One thing that drives me insane is seeing pictures of buildings on company Websites (whether large or small companies).

As I’ve said on numerous occasions, people do business with people, not buildings, so why not add pictures of your team on your About Us page? Even better, why not include video, that way savvy companies are now doing?

I’ve also been promoting the idea of going for a walkabout through your company ^[2] in order to glean ideas for Web content. I’ve always thought this a great idea, but how do you do implement it if you’re a company where people sit in cubicles and peck away on keyboards all day? What exactly do you tour?

How to combine the two?

I scratched my head about this for awhile and hit on the idea of asking companies if I could tour them in order to feature their people on my blog. I needed a test subject, so I called Jonathan Kay, Ambassador of Buzz for Grasshopper Group ^[3], and asked if he would be my guinea pig. He immediately said yes.

The result is my first video — Let’s Tour Grasshopper. In it you’ll find four brief interviews of the people inside the building where Grasshopper is located.

The video gives you only a brief sense of just how much Grasshopper interacts with customers as well as how busy they’ve been developing new products. Since filming the video, Grasshopper has come out with Spreadable ^[4], the product Jonathan talks about in the video. (Spreadable lets companies increase word of mouth referrals; Grasshopper Group has also developed Chargify — a simple recurring billing system).

This was a real learning experience

Let me just say that while it sounds easy to go out and buy a cool Flip video camera, interview some people, and then upload the video to YouTube, it’s actually not. I made all kinds of filming errors, such as talking over my subjects.

I also had to figure out how to cut down about 60 minutes of “tape” into the three and half minute video you see above. That took awhile and a lot of back and forth between me and my video editor.

Despite all the mistakes and the humble product, I’m very happy and can’t wait to do the next one.

Thank you, Jonathan, and everyone at Grasshopper Group. You were welcoming and hospitable and open with your information. I wish I could have shown the interviews in their entirety. I’m really impressed at what you’ve accomplished and where you’re going as a company — and I’m honored to showcase you on my blog.