THE RATTLESNAKES DIARIES

THE RATTLESNAKES DIARIES

Camping stories from the Scouts Team

- Setting the tent ⛺

Fennecs, Bears and Rattlesnakes are on a mission. Our users are wandering around and they need our expertise and guidance in order to get a better experience and understanding of what Issuu has to offer and help their business grow. By helping them settle, giving directions on setting their goal and easing the publishing experience - we expect an increase of paid plans which unlock many more growth possibilities.

We’re setting the tent, gathering all the resources and tools needed to get us started. We’re all getting excited about having the opportunity to unite our powers, emphasize agility and build something awesome which brings great value to our customers.

ON EMPATHY

Our fellow bear Antônio, recently shared a great article on how softwareengineers can better develop empathy, and we highly recommend you to readit, here. The article is summarized well in the last two sentences -

“Throughout your day, ask yourself about how people are experiencing your work and

your actions. Make a habit of thinking about others, and you’ll do your part in creating better products, a healthy workplace culture, and a rich and fulfilling career foryourself.”

And there is no better way to inspire you like our Director of Product did, bysharing the quote below, and emphasizing empathy after spending a qualitytime in the Copenhagen office and meeting with us for the first time.

“Empathy is compassion, listening, and understanding. Empathy is about actively

listening to our customers, our colleagues and business partners and creating a feedback loop that allows us to create the best product for them. Empathy is demanding the most out of yourself, and humbly requesting the efforts of others. Learning more about one another and what each of us do to contribute to the organization can help us all to understand our capabilities as a team. Cross-divisional and functional teamwork is what will create progress rather than ill-fated missionsconducted in silos. “

IDEA MERITOCRACY

I bet you have heard this before, maybe from Erik, our VP of Engineering who went to make his own games, or perhaps from Joe, our CEO, bringing it to our attention on various occasions. Here in Issuu, we all like to hear ideas and opinions from anyone, which means we only care about having the best ideas and not where they come from. And according to Ray Dalio, this is the best way to make decisions in a company. Watch his great TED talk here.

The way to build an effective idea meritocracy is to:

● Bring together smart, independent thinkers

● Have them thoughtfully disagree with each other

● Get past disagreement using agreed-upon systems.

Together, this will yield the best ideas and collective thinking. Idea meritocracy works betterthan just one person coming up with the ideas and issuing orders. It also works better than agroup of smart people who can’t thoughtfully disagree with each other.

An idea meritocracy is built on a few foundational principles:

● Radical truth

● Radical transparency

● Thoughtful disagreement

● Believability-weighted decision makingRead more here

INSIDE ISSUU

Small peek into our inside events and fun.

It’s very lively these days, as many of us are getting vaccinated and with loosening the travel restrictions we have more people coming to the offices. It started with Tom joining us for a week at Copenhagen. We have Liz in the USA, enjoying the Colorado landscapes and the Californian sun, having drinks with Pam and Erika. And another invasion to the Copenhagen office, followed by Joe, Chris M and Pedro, reminded us how dynamic and noisy it can get when we’re hard-working, booking all the meeting rooms, having a lunch meal and pairing work together. Whatever we do, we always practice care, grit and learning!

P.S. Berliner luft (bottom-left) is a gift from Berlin, cooling in the fridge for the next party event!

P.P.S Nothing beats the coolest gift Tom got for his fellow Rattlesnakes, a snakey bottle filledwith rum, distilled in his hometown Flensburg.

A STORY FROM THE SUBURB

You know our Rune is a kick-ass fighter and jiu-jitsu master. He has such a power in both fighting bad guys and nasty bugs, worthy of respect. Remember we had sent him on a recovery vacay in Barcelona, after his one-wheel clash? Well, right before his landing in Copenhagen, we heard some shocking news from Barselona! Anti-virus software entrepreneur John McAfee has been found dead in a prison cell after a Spanish court agreed to extradite him to the US to face tax evasion charges. And strangely enough, the closest snake buddy to Rune, Simon the second, just went off on a full-month vacation, and will spend time not at one, but various places. Does Simon is hiding something we don’t know? We’ll find out after his return!

Kudos goes to Misha for making out the coolest illustration portraying our conspiracy theory. He’s such a multi-talent!