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Motivating posters for your startup
- Thieum22 14y agoWhen 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 14y agoAnd 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.
- Evbn 14y agoThe posters here say the opposite of demanding perfection.
- eitland 14y agoI 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 14y agoIs there a motivational poster with this quote on it? I'd love to put it in my office!
- swalberg 14y agoMy first thought was of the more cynical http://www.despair.com/motivation.html 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.
- rjknight 14y agoI 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 14y agoI 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 http://www.despair.com/burnout.html
- samspot 14y agoI 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.
- Evbn 14y agoYes, but my core values are not outsourced to StartupPosters.com
- bitcartel 14y agoPeopleware 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.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- derwildemomo 14y agoJust ordered some. Let's hope that international delivery doesn't take weeks.
- creativityhurts 14y agoI bet it would take at least 2 weeks so find alternative ways to stay motivated.
- antidoh 14y agoCONSUME MARRY AND REPRODUCE OBEY
- stcredzero 14y agohttp://maggotfilms.com/2010/12/08/they-live/ http://maggotfilms.com/2010/12/08/they-live/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live
- three14 14y agoAnyone but me read "Experiment. Fail. Learn. Repeat." as "... Repeat failed experiment, even while knowing better?"
- pastylegs 14y agoThis sort of stuff makes me cringe
- stcredzero 14y agoAll you need are the regular motivational posters with an additional caption: Do you want to work somewhere management thinks this is a good idea?
- josscrowcroft 14y agoTo 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 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 14y agoOr some Dilbert giant comics poster.
- zeynalov 14y ago26$ + 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 14y agoI 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.
- JoeAltmaier 14y agoAgreed. 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 14y agosweet idea, i hope it catches on
- kyberias 14y agoBut... that's Visual Studio's logo right there.
- abcd_f 14y 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 :)
- JoeAltmaier 14y agohttp://dd.dynamicdiagrams.com/2009/03/visualization-a-la-dilbert/ http://dd.dynamicdiagrams.com/2009/03/visualization-a-la-dil...
- wwkeyboard 14y agoHouston, we've jumped the shark.
- rjknight 14y agoThere 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_f 14y agoI 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 14y agoDo not buy. These are from the evil LeadLander guys: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4891637 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4891637
- monochromatic 14y agoOk... 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 14y agoAs 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 14y agoSo I'm going to buy a "Don't compromise" and put it right in front of a "Done is better than perfect".
- joesb 14y agoThe poster attributes "Don't compromise" to Steve Jobs. Jobs probably demanded only Done and Perfect.
- damienkatz 14y agoYeah, 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 14y agoI 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.
- famousactress 14y agoI 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.
- famousactress 14y agoI 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 14y agoDon'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 14y ago\o/
- fudged71 14y agoSteve Holt!
- PhearTheCeal 14y agoThe last one is so true it hurts. I think I might design a custom poster that says that ;-)
- brini 14y 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?
- MiguelHudnandez 14y agoCan you make one that says "Is this good for the company?"
- rmoriz 14y agotry the Office Space kit by thinkgeek: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/8e6c/ http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/8e6c/
- jt2190 14y agoI 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.)
- fudged71 14y agoI 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 14y agothese 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 14y agoI 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 14y agoI liked this idea better when it was called Busy Building Things.
- MrAlmostWrong 14y agoI 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 14y agoExcept 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 14y agoEvery one of those made me feel depressed.
- bjxrn 14y agoI think they missed a good one by Samuet Beckett: Ever Tried. Ever Failed. No Matter. Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better.
- Typhon 14y agoIf 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 14y agoYou 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 14y agoThey all are but the different formulations of ARBEIT MACHT FREI.
- anotherevan 14y agoOh wow! New product idea! Print these 'motivational' posters on toilet paper! Now all I need is a technical co-founder...