The Company Yearbook

January 20, 2010 - 5 Comments

Frank Roche over at KnowHR wrote an interesting post last week on creating a company yearbook.

Apparently, he has hardcover books made for his small HR communications firm, iFractal, with all of the pictures they’ve taken over the course of the year. I think that’s awesome!

But it got me thinking… You don’t need to wait until the end of the year to do something like this.

With social media, you can create a living, evolving yearbook. You can post photos of special occasions, spontaneous moments, breakthroughs, exciting stuff, goofy stuff, mundane stuff.

What a great way to remember the cool stuff you’ve done over a year – and to give potential future employees a unique portal into your culture.

So how do you get started?

Buy a cheap digital camera (I recommend either the Sony Cybershot or Canon Powershot – affiliate links).
Take lots of photos.
Post them on Facebook or Flickr (or both).
Let people know they’re there.

It’s really that easy!

PS: Zappos does a great job at this – Check out their Facebook page!

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Comments

Hi Chris…we take at least a photo or video every day. Here’s ours: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ifractal_llc/.

Thanks for the shout out!

Frank Roche on January 20th, 2010 at 8:17 am

This post brought a smile, Chris. I remember when it was a big deal to have a company directory on an intranet so it would stay updated and wouldn’t need to be printed and distributed. At the time, that simple app saved companies money.

Wally Bock on January 20th, 2010 at 8:32 am

@Frank – I didn’t know that! Awesome! For what it’s worth, I think the printed edition is a really nice touch. There’s something spectacular about holding a physical book (signing it and so on, as you noted in your article) that just seeing pics online can’t replace.

@Wally – It’s amazing how easy technology makes things that used to be difficult, isn’t it?

Chris Ferdinandi on January 20th, 2010 at 9:06 am

Great post! You know who does a fantastic job with this is Yahoo! They own Flickr so I’m sure that’s motivating but it really helps provide insight into their culture and I’m sure creates internal buzz. We do this at our company on Facebook and it’s definitely cool to see coworkers from around the country at happy hours and office parties.