Motivating posters for your startup

by imdavis • 14 years ago

76 61 14 years ago

Thieum22• 14 years ago

When I see those, I always remember the quote from Peopleware - DeMarco / Lister :

"These motivational accessories, as they are called (including slogan coffee mugs, plaques, pins, key chains, and awards), are a triumph of form over substance. They seem to extol the importance of Quality, Leadership, Creativity, Teamwork, Loyalty, and a host of other organizational virtues. But they do so in such simplistic terms as to send an entirely different message: Management here believes that these virtues can be improved with posters rather than by hard work and managerial talent. Everyone quickly understands that the presence of the posters is a sure sign of the absence of hard work and talent."

seanstickle• 14 years ago

And echoing one of the items from W. Edwards Deming's list of deadly diseases (from "Out of the Crisis", 1982): "Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force."

Create better systems, don't decorate the walls with nonsense "motivating" junk.

Evbn2• 14 years ago

The posters here say the opposite of demanding perfection.

eitland• 14 years ago

I think the effect depends on who put these up, management or employees. Personally I like to keep a copy of the Cult of Done manifesto around. I have learnt to hate when my own perfectionism keeps me from shipping in time and that poster seems to help.

Killah911• 14 years ago

Is there a motivational poster with this quote on it? I'd love to put it in my office!

swalberg• 14 years ago

My first thought was of the more cynical http://www.despair.com/motivation.html

Motivation: If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon.

rjknight2• 14 years ago

I clicked in to this thread purely to post a despair.com link. You beat me to it, and you also posted the most appropriate link!

pasbesoin• 14 years ago

I know that the word "hack" is over-used these days, so I say this with some trepidation, but when I first ran across the despair.com posters, I wast quite overwhelmed with the brilliance and success of their "hack" of the motivational poster paradigm.

Having spent a number of years in corporate life, often in offices spotted if not plastered with such posters, their parody quite hit home for me.

One I remember particularly well:

http://www.despair.com/burnout.html

samspot• 14 years ago

I doubt that many people see these posters as a substitute for hard work and managerial talent. Why not put your core values on the walls? It is a reminder of what the company thinks is important, which is a step above what we often have at my job.

Evbn2• 14 years ago

Yes, but my core values are not outsourced to StartupPosters.com

bitcartel• 14 years ago

Peopleware is a great book to read, highly recommended and I hope DeMarco and Lister write a sequel as I'd love to find out what they think of balance balls and standing exercise desks.

derwildemomo• 14 years ago

Just ordered some. Let's hope that international delivery doesn't take weeks.

creativityhurts• 14 years ago

I bet it would take at least 2 weeks so find alternative ways to stay motivated.

antidoh• 14 years ago

CONSUME

MARRY AND REPRODUCE

OBEY

stcredzero2• 14 years ago

http://maggotfilms.com/2010/12/08/they-live/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live

three14• 14 years ago

Anyone but me read "Experiment. Fail. Learn. Repeat." as "... Repeat failed experiment, even while knowing better?"

pastylegs• 14 years ago

This sort of stuff makes me cringe

josscrowcroft• 14 years ago

To be perfectly honest I'd be pretty offended if a place where I was working put these on the walls.. The Holstee Manifesto (http://shop.holstee.com/?campaignid=446&mbsy=7pD) I understand, because it's great. But these are just trite and tacky, form over function kind of stuff.

I reckon I'd be far more inspired by, you know, pictures of the team. Or lolcats.

ramayac• 14 years ago

Or some Dilbert giant comics poster.

stcredzero2• 14 years ago

All you need are the regular motivational posters with an additional caption: Do you want to work somewhere management thinks this is a good idea?

zeynalov• 14 years ago

26$ + 50$ + 20$ (or something like that) shipping, 96$, isn't it too much for a framed print? I would like to buy one but it looks expensive to me.

dickbasedregex• 14 years ago

I think the comments thus far have been a little harsher than is necessary. Sure, some of them are a bit cliched but that's fine. None of them seem as tacky as the traditional corporate motivational posters. Perhaps if I worked anywhere near the valley I might be more critical but given that I work in a city that is as far removed from start up culture as possible, I'm probably not as jaded (for lack of a better word) as most HN users.

I purchased one of these posters because the quote addresses one of my biggest repeated failings and the author, Jason Fried, is someone I have a lot of respect for. I wouldn't mind an attractive reminder to avoid my perfectionist, obsessive nature hanging over my desk.

Kudos on the site design and the idea. Best of luck to you. My only quibble is that the site name could be a bit more subdued on some of those posters.

JoeAltmaier2• 14 years ago

Agreed. These are more like a koan or kata. They help focus the mind in moments of distraction. Maybe like a haiku - simple words to stimulate a beautiful response in the mind.

johnnyjustice• 14 years ago

sweet idea, i hope it catches on

kyberias• 14 years ago

But... that's Visual Studio's logo right there.

abcd_f2• 14 years ago

... which in itself represents an infinite VS crash-restart cycle that ensues if you ever to mess with a project resource file by hand :)

JoeAltmaier2• 14 years ago

http://dd.dynamicdiagrams.com/2009/03/visualization-a-la-dil...

wwkeyboard• 14 years ago

Houston, we've jumped the shark.

rjknight2• 14 years ago

There are 14 posters here, but the five I can see above the "fold" on my 1440-pixel high monitor are definitely the worst five. The last five posters are awesome because they say something that it's possible to disagree with, and is therefore worth saying. The top five are trite and cheesy.

abcd_f2• 14 years ago

I just had a torn out page from a magazine with Audi RS4 on it framed and hung on the wall at the eye level. As dumb as it was, it did miracles during the crunch times.

Strshps1MoreTim• 14 years ago

Do not buy. These are from the evil LeadLander guys: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4891637

monochromatic• 14 years ago

Ok... is there any evidence of that, or are we just going with bald assertion?

edit: Nevermind. Their website says they're part of Draugiem Group, which does seem to own Relead.

tferris• 14 years ago

As nice as they are these posters won't motivate anybody.

I best advice I got years ago (from HN): burn the boats, put pressure on yourself and you don't need motivational poster anymore.

malaporte• 14 years ago

So I'm going to buy a "Don't compromise" and put it right in front of a "Done is better than perfect".

joesb• 14 years ago

The poster attributes "Don't compromise" to Steve Jobs. Jobs probably demanded only Done and Perfect.

damienkatz• 14 years ago

Yeah, that's why motivational posters are usually a dumb idea. The words are almost always true, but very context dependent. Stuck on a wall like that they lose context and start to seem absurd, things start to feel like a Dilbert cartoon.

FuzzyDunlop• 14 years ago

I think your company should form its own culture, not try to synthesise one by propping up posters of vacuous bullshit that basically tries to tell you how to do your job.

famousactress2• 14 years ago

I think I agree.. but your own culture can be useful in this form. I dig the "Go fast and break things" posters hanging around the facebook office (dunno if they're still there). It makes sense to me that if your team finds some core values it might be good to commit them to paper and toss them up and a way to remind everyone, especially new folks that it's a hard-won tenant the team believes in.

But I think the idea of importing those values in the form of posters picked off of a website somewhere makes it easy to skip the important part of doing the hard work to figure out what your team collectively believes in.

famousactress2• 14 years ago

I like some of these, but for some reason they all remind me of the Portal 2 propaganda and I hear them in my head read in the Cave Johnson voice.

edw519• 14 years ago

Don't mean to rain on your parade, OP. Just having a little fun...

  +-------------+  +-------------+  +-------------+ 
  |             |  |             |  |             |
  |   No room   |  |  Tear down  |  |   Posters   |
  |     for     |  | this poster |  |  & Posers   |
  |   posters   |  | and put up  |  |  differ by  |
  |   in your   |  |   another   |  |  only one   |
  |     MVP     |  | white board |  |   letter.   |
  |             |  |             |  |             |
  +-------------+  +-------------+  +-------------+
   18x24"-$26.00    18x24"-$26.00    18x24"-$26.00

  +-------------+  +-------------+  +-------------+ 
  |             |  |    If you   |  |   Objects   |
  | MOTIVATING. |  |  need to be |  | on posters  |
  |             |  |  motivated, |  |  are less   |
  |  POSTERS.   |  | you should  |  |  oriented   |
  |             |  | be working  |  |    than     |
  |   DON'T.    |  |  somewhere  |  |    they     |
  |             |  |    else.    |  |   appear.   |
  +-------------+  +-------------+  +-------------+
   18x24"-$26.00    18x24"-$26.00    18x24"-$26.00

  +-------------+  +-------------+  +-------------+ 
  |   00110010  |  |    Stop     |  |  The less   |
  |   11001011  |  |   reading   |  |  you read   |
  |   10010110  |  |   this &    |  | Hacker News |
  |   10001001  |  |    get      |  |  the more   |
  |   10010011  |  |    back     |  | likely you  |
  |   01011001  |  |     to      |  | will be on  |
  |   01011001  |  |    work.    |  | Hacker News |
  +-------------+  +-------------+  +-------------+
   18x24"-$26.00    18x24"-$26.00    18x24"-$26.00

tptacek• 14 years ago

\o/

fudged712• 14 years ago

Steve Holt!

PhearTheCeal• 14 years ago

The last one is so true it hurts.

I think I might design a custom poster that says that ;-)

brini• 14 years ago

  > +-------------+
  > |   00110010  |
  > |   11001011  |
  > |   10010110  |
  > |   10001001  |
  > |   10010011  |
  > |   01011001  |
  > |   01011001  |
  > +-------------+

Hex: 32 cb 96 89 93 59 59

Decimal: 50 203 150 137 147 89 89

ASCII: 2 Ë [not defined]x3 Y Y

What am I missing?

XaspR8d• 14 years ago

Vertical isn't ASCII either:

  3c  23  40  57  2b  10  74  2f

  <   #   @   W   +   DLE t   /

I think it's nothing, pointing out we shouldn't be wasting our time figuring out useless poster puzzles that have little value to our work?

philip1209• 14 years ago

"If we don't raise money soon, I can't pay you next month"

MiguelHudnandez• 14 years ago

Can you make one that says "Is this good for the company?"

rmoriz• 14 years ago

try the Office Space kit by thinkgeek: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/8e6c/

jt2190• 14 years ago

I suppose it's possible that these posters can motivate a team, but only if everyone on the team knows and understands, on a deep level, what the slogans stand for. Unfortunately, it's very tempting to skip the part where you have a set of long, hard, emotionally draining conversations with the team, where the team puts measurements in place that help them see when they're not holding to their stated goals, where they get frustrated but keep trying to improve things anyway. Why go through all of that when you can just put up a poster!

(edit: My point is that these posters seem like they should be earned, not just purchased.)

fudged712• 14 years ago

I love the designs, and I think it's a great way to make money. Wish I'd thought of it first :) I can see companies paying a bit more to motivate their employees.

overworkedasian• 14 years ago

these are kinda pricey for what they are. fab.com has awesome prints likes these on sale every now and then for half the price and now free shipping. just saying.

Zigurd• 14 years ago

I can picture the scene:

CEO seated at fusty mahogany desk says "Eagles, jet fighters, and crew shells aren't selling to these 'millenials.' Hire some hipster models and get some 'edgy' copy!"

milang• 14 years ago

I liked this idea better when it was called Busy Building Things.

MrAlmostWrong• 14 years ago

I think what's getting people upset is that they are called 'motivating' posters. I would hang these up in my office for two reason:

1) They look nice and nothing wrong with having a nice looking off space. 2) They serve as reminders. Sure we all 'know' these sayings and try to apply them in everything that we do, but that doesn't mean we forget sometimes and stray off the beaten path. Just like saying we could all have someone tell us "do unto others..." every once in a while.

grantph• 14 years ago

Except it's wrong. It should be... Experiment. Learn. Repeat.

There's too much emphasis on failure. If you keep focusing on failure, you keep thinking about failure. I prefer to think of learning experiences. Learn. Learn. Learn. Eventually you find a combination that works!

danielweber• 14 years ago

Every one of those made me feel depressed.

bjxrn• 14 years ago

I think they missed a good one by Samuet Beckett: Ever Tried. Ever Failed. No Matter. Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better.

Typhon• 14 years ago

If I ever found a company, the only posters on the office walls will have a white background and black letters, for example the word "OBEY".

The dresscode will be sunglasses.

biscarch• 14 years ago

You could probably have Shepard Fairey do that. heh. Of course, you'd have to be ok with Andre staring you in the face all day.

ansgri• 14 years ago

They all are but the different formulations of ARBEIT MACHT FREI.

anotherevan• 14 years ago

Oh wow! New product idea! Print these 'motivational' posters on toilet paper! Now all I need is a technical co-founder...

Motivating posters for your startup

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