Cat on a hot software company

If you are curious about the title (and you should be!) the explanation is easy:

The blog is about Ms. Meow the cat - the official Kaz Software mascot. The blog is also tangentially about the importance of making a place of work, particularly a place of creative work, feel like a real human habitation (as opposed artificial "corporate" one). And last but not least the title is a shameless attempt to push a picture of Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman in of their finest moments :)

The mascot

Ms. Meow is a cat with a strong personality. She knows what she likes (techies and food) and she knows what she doesn't like (admin droids and banana). She is very conscious about her career improvement, as can be seen below - she learning the art of SQA with full dedication. (I'd like to point out that she is far from an ornamental mascot - she is the savior who protects us from the clutches of the evil mice :)  

The workplace like a real human habitation

I agree, this paragraph looks suspiciously like a weak attempt to bring credibility to this blog post. But I assure you it is not. From the day we started ten years ago, we made innumerable decisions to make sure that our place of work feels, as close as possible, like home. This is not an easy task, mind you. It is not as easy as putting some pictures on the wall or setting up a comfy place to sit, etc. Well I should say it not just those things - there are many reasons why home feels like home. The visual aspect is only a small part of this big story. 

But why make it like home at all? Well that is a long tale with no definite story-line. But it is really a point of view (amongst many) about workplace. But it is a view that we at Kaz subscribe to very passionately.

I can't do it justice, so let me quote something I read recently in a book review (and I quote without credit - in the world view that in the post Google world there is very little need for such a thing): 

“Understanding that humans biologically evolved to cooperate and that leaders emerged to protect the group, organizations that create environments paralleling those early conditions will bring out the best in us. This means taking steps to avoid the allure of abstraction in modern life by keeping it real and avoiding the perils of scale by keeping team sizes that mimic those of human tribes.”

The picture

OK, cutting to the chase, here is the picture. It is from the movie Cat on a hot tin roof made in 1958. When the monochrome was at its best in human history and when nothing could beat the sizzle of Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. (As a last attempt to justify it, I'd like to note that it goes with our theme in this blog of putting up old b&w pics of movies that are notionally connected with the content of the blog).