A is for Awesome Team

One of the beautiful things about startup life is that you often get to wear many hats depending on the needs of the organization or, sometimes, just the time of day. As Education Elements’ office manager, I’ve got one of the most diverse work wardrobes on the team. I get the pleasure of working with every team member on board and with every team to some capacity. As a result, I know what makes each person special, and know what makes us, as an organization, special too.

This past weekend, I went to see Alejandro Jorodorsky’s Dune at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. It is a meta documentary about a cult avant garde surrealist film that was almost made, but halted by the film establishment. Just the sort of thing to spark the senses and my weekend art projects. The film ends with an inspiring call to action by Jodorowski, one of those razing speeches that leaves you with goosebumps and pent up potential energy. He tells us not only that we must create but, most notably, that you can’t make a masterpiece without madness.

I believe you can’t impact change and disrupt innovation in the education world without a bit of madness too. Madness in the form of a group of inspiring and inspired people. A bit of madness, a bit of creativity, some quirks rooted in talent and a uniting passion for education. Our team has all of that. A few fun facts:

• We have teachers and principals not just on our Design and Implementation team, but also on Engineering, Product, Client Services, Sales and Marketing and our Exec Team
• One of our Product team members is undefeated in ping pong
• One of our Engineers has been beaten by nearly everyone in arm wrestling. Another has a collection of dinosaurs on his desk
• Our Client Services team did a poetry slam about how to do account provisioning
• Our Finance Manager is amazing at karaoke and sings at her desk (when you click on her picture on the website, guess what Broadway song she might be singing there)
• Four of our team members are training for a triathlon together
• Combined we can do anything: run, paint, swim, parent, dance, sing, play, teach or learn. You name it, one of us does it!

None of these dichotomies are inconsistencies, but rather what makes our team alive with the inspiration to help make personalized learning possible in school districts all over the county. Our people are central to what makes Education Elements a great partner for our schools. We know how to have fun and how to work hard. We are passionate about our work, and passionate as individuals.

We built a new team page on our website to celebrate the inspiring and endlessly interesting team that helps make personalized learning and improved school outcomes a reality. Check it out here.

It’s a window, a little celebratory glimpse, into our world at Education Elements. Click on each team member to find out a little bit about them and a click a second time for snapshot into their personalities (which no one here is lacking). I hope you enjoy the page and will check out blog posts and other contributions from our awesome team. #warmfuzzies