Strategy Session

I was amused yesterday by an item in the Wall Street Journal’s Work & Family blog. The author, Sara Schaefer Munoz, posed the question, “are your kids proud of where you work?” Some of her examples are quite amusing (the 11-year-old son of Wendy’s CEO Kerrii Anderson proclaiming to his mother, when she once said she might leave the company, “You can’t go work somewhere other than Wendy’s.”); responses from readers are interesting as well.

This reminded me of what Brian Dexheimer of Seagate told me about the company’s fast-growing Branded Products Division for an article I wrote on the challenges electronics companies face in the consumer market. He said that the biggest impact from the company’s “consumer experience” to date has been on the corporate culture.

Dexheimer, executive vice president and chief sales and marketing officer responsible for Seagate's market-focused organizations, says that during the company's quarterly all-employee meetings, about half of the questions from the audience are about Seagate's branded business, which accounts for less than 8% of total company revenue. The employees' interest level is high, especially now that their neighbors and friends say to them, “Hey, I just bought one of your products at Best Buy.”

"Our employees are really excited about the change in Seagate from a component provider to a company that has relevance in their neighborhood. Our employees feel more relevant—I see that," Dexheimer says.

I guess you could say Seagate employees think their company is pretty cool.

Is your company cool? You don’t have to have a consumer product on the market to be cool. Fill us in on your company or your job’s “coolness factor.”