Google's Office Grafitti

From the April 2006 issue of Business 2.0:
Best-Kept Secrets of the World's Best Companies
Secret # 14: Office Graffiti

For a company that has roughly doubled its workforce each year since 2002 (current headcount: 5,800), Google doesn't much act like the big company it has become. One of the ways it has preserved its tech-startup ethos is decidedly low-tech: dozens of whiteboards placed in common areas and corridors throughout its Mountain View, Calif., campus. Some are businesslike, used by product teams to swap ideas. But the two largest ones, about 30 feet long, are devoted to the equivalent of corporate graffiti. One is packed with cartoons and jokes that workers have scrawled under the slogan "Google's Plan for World Domination." "It's collaborative art," says David Krane, Google's director of communications and one of its earliest whiteboard posters. "We're in a growth period, and when new hires see the boards they get a quick, comprehensive snapshot of our personality." -- P.K.

So, next time a potential client asks what the value of doodling on the walls could possibly add to their bottom line... tell'em to Google it!

[thanks to Bo Maupin]