Writers Blog, Readers Digest

“Though the sky is greyed with storm clouds deciding on if they should release their cargo on us or not, the sun is shining in my soul. Knowing that many times my words have been read makes the effort of creating something new every day all the more worthwhile.”
- John Thibeau (Canadian Writer)

Observing and reading are two of the most efficient ways of learning; they help us make sound and wise decisions when the situation calls for it.

As a writer, I have come to learn that the best way to express something and yet have an effect on the reader is by writing in a simple yet effective way where the foundation of the ideas, logic and purposes is well built. Even though we as writers express our own feelings with our writing, we do keep in mind what the readers want to read about and what interests them.

Writers write about what they observe in life, and that can lead them to have the desire to share all that information in just one article, but can the readers really benefit from all that vast information? Our intentions are the best, but the results are long articles that don’t have the effect intended. The readers will benefit more from articles that focus on a certain matter in which they can absorb the information and obtain good results from it.

In a similar way, we as software developers want our users to benefit from our software rather than getting lost in its complexity, trying to figure out how to use it. In our software development we focus on making the software easy to use, yet practical and professional.

Just like there’s a connection between writers and readers, there’s a big connection between developers and users. When ideas come to create or update a software, we think of ways to give our customers a simplified software, but at the same time a well advanced one, something they can really benefit from, sophisticated yet simple.

PVI Drilling Software - Sophisticated Yet Simple

Just like writers blog and readers digest, developers create and users benefit. At the beginning of the article we quoted from John Thibeau, who expressed how knowing that people were reading his articles was such an inspiration for him to write better articles, at PVI, we apply those words but with a minor change:

Knowing that many times our software is being used makes the effort of creating something new every day all the more worthwhile.

The Enthusiasm is Compelling

Recreational activities are an essential element to have in the workplace. They give employees the ability to perform tasks or to solve problems in various ways that can be more beneficial to the business as a whole. Recreation helps to bring a fresh change to a work atmosphere that can inspire employees to be more productive, find joy in doing their work and to feel determined to succeed. Through a mixture of activities focused on balancing work, life and creative thinking, they may become more creative and enthusiastic at work. PVI has implemented activities where the employees can participate and connect with each other to help increase workplace creativity, performance and innovation.

The first ever PVI Foosball Tournament is a good example of this and it was a blast! The formula was simple: the names of everybody in the company were drawn from a jar and each employee had to pick a piece of paper with a name on it, whoever’s name was on that paper would be their partner for the game. Each team consisted of 2 members and everybody had to come up with a name for their team, (the originality of some of the names was unparalleled). There were third, second and first place prizes, and for those who did not win, the fun and excitement was a good reward.

Foosball Tournament

Each team laughed, yelled, and fought valiantly. All teams were very competitive, but not without integrity and great spirit. As teams waited, they had time to get to know one another better, which made it a fun event. The tournament lasted 2 weeks and the finals were intense, but at the end of the game a few positive things were learned from it.

Being involved in activities such as this can help employees to engage in their productive side while also learning beneficial team building skills, which lead to job satisfaction, service quality and customer satisfaction. Physical activities have also been shown to help increase brain sharpness and even strengthen the immune system, which help employees to relax and de-stress. You may be surprised by the results of having such activities in the workplace.

Ever since the tournament, Foosball has become part of our company’s daily routine. The amazing thing is that most of the employees had never even seen a Foosball table before, and now they are pros. Due to the positive results and popular demand, we are sure there will be more Foosball tournaments to come. The enthusiasm is compelling and it results in happy employees that use their critical thinking skills to come up with new ideas that can transform our business and our software.