Recently, I brought my team down to Facebook Singapore office for a strategy discussion and more importantly, a tour and lunch in their office!
In fact, it’s my 2nd time going down to their office, but this time round I decided to bring the whole team down to have some fun and free food. Who doesn’t like free food right?! 😛
In case you are also running Facebook ads and wondering how to be invited to their office, you can read my post on how I got a Facebook Account Manager.
Before I share what I’ve learnt from this visit, let’s take a virtual tour of their office!
At the entrance, we signed in using the iPads there and put on our business visitor lanyard before heading in.
The first thing we saw was the pantry. We grabbed some drinks before heading into the meeting room for strategy discussion!
Spotted this recreation area. The staircase leads up to their huge canteen which I’ll show later.
While walking to our meeting room, I saw many little rooms meant for meetings.
Luxury of space (and money..?)
As they occupy 5 levels of office space, the whole design was really open and spacious.
One thing really cool is how they name their meeting rooms with local lingos like our coffeeshop drinks. They have like rooms called Kopi Gau, Kopi O, Kopi Peng etc. (I bet it will be super confusing for non-Singaporeans working there lol)
One room is even called Auntie & Uncle:
Because the office is so huge, they have this thing called the Wayfinder, which is a map to locate where your colleagues are seated in the office.
Facebook Wall
Do you remember the Facebook wall? It’s now called Timeline. Basically your profile page that people sees.
Facebook Partner Centre
In one of the levels, we went into this area called the Facebook partner centre. There are currently 7 of such partner centres in the world. This is where I guess partners can really learn about the Facebook’s mission, culture and explore cool stuff about them.
Well for us.. it’s also yet another place for us to fool around. There are 5 screens which are filled with emojis and we could swipe emojis up onto the screen using the small screen below.
While they were busy figuring how to flick emojis, I took a short video around the place. You can see a huge Instagram screen where it features live feed of the Instagram users globally:
Here are some random shots taken at this corner where there’s a wall of inspirational quotes.
Lunch at canteen
Well I don’t know if they really call it the canteen.. I just decided to call it that. After our strategy discussion and the office tour, we headed for lunch! They had so many stalls providing different cuisines; Italian, Indian, Chinese and Japanese food.
One thing I saw which I really liked was how they had a screen that featured “Faceversaries” of their staff. It’s probably one of the many ways they celebrate their people and to instil good people culture.
3 things I’ve learnt from this visit
Being able to tour the office was fun. But here are some takeaways I’ve gotten that I think can be applied to work/business:
1. Staying focused on your mission
Facebook has one mission, which is to bring the world closer together. With that one goal in mind, they built an empire where money was a by-product of their mission.
They have 1.5 billion daily active users as at Q4 2018 and their revenue for that quarter was close to 17 billion USD. 😱
With their capability and resources built over the years, they can now venture into areas like VR and other meaningful stuff that could further bring their mission bigger. (They even tried providing satellite to developing countries so that could have access to internet, and so they can use Facebook…)
Always remember your WHY in the work you do.
2. Value your team members and embrace an open culture
Having “Faceversaries” and having huge balloons placed on employees’ table to celebrate their work anniversaries are small gestures to show how they value their people.
I could also sense the open culture through the way they function. I mean, how can they not have an open culture when they are a social media company focusing on connecting people?
Having an open culture really helps break down any hierarchical rigidity (which I often hear it being present in local SMEs) and that’s something I prioritise in my business.
In today’s world of working with “millennials”, it’s important to learn how to build open communication with them.
This picture by Gary Vee pretty much sums it up:
For me, I’m glad to have built a positive and open work environment in the office and I know I have a good team to fall back on.
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with a team.
3. Innovation and change never stops
If you have time, read ‘Becoming Facebook’ by Mike Hoefflinger. Mike is an ex-Facebook employee and he shares the growth of Facebook and how they become the giant they are today. Do you know – 3 out of the 5 most used app/platforms in the world today belongs to Facebook. And it’s not accidental. It took them purposeful planning with the help of immense talent and execution to reach their goal. I guess it’s a reminder to never stop changing and innovating so that you or your company continue to grow.
The day you stop learning is the day your brain “dies”
I hope this article has been interesting and inspiring to you in one way or another.
Let me know if my thoughts resonate with you & comment below! 😀
