We’ve grown a lot as a company since last October and I’m afraid our capacity for mischief has grown as well. For instance, for the past two years at this time, Mike suddenly looks a bit off and starts mumbling about “braaaaaains“, Darrin seems furrier than normal and Jonathan keeps staring at Darrin’s neck. This year, since moving into new, larger offices, it’s a bit harder keeping track of where everyone is, but we would swear that some people are missing.

It all started at the beginning of the month. Mike called all the engineers into the conference room for a meeting. They were in there for hours and when they came out all looked a bit… pale. At first we didn’t notice, since they tend to sit silently at their computers anyway, rhythmically typing, typing, typing. Then we noticed none of them had headphones on. And they weren’t looking at their monitors at all, but staring really quite strangely at the backs of the designers’ heads.

Then the designers. No one noticed anything wrong with them, either. Sure, they came to work wearing black, with dark circles under their eyes, staring moodily and prone to dark corners, but what designer isn’t? It’s the coffin we noticed under Michael’s desk that made us wonder. It seems to have begun with that week Jonathan took them out to lunch, one by one. He took Kelcey out first, so why did she come back with two pricks in her neck? And the next day Michael came back from his lunch with Jonathan with a strange, thick, red fluid in his travel mug.

That’s when people began to disappear.

All this mysteriousness seems to have affected our work, hence the size of this week’s Halloween release. You can’t miss it under the Create tab, with four new scary sections! We’re really excited about all the creepy new features, and hope you all enjoy – or fear – them too.

(And where is Darrin in all this? He’s been pacing the length of his office, all alone, howling at the full moon.)

Jonathan presented each member of the team with a customized award for excellence, such as Most Caffeinated without Coffee and Most Likely to Wear a Shirt Designed for a Kid.  After a farm fresh feast of hot dogs, hamburgers and pizza, we were ready to hit the rides!  We partook in everything the farm had to offer from the 4-H barnyard to the not-so-haunted house.  We cruised the Mine Coaster, held in our lunches on the Spinning Barrels and rode the rails in a mini steam train which toted us around the entire farm.

After a sweet (and salty) interlude involving kettle corn we were onto the hayride, pumpkin patch and corn maze!  Before we knew it, the sun was setting, the air was becoming crisp and the map of the maze was failing us.  With the kettle corn sustaining our bellies and the onset of darkness keeping us in motion, we chugged on.  And on.  Eventually stumbling upon a way out and back to the warmth of our homes, where we slept like babies.

It really was the perfect day for a picnic.

Justin educated the crowd on the woes, wonders, and juggling act that comes with Picnik’s high demand for storage capacity and computing power. Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 services combined with patience and Zen make the perfect, cost-effective combination that we require to meet the needs of our users.

Justin also acted as Whippersnapper Ambassador to the IT Nation. On a panel entitled, “Generation Transformation – How Younger Hires are Drastically Changing Business and IT Paradigms,” Justin offered a unique perspective as the sole panel member born in the 80s. And, yes, Justin was the only panelist sporting jeans.

Although the resemblance is quite uncanny, you’re looking at the charming and dapper professionals of Team Picnik and not the stars of AMC’s hit television series Mad Men.

It’s true, we here at Picnik like to push the boundaries when it comes to fashion. On most days you will find us dressed to the nines in the highest of quality bleu de Gênes, or jeans, if you will. We’re known for dazzling the greater Seattle area with our denim in various shades of blue: cobalt, navy, indigo and royal!

But on Friday we raised the classy bar to a significant new height. Consider this the startup fashion statement of the year! In the name of prevailing taste, the Season 3 premier of Mad Men and maintaining the utmost  levels of awesomeness, we dressed the part of 1960’s office workers pounding on typewriters and puffing on (in our case, fake) cigarettes.

Jr. Designer, Kelcey, won our in house contest for Best Dressed lady in a sublimely vintage, Peggy Olsonesque dress and jacket. Developer extraordinaire, Alastair, took it home for the Best Dressed gent with a sleek, black cardigan and thick rimmed, lens-less glasses.

We’ve since given up the demanding world of fame and fashion (autograph signing can be such a drag) retiring to the familiarity of jean and jersey. So until someone invents the time machine, these old charmers will be stuck in the threads of a post-millennial landscape.

]]> http://blog.picnik.com/2009/08/plaid-pleats-and-picnik/feed/ 9 http://blog.picnik.com/2009/07/picnik-goes-to-blogher/ http://blog.picnik.com/2009/07/picnik-goes-to-blogher/#comments Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:48:29 +0000 ali http://blog.picnik.com/?p=1298 We’ve set our away messages, synchronized our watches to Central Daylight Time, and hit the dusty trail (A.K.A. I-5) to Sea-Tac airport. Today, we three ladies of Picnik are boarding our flight for the Windy City!

What’s with the globetrotting, you ask? Lisa, Sarah, and I are off to reveal the superhuman photo editing powers of Picnik to the ladies of BlogHer at their 5th annual conference! We’ll be demoing the best of Picnik out of Booth #112 alongside our trusty press rep, Bridget, while giving away some choice Picnik swag. Come find us!

Don’t worry, we’re leaving a few days early to scarf some deep-dish, cruise the Magnificent Mile, catch a few bars of the blues, and rofl to some world-class improv.

Along the way, we’ll be posting photos to a Flickr stream here. Follow along on our whimsical forays and misadventures in America’s 3rd largest city, Chicago!

Team Picnik is thrilled to announce that Charlie, our QA Manager and Community Relations Guy is back at work. Why was he gone? Because he had a baby!

That’s right, baby season continues at Picnik World Headquarters with baby Wyatt, the third baby this year. First Brian, our Quixotic Softographer, then CEO Jonathan, and now Charlie. Congratulations, Charlie and Kristi!

Most of our users might hear about “the Cloud” and wonder, “Why would Justin hate the Picnik clouds?” but actually the Cloud is where most of Picnik is stored! It refers to all our offsite data storage, processing, flexibility, and not making Justin install all that hardware himself. That way, it’s where we don’t have to look at it, as if it were hidden behind big white fluffy clouds. So Justin was down there to talk about love, hate, and laziness.

They’ll be there for the rest of the conference, so if you run into them, say hi!

Update: The video is now online!

Also on Saturday was the annual Issaquah Triathlon, a sprint Triathlon of much more humane distances of 1/4 mile swim, 15 mile bike ride and 3 mile run all around the Lake Sammamish area just to the east of us, which Penguin Handler Justin entered again and finished in 1:13:22, a 20 minute improvement on last year!

Tickets to the three-day event sold out immediately, proving that not only do we enjoy consuming food, we also love talking about food, sharing our experiences with food, and pouring over the digital concoctions of fellow food bloggers. Sarah and I joined a panel called “Food Porn: Food Photography & Styling” alongside chef and author Kathy Casey and food stylist Patty Wittmann. We walked through a quick and dirty Picnik demo, showing the attendant foodies how easy it is to make your food look as delicious as it tastes. We demonstrated how to adjust for poor lighting with a quick auto-fix, resize the image so it fits perfectly on your blog, or flip your pineapple upside down cake upside down! We also showed how to make your alfredo absolutely dreamy with the Orton-ish effect, recreate Mom’s famous apple pie with the 1960’s effect, or sweep away those pesky crumbs with the Clone tool.

What a perfect fit for bloggers who need a little help making their pictures as mouth watering as the masterpieces they whip up! Thanks to all the attendees who asked great questions and offered their testimonials on how Picnik is already as essential as their recipes. Picnik and delicious dishes make a steamy couple and now the word is out.

click to enlarge

This is coming from someone who only, on Friday last week, AFTER seeing the new Star Trek movie on IMAX with Team Picnik, found out that it was a young William Shatner who played the original Captain Kirk. So you can tell that up until now I’ve managed to avoid all things Trek.

And yet I’ll be the first to admit that I totally loved the movie! I even walked away with a newfound crush on Spock (there’s just something about that inner struggle between logic (vulcan) and emotion (human) that gets me every time).

Star Trek is totally funny, slightly campy and 100% adventurous. It also delivers an important and (unfortunately) underused message. Oftentimes blockbusters like this are more singular in their nature, adhering to the all too familiar “hero’s journey”. The timeless story which revolves around one main character, who (with the help of a few quirky friends) is able to: self-actualize, win the girl and save the world.

Star Trek is different.

For one, Captain Kirk doesn’t get the girl (at least not in the movie), but the message is really about the awesome efforts and outcomes of a united team! Like Picnik, the crew aboard the Starship Enterprise is equally contributing to the success of each mission! Just to name a few, there’s Chekov, who masterminds navigation and handles some seriously close calls in the “beaming” depot. Sulu, who pilots the ship through even the most extreme battles, and there’s Uhura, interpreting and relaying all communications.

Throughout the entire movie I could not help but think of Team Picnik. I even got a little choked up at the parts (no spoiler here) where the importance of a team effort was particularly noted. I thought of Justin (Penguin Handler) scurrying about the ship, tightening loose cables and reporting/monitoring S3 problems. Or Charlie (QA Manager) ferociously testing away and tracking space bugs with the sharp aid of Ali (QA Deputy). Sonia and Chelsea (Community Therapists) are always fending off attacks and providing the team with important feedback. There’s Peter (The Designer) and Michael (The Other Designer) creating the designs and emblems for the ship, making sure we always look awesome out there in space. Virginia (copywriter), always eagerly documenting and reporting out all of our missions and adventures. Brenda (Community Liaison) our voice on a distant planet, diplomatically building community in far off lands. I (Office Manager) maintain the ship and make sure the crew is armed with all necessary weapons and tools to get the job done. Steve (Software Engineer), Brian (Quixotic Softographer) and Alastair (Data Stylist) team up not only to battle evil space bugs, but to fix and build our precious ship. Lisa (CMO) is there to help navigate the ship, steering us into more profitable galaxies. Mike (COO), Jonathan (CEO) and Darrin (CTO) each with his own critical starship duties, united they keep us safe and happy by managing the crew on our (sometimes dangerous) missions!

My points are:
#1. I have a crush on Spock.
#2. I’m clearly a geek who’s taken the Star Trek allegory too far.
#3. Team Picnik flies one heck of a ship, and we fly it together!

There’s never a dull moment here at Picnik World HQ and its super exciting to be part of such an amazing team! I just want to thank the Picnik crew and tip my hat to the adventures that await us.

Here’s to boldly going where no startup has gone before!