Within moments of sitting in the first-floor office of digital consulting firm Rightpoint, it’s difficult to ignore the stomping and cheering from the upstairs neighbor, the Cara Program, which helps impoverished people transform their lives.
“It’s actually sort of motivational for us because every morning we hear clapping, and our team starts clapping and chanting,” said Brad Schneider, co-founder of Rightpoint. “It’s kind of cool.”
And the Cara Program couldn’t be happier to hear its reach has transcended floorboards.
Schneider, co-founder Ross Freedman and their team of about 80 help businesses find solutions to their digital needs, from creating an intranet and sales portals to personalized user interfaces to improve efficiency and communication.
“We helped New Balance design a portal solution that allowed their shoe designers to collaborate on and share creative ideas for different makes and models of the shoe,” Schneider said. Other Rightpoint clients include Ulta Cosmetics, NutraSweet and Whirlpool.
The startup was founded in Freedman’s tiny North Side apartment, bounced around to slightly larger spaces, including the lunchroom of his father’s company, and finally landed in its current space at 626 W. Jackson Blvd. in Chicago about a year ago. Schneider and his crew had the 7,000-square-foot office designed to fit their needs.
“From my experience, traditional consulting firms are all about these bullpens,” Schneider said. “It’s this hoteling concept where folks come from the client site back to the office and sit in these open areas where you’re on top of the person right next to you.”
Schneider and his team have large collaborative spaces with open, unassigned seating, along with small, phone booth-like rooms with frosted glass windows for privacy.
The Rightpoint team gathers promptly at 8:33 every other morning for a 13-minute WIG meeting: Wildly Important Goals. Despite being a digital firm, the team stands around a whiteboard to set and track target dates and key performance indicators using a rainbow of dry-erase markers. Occasionally, they’ll wear wigs for fun, Schneider said.
“From the (client) delivery-support standpoint, you can very easily get caught in the daily whirlwind of your day,” Schneider said. “There’s an accountability component to this. If you don’t establish really clear goals, they’ll get left by the wayside.”
Schneider sits just below the WIG board at a long, white table he shares with Freedman. They’re surrounded by white and exposed-brick walls and gray and orange carpeting in a midsize room, and work on laptops with their backs to the staff to soak up the team atmosphere.
On Schneider’s desk is a copy of Fred Reichheld’s book, “The Ultimate Question 2.0,” which Schneider said nails one of Rightpoint’s goals.
“He says that in the past, organizations have written long, exhaustive surveys about client sense,” Schneider said. “At the end of the day those surveys don’t really mean much. It really boils down to one question, which may be different based upon your organization. We ask all our clients, based on a 1-10 scale, ‘How likely would you be to refer us to a friend or colleague?'” Rightpoint strives for an average of 9 and is tracking at 8.5, he said.
Schneider and Freedman are so into overseeing staff and operations that they haven’t bothered with adding knickknacks or photos to their space — unless they get “Hoff’d.”
“If someone doesn’t lock their computer, it’s fair game to ‘Hoff” them,” Schneider said. “That’s putting a picture of (actor) David Hasselhoff on your monitor. I’m one of the biggest offenders,” he said, adding that he has been Hoff’d “many, many times.”
When he’s not Hoff’d, the Northbrook resident will change his desktop to photos of his wife, Allison, or his three children: Zoe, 7, Emma, 5, and Eli, 1.
Another sport is keeping track of the number of fruit flies they kill. The pesky insects at times take over their somewhat unkempt space, and the staff keeps a running tally under the heading “Fruit Fly Kill Count” and tapes carcasses to the WIG board as proof. The highest number is 13, but Schneider only has two.
“I feel bad about killing them,” Schneider said.
Office culture was a focus for Schneider and Freedman when they started the company in 2007, 10 years after they met as college freshmen at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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And it’s clearly a fun one: Conference rooms are named Hickory, Dickory and Dock, and employees can compliment their colleagues by writing accomplishments on a “Holy Sheet!” and posting it on a “WOW” bulletin board. Employees often hang — anonymously, of course — silly signs about velociraptors or Han Solo on bathroom doors. And every Friday evening employees gather around the office kitchen’s beer tap for a “Rightpint.”
Such camaraderie plays into their work, as evidenced by the dozen awards displayed in the lobby, such as a 2011 Microsoft Central Region Partner award. Their most recent was the 2012 Ragan for a 2011 company yearbook that Rightpoint’s Culture Club produced to display the company’s staff, culture and clients.
“Building and growing a culture doesn’t happen by accident,” Schneider said. “We really take steps to try to figure out ways we can proactively instill (that culture) within the organization.”
For more photos of Schneider’s office, visit chicagotribune.com/rightpoint.