not to vote. The choice not to vote can arise because people don’t know which candidates align with their values or which candidates champion what they think is important.

The number of issues, plus all the politics surrounding the election make it a convoluted scene for the uneducated. It’s one of the main reasons voting is not as popular as it could be. However, considering the events that occurred this year in other countries (Egypt and Libya), I feel honoured to be able to vote. So I choose to actively seek more information. Being a heavy social media user, I wanted to see how the latest social platforms that are being utilized to help voters decide on candidates. Below are a few tools I found to help a beginner sort out what this national election is all about.

Vote Compass:
Vote Compass is a 30 question survey, which helps you to find out which political party has views most like yours.  It gets you thinking about the major issues and shows you how your views compare with the platforms put forward by each of the political parties. Vote Compass is a free educational tool developed by political scientists. It’s pretty lengthy but a great starting point if you aren’t up to speed about political party platforms. The results are really interesting and they facilitate interaction because you can see how your answers compare to the answers of the elected parties.

Politwitter:
This is a one stop social media shop for tracking what politicians are saying on social sites. Politwitter searches and indexes Canadian federal and provincial political accounts for Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Youtube, Flickr and more. What I really love is the tips for MPs and candidates on how to best use social media during a politicial election campaign. Check it out. It is a great guide.

GeoPollster Canada:
GeoPollster is an app powered by Foursquare and partnered with the National Post newspaper. The app is not a scientific poll and aims to provide readers with a fun, casual way to support their party of choice.  It’s part real-world election game, part mobile polling experiment where check-in votes can “seize control” of venues such as coffee shops and gyms, cities, provinces etc.  Right now it looks like British Columbia tends to vote Conservative.

Videos updates
CBC posts video campaign mashups as a way to share information. The videos are short, digestible, and entertaining, mixing humour and news to update viewers on the each day’s political events. Easy to share and watch, videos are a great way to stay on top of what’s happening on a day to day basis.

Funny caption contest
Posted by Straight, the caption contests put a lighter spin on the campaign trail.  Check out the photos and speech bubbles, which encourage readers to interact with and share federal election updates via funny quotes.

The May 2nd Federal election is already being called the first social media election, with more  political parties incorporating social media tools in their election campaigns than ever before.

Due to the Barack Obama social media campaign successes during the American election, and the opportunities to connect with a younger and broader online demographic, party leaders hope to generate more campaign buzz and votes by integrating social media.

I’m sure there are other new social tools out there. If you come across any election tools that will help you make an informed decision, please include them in the comments section.

Nashville Flood photos via Mashable

From a very captivating video of the Tennessee flood, Federal regulations on privacy, class action lawsuits against virtual worlds, to re-shaping the models of marketing, here is a list of what we’re reading right now.

Tennessee Flooding Inspires Stunning YouTube Video
via Mashable:
“While most on-the-ground videos covering disasters and other world events are hurried and low-quality, this one is beautiful and professional-looking; it was made by a photographer named Michael Deppisch, who used a Canon EOS 5D Mark II digital SLR camera. “You don’t see YouTube videos like this very often, and as one commenter put it: “This video so captured the heart of this story… if it doesn’t move someone, they should check their pulse.” ”

Facebook Stirs up Trouble for Silicon Valley
via AdAge:
“Days after Facebook launched its “Open Graph Platform” that extends the social net’s web across third-party sites, the Palo Alto-based social network got a surprise rebuke from New York Sen. Charles Schumer, who wrote a letter asking the Federal Trade Commission to develop guidelines for how Facebookers’ information can be used.  The flap couldn’t come at a worse time for online advertising, facing the very real prospect that it will be regulated in the form of privacy legislation that would require publishers, networks or marketers to receive specific consent to use consumer data for a variety of purposes on the web.”

How Effective are Corporate Social Media Policies?
via eMarketer:
“According to a survey by security solutions provider nCircle, about three-fifths of US security and IT professionals say their company has a social media policy, and two-fifths ban all usage of social media on the job.  Those bans may stem from legitimate concerns, but researchers have warned that security and productivity problems can be combated while allowing employees to harness social media in ways beneficial to their business.”

Gives and takes from #AdtechSF
via Marketing With Meaning:
“Yesterday I returned from the first Ad:Tech event of the year in San Francisco. Here in this post I will share what I shared, as well as some of the highlights from the Tuesday sessions. Including: A New World of Word of Mouth: Using Influence to Re-invent the Impression and Jamie Cohen Szulc—CMO of the Levi’s Brand.” Slideshow by Bob Gilbreath

Second Life Users File Class Action Lawsuit Over Virtual Land
via: Mashable
“A group of Second Life users is suing Second Life’s creator over a virtual land dispute. They say their contractual property ownership rights have been changed and that this alteration of the terms of service constitutes fraud and violates California consumer protection laws.  Second Life’s parent company, Linden Labs, was recently valued at $383 million.”

* This blog post is part of Invoke’s participation in the 2008 Vancouver Blogathon for Charity

Invoke has always been a place for people, both staff and clients, who are of the mind that doing good leads to doing well. In fact the company was founded on this principal. In order to take this to the next level and advance thought, ideals, values, and mindset to the point of ensuring action is taken on an ongoing basis, Invoke is setting up a Green Team.

While the name is somewhat corny, the team will be responsible for researching new, better and more radical initiatives to reduce our impact. We are taking a very fun approach to this in order to get everybody involved and to show how easy it is to make small changes in the office and at home.

I will be chairing the team and from our presentations you can expect to see a white-paper outlining what we’ve done, what we decided not to do, and ultimately the measured effects it has had on a number of criteria.

Stay tuned!