The Kristin Mitchell Design, Inc. staff recently went on a field trip to Epic Systems and toured their office, errr we mean campus. Epic is a health care software company headquartered in Verona, Wisconsin. No, we aren’t in the market for a medical records system, we wanted to see the campus a mere 30 miles from us that Glassdoor named as 1 of 10 cool office spaces. To see others on the list take a look at the following Forbes article. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/03/08/10-cool-office-spaces/
A large part of what we do is our ability to understand the overall brand of a company. If we don’t understand what a company does, the message they want to send, and their culture, we can’t do our job effectively. A brand is all about perception, and this field trip showed us an excellent example of how even a company’s office space can influence prospective employees or customers.
The following are reasons you should consider taking a staff field trip:
1. New experiences help our brain make new connections between that experience and the knowledge we already have. As graphic designers we are constantly required to generate new ideas. The more we are exposed to in the world around us the more creative solutions we can develop. We are always looking for ways to grow as individuals and as a team.
2. Being in a different setting allowed us to work together in new ways. It is important for us to work as a team. Navigating the Epic campus was like a team building scavenger hunt – turn left off the stairs, go down the hall to your right, take the elevator to the second floor.
3. Getting out of the office allowed us to reboot. We are in the office over 40 hours every week, so it is good to get out for a few hours. Just like our computers, we need to hit restart every once in awhile.
Our two-hour took us through Grand Central Station, to the streets of New York, back to the Wild West, and even down a slide in Heaven. It was a great opportunity to see an explosion of creativity within a corporate setting. We encourage you to consider an office field trip to foster new experiences, promote teamwork and reboot. Please share your field trip ideas with us.