Working Smart Vs. Working Hard

21 Sep 2012 Leave a comment

by John Amardeil in Strategies, Thoughts

surrey house 3

Is your boardroom an unused museum that only clients get to see?

When you run a company called BAM with a core philosophy of providing impactful solutions, you’d better develop effective strategies that will help you save time and work smart.

We have recently taken to meeting at least once a week in the boardroom. We bring everyone in — from our Client Services Coordinators to our web guy to our eBAM department. We used to avoid this, as we thought it a waste of time, say, for our Google Adwords guy to spend 10 minutes listening to a signage problem.

Yet we’re finding this keeps everyone engaged and on the ball. We work better together and save time explaining things later on. Ultimately, it helps us serve our clients better.

When you run an agile company that doesn’t have too much staff, you’d better make the most of it.

What are your favourite strategies for working smart rather than just hard?

Embracing the Dark Side

14 Sep 2012 1 Comment

by John Amardeil in Thoughts, Trends

I’ve preordered the iPhone 5. Are you getting it?

We’ve done it. We’ve done the unthinkable, or at least what used to be unthinkable — we’ve ditched BlackBerry and we’ve ditched Outlook and Entourage and Microsoft servers. We have, in fact, gone Mac. And we love it.

It’s not really surprising. I’ve used an iPod for the last ten years. Recently, I got an iPad, and I love the damn thing. Sure, it’s far from perfect. I even hate a couple of things about it (for example, couldn’t the battery life be better?). But it has sure come in handy in many a client meeting. I’m also using it heavily at home — I just borrowed an ebook from the Toronto Public Library, which I’ll hopefully read over the next two weeks.

Of course, I didn’t make this decision based just on my iPod and iPad experiences. For one thing, I’m concerned about BlackBerry’s future. I also like having a solution that integrates so seamlessly across different devices, from calendars to photos to bookmarks. What’s more, most of my staff use and prefer Macs anyway. Many have iPhones.

Last but not least, the older I get, the more I enjoy trying new things. That’s why I’ve taken up waterboarding and snowboarding. Switching to Mac is a lot less risky and a lot more reasonable.

What’s Your Victory?

07 Sep 2012 2 Comments

by John Amardeil in Case Studies, Strategies

As I said last week, we’ve been busily working on an exciting new project. Called Victory, it’s coming to Stoney Creek this fall and it’s by Empire Communities, a longstanding client of ours.

What makes Victory different is its focus on design and value. Featuring towns and detached 2-car garage homes from only $269,990, Victory puts stylish living within everyone’s reach.

Think of it this way: if it were a car, it’d be a Hyundai Sonata.

It gets better — we’re making our online marketing play a bigger role than ever before. For starters, we’re asking Victory’s Facebook fans to vote on a selection of features and finishes — we’ll let their votes guide us in refining Victory’s design and style choices.

Second, we’re holding a Facebook contest called “What’s Your Victory” whereby Facebook fans are encouraged to upload a picture or video depicting a personal victory of theirs. The prize? A weekly $50 Ikea gift card as well as a monthly $100 one.

So far, we’ve heard from a person whose missing iPod was returned by a stranger, another whose victory is to do a great workout, and someone who got to leave work early last Friday just before the long weekend rush.

It boils down to this: we want potential homeowners to see that buying a Victory home is a victory for them, both from a design and a value point of view. And we strongly believe this social media campaign will play a big role in achieving this.

In the near future, online marketing will play an increasingly major role. This is our way of moving towards that future, both for our sake as well as our clients’.

A Well-Deserved Labour Day Weekend

31 Aug 2012 1 Comment

by John Amardeil in Activities

eBAM hard at work.

Our online marketing department was particularly busy this week.

I find it’s quite a coincidence that this is the Labour Day long weekend. That’s what we’ve been doing at BAM for the past week — working like dogs. I can’t imagine how much our team must be looking forward to the long weekend, having put in such a crazy amount of hours. I know I am.

The results are worth it, though, and I’ll be happy to share more with you on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, here’s hoping you have a great weekend!

Another BAM Day

23 Aug 2012 Leave a comment

by John Amardeil in Activities

Work Hard Play Hard…

Work hard, play hard. I’ve always been a believer in this philosophy. And because our team at BAM has been working so hard lately (with much more to come), we’re having ourselves a BAM day tomorrow.

I wasn’t part of the committee that organized it all, so I’m not really sure about what’s happening in the morning, other than it’s a scavenger hunt and that everyone’s excited about it. (Those who organized the scavenger hunt aren’t just excited — they have too amused a gleam in their eyes.) Here’s hoping they won’t make me jump out of a plane again.

As for the afternoon, it promises to be more relaxing — we’re going on a boat cruise on the lake with some of our clients. That should be a fun, well-deserved break for all concerned, one that will only reinvigorate us for the coming week.

Do you organize events with your team? What did you do last time?

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