Meet Foxy Voxy. She may not be quite ready for the Robot Hall of Fame, but she’s already done more for us at Voxus than C-3PO or WALL-E ever did.
Despite her lack of processing power or functionality—other than standing guard inside the Voxus conference room—she fulfilled her true purpose during construction. Foxy Voxy was a team-building exercise, a practice Voxus highly recommends to its industry peers.
After all, PR is about teamwork, collaboration and communication, both internally within the PR organization and externally with clients. Team-building exercises such as this can help employees keep these skills sharp, while also encouraging creativity and problem solving.
From a management (or self-management) perspective, one might also observe who among your organization eagerly committed to the project, who stepped up as leaders, who were ideal team players and, conversely, who didn’t work particularly well with others. (Play nice, kids!)
The Voxus robot project began with a trip to Tinkertopia, a local “Creative Reuse” crafts store, where old junk—everything from fabric swatches to bottle caps to countertop samples—is repurposed and sold as art supplies. Then, in five separate shifts, small teams of Voxus employees would spend about an hour each Friday assembling the robot in phases.
In many ways, this project was symbolic of what Voxus does every day—making the most out of the (sometimes limited) resources it’s given, and finding creative and exciting ways to make the seemingly ordinary appear extraordinary.
The activity generated universally positive feedback at Voxus, and we are already planning a second construction project. Perhaps a robot dog for Voxy? Or maybe her own rocket ship? Only time will tell…