The Nerdery: Nerds at their Best (and Happiest)

The Nerdery is a “developer driven interactive production company” that works with other agencies in creating interactive media such as websites and mobile applications. Founded by three programmers in 2003, The Nerdery has expanded to seven offices in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Kansas City. The Nerdery’s professionals come from different programming disciplines. The company puts a lot of emphasis on partnership with other agencies because they keep themselves in track with their tasks by sticking technical consulting and execution. They delegate the creative conceptualization to their creative agency partners than focus on their competencies and given responsibilities. In one project, The Nerdery worked with Zeus Jones to come up with a highly interactive web site for Cheerios. Zeus Jones tackled the conceptualizing and copywriting while “the Nerds” worked on meeting the clients’ preferences, which demanded strict technical requirements to establish a strong web presence for Cheerios.

The Nerdery is not a stranger to accolades. It won the Emerging Business of the Year Award in the 2011 Best in Business Awards. It is also part of the Inc. 5000. But aside from its works, The Nerdery is very much applauded because of employee satisfaction. It was awarded the Mpls-St.Paul Busines Journal Award as the topnotcher for the Best Places to Work. Star Tribune (Minneapolis) and Monthly (Minnesota) also gave a spot in their respective Top Workplaces list.

It is not hard to accept this fact because for one, hierarchy is not a big deal in this emerging company. Luke Bucklin, a co-founder of The Nerdery, championed the concept of “Co-President” in the company. Everyone is referred to as “Co-President” to signify even distribution of leadership and to recognize the role of diverse employees. Aside from that, The Nerdery allows employees to bring their dogs to work to create a “working-from-home” atmosphere. Productivity and efficiency increase when employees are happy. And when employees are happy, the final product of projects is almost always impressive. Take it from The Nerdery.