Our long-term vision is to change online learning for web development, making it more effective and accessible for everyone. This includes crafting content and tools that ease learning, supporting open source projects and communities, as well as addressing barriers that deny people access to learning resources.
Part of achieving our vision is creating a company where great things can happen. We are an open books company and we are very transparent with all aspects of our business, from the daily work everyone is doing to the financial forecast for the coming year. We do this so that everyone at the company understands how our business works and their impact on it. All employees are involved in business decisions at some level.
We take our core values very seriously. They're the underpinning for what we do, and more importantly, how we do it. Every major company decision and goal is measured against our values.
Do great work
We set high standards for ourselves, valuing skillful and impactful work. We encourage each other to strive for those standards and help each other to grow. We make sure that we deliver not only a quality product but also have a positive impact on the world.
Some examples of this value in action are:
- Our regular process of peer review for our code and content, where we provide feedback and encourage improvement.
- Contributing our standard high quality videos for free to enhance the Drupal community documentation.
Feed creativity
Creativity creates space for innovative ideas and inventive solutions. We embrace the full creative process, which includes failing, learning, and trying again, in a safe and respectful environment. We are open to creative change and are not afraid to change existing things as well as creating something new. Through openly sharing our new ideas in the wider world we aim to also foster creativity in others.
Some examples of this value in action are:
- We explore new ideas for how to deliver our content, from written tutorials to new hands-on project guides. Ideas start from customer feedback and result in features like the ability to access a pre-made site sandbox to avoid customers needing to set up a new site.
- We re-evaluated our business strategy and decided to change the company name to better reflect our vision.
Spread happiness
We believe in the power of happiness. We encourage playfulness, positivity, and kindness in everything we do. We try not to take ourselves too seriously and recognize that being approachable and kind makes learning more fun and less stressful. We are aware of the impact our attitude has on the people around us and that impact spreads far beyond our personal and professional interactions.
Some examples of this value in action are:
- Creating fun examples in our learning materials, like the ice cream shop example for learning plugins or the batman cartoon for events.
- Fun stickers! Our sparkly Drupal ponies continue to be a favorite even today.
- We respond to customer support timely and cheerfully, even the grumpy ones. We're human too, and we get that people have bad days. We like to try to make them a little better when we can.
Work together
We believe in Open Source, not only in open software but also in the principles of collaboration and sharing. We fully engage with Open Source communities through contribution and have incorporated these fundamentals throughout our company. We keep open minds and listen to each other to find common ground and improve each other’s work without judgment. We apply these same principles when working with our customers to solve their problems.
Some examples of this value in action are:
- Sharing our Employee Handbook publicly
- Collaborating on the Drupal 8 User Guide and sharing our enhancements (adding videos)
Build trust
We build trust through openness, respect, and forgiveness. We treat people like equals and genuinely care for them, whether they are part of our team, our customer, or part of the wider world. We take promises seriously and deliver on them both internally and externally. We value our distributed work environment, and we trust our colleagues to make the best use of that flexibility to cultivate the best life balance for them.
Some examples of this value in action are:
- PEX and company credit cards; we trust people to purchase the things they need and give them freedom to do so.
- We have a very liberal refund policy so that customers can decide what works for them.
- During the 2020 pandemic we reframed our work expectations. You can read more details in the blog post, Shortening the Work Week Amidst a Pandemic.
Empower people
We strive to create a space that empowers everyone. We encourage growth and exploration, with a culture of sharing and support for change. We give people the power to make choices about how to meet their needs and to change things about our company. We share as we learn, both with technology and business, to encourage others and assist with the lessons we’ve learned. We strive to ensure that opportunites for growth are provided equitably. (See also our committment to diversity and inclusion.)
Some examples of this value in action are:
- In addition to technical training information we encourage people to understand and use the wider array of tools that the open source community provides.
- We allow employees to determine their own schedules to be there for their families and friends when and how they need to be.
Care for our customers
We work hard to serve our customers well. We meet them where they are, and we believe that being aware of and responsive to our customers’ needs is an integral part of what we do. We give customers control over how they want to learn and support them on that journey, even if it doesn’t involve our products.
Some examples of this value in action are:
- Talking to Node.js developers to learn more about what they want in a learning platform and then using that to inform what content we’re creating.
- We keep our content up to date and get fixes published as quickly as possible when a problem is pointed out.