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Is it the 95-degree heat, or did I just see Fred riding a bike down the hallway? And was the bike rigged with a freezer full of ice cream bars and a string of bells? And, was he dressed like the Good Humor Man?
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There is a yearly ritual that takes place in the ETC Service Department. It usually happens in late February and involves a great deal of planning, coordination and teamwork. The event: Trying to buy home game tickets for Chicago Cubs Baseball games. (Yes I know, we live in Middleton, WI) Lisa Chapiewsky...
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Town Square has gone through its annual holiday transformation, thanks to a lot of talent and work by many ETC staff-slash-set designers. The big guy (not Fred, the OTHER big guy) is even part of the installation. These cell phone pictures don't really do the whole thing justice - more difficult to see...
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The recent arrival of a new automated coffee machine in the Finance/Sales/Marketing kitchen has brought delicious dark roast coffee to many - and the end of an era for one. With the fancy schmancy new coffee dispenser, the brew-your-own lineup of coffee pots has been put away. And, with no responsibility...
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It seems like there is always a good bit of talk about what a fun place ETC is to work but last night I was lying awake in bed obsessing over a number of different issue I need to deal with and felt that someone should address the fact that we do real work here J Now I’m defiantly of the belief that...
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After three and a half years of living and working in Europe I have only come to grasp one thing with absolute certainty: Europe is not the U.S.A. and the European Union is not a single market place. Granted, it is very nice to have a single currency in the form of the EURO. In my case, I left a nice...
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Figured it was worth explaining what Isaac (and some of the rest of the summer help) was REALLY doing with those big stacks of paper in a previously-posted photo. There's a group of interns helping ETC to scan an estimated three million pages of systems documents as part of a larger effort to be more...
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I spent just over four years in the United States NAVY as a Fire Control Technician. (Like missile firing not the hot red flames and smoke type of fire). It did not take me long to learn that the word NAVY was actually an acronym for Never Again Volunteer Yourself. But in the world of ETC you do not...
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Summer has arrived, and with it, waves of interns and LTEs and other part-timers have descended on the ETC campus in Middleton. They're helping out in all kinds of ways, across all areas of the company. And, universally, they all seem like they're here to really work. Here's a pictorial look at just...
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I may work in a cubicle here, but it definitely doesn't feel like this . I think somebody must have been weary of this chart when our building was designed. Hence the many common areas, conference rooms with windows, the deli , the picnic blankets......
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Any Harvard Business Review readers in the audience today? Before I started working at ETC, I wouldn't have raised my hand and wouldn't have felt like I was missing anything relevant to me. Now, after reading through a few issues passed on to me by a coworker, I've done a 180. It is good stuff. One recent...
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David talked about our gearing up for Lightfair and the exciting new products that we'll be showing there. Back in the R&D department, those products are known by their code name: Wildwood. The R&D and Manufacturing teams are in "total immersion mode" getting these products completed and ready...
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Over the past handful of days the Broadway Deli in Town Square has featured an impressive run of lunch cuisine, including grilled hamburgers (like, actually grilled, by Dave) on May 6, teriyaki chicken sandwiches on May 12, and a double-whammy of baked potato bar (all the toppings you could want, and...
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Hello everyone! Long time, No blog. Maybe you were a reader of my blog during 2006 and 2007? Well – if you were you probably noticed it fall apart after LDI 2007. I cracked under the pressure! But we have re-worked our approach now and I am glad to be taking part in a new blog format. BTW - if you subscribed...
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We were shooting some video yesterday for a web project, and found ourselves struggling to produce a smooth teleprompter effect with a projected view of a standard word processing application. If only there were free online teleprompter services... A few Google searches later, and we were rolling with...