Category: Fun@Ideafarms

A Table’s Fable Happenings @ Ideafarms

10:30 am: The intern has arrived. Her belongings are already sprawled all over me. I look forward to another day of being exploited – Yay!

11:30 am: Presently, 3 of them sit around me and ‘work’. While they furiously type on their overheated laptops and simultaneously sip on their chilled nimbu paanis, I suffer from heat stroke and hypothermia at the same time.

12:30 pm: Music emanates from a laptop directly into my ears. Not that song* again. Oh great, they feel the need to tap along to it. I’m a table, not a tabla. And you definitely aren’t musicians…
One of them has gotten up and moved onto manhandling the drum set a few feet away from me. When will they realize that they’re absolutely tone-deaf?

1:30 pm: The dreaded lunch time. Question: What’s more fun than a bunch of people dropping daal and kaddu ki sabzi all over you? Answer: Literally everything. At least after they’re done feasting I get cleaned. Yes, I’m aware that they only clean me for their own matlabi and exploitative reasons, but those 10 seconds are absolute bliss.

2:30 pm: They’re sticking Post-Its on me now. ‘Business Model Canvas – First Draft’, they say. First draft? Just how many are there going to be? This means I’m going to get waxed multiple times, doesn’t it. Great. Can’t wait.

3:30 pm: Music blaring. They’ve moved onto bhajans now. So pious. So devout. Would Lord Ram and Lord Krishna approve of your complete and utter disregard for an innocent table’s well-being?

4:30 pm: I’m wondering what kind of photo shoot would require them to LIE DOWN on me. Creativity ki hadd hoti hai. But these guys clearly seem to think otherwise.

5:30 pm: Brainstorming. Spitballing. Ideating. Sound like harmless enough words, right? Wrong. Enter chai and coffee – ‘creative nectar’ to get their ‘creative juices’ flowing. For me, it just means multiple third degree burns.

6:30 pm: It’s funny how fast and efficiently things get done in the office when it’s time to pack up and leave. Everyone is running around frantically, while I stand still, watching the madness with bittersweet thoughts of the quiet hours ahead of me.

*Closer – The Chainsmokers

DoodleADay – The Origin Story

Sitting in front of a screen ogling simple visuals made by designers from across the seas, I could feel a certain frustration creeping in on me. Having been away for a while from anything remotely resembling a sheet of paper, something had to be done about it.

‘Quick, give me a word – what’s the first thing that comes to your mind’, I asked my colleague.

‘Spectacles’, replied a very amused Eeshta.

I grabbed the nearest scrap of paper and a marker, my fingers unsure of themselves. A few seconds later, I stuck the sorry looking doodle on the wall beside me – a reminder of how far I had fallen behind.

The next day, an unsuspecting intern got the same request from me.

‘Egg!’, said Vaani.

Up went a cracked egg on the wall.

Inspired by an activity given by Justin Ferrell to the participants of the Design Thinking workshop (fast-forward to 9 minutes into the video for the challenge), the challenge to myself spread to Eeshta and Vaani. A doodle a day, it was, then. 10 seconds to draw a random word given by someone else.

Two days later, we asked Sahil – the resident artist – who had been supplying us with words, to join in. ‘No! No! You’re taking too long – no making a masterpeice out of it! Take the pen away from him!’

With the wall of post-its growing bigger, we got the techies, even finance and HR into drawing a doodle. ‘Ha! I’ve done it in three!’ Nikhil said proudly, as he held up a neat three petaled flower.

Where it will go – I cannot say for sure, but its fun and definitely that’s not going to be bad at all!

The Doodle Wall
The Doodle Wall

The Intern Diaries

First day at Ideafarms

Walking in, I am greeted by a drum roll: bright-eyed and bushy-tailed fellow intern Eeshta’s welcome to the new kid. I like it already.

First off, I am walked through the ground rules by the lovely HR director, Anuja, revealing some telling facts about the atmosphere of the company I had just joined. Number 4, no yelling or speaking in a rude voice; Number 2, no calling anyone “sir” or “ma’am”; first names would suffice. Number 7 was the most interesting, however, specifically delineating that everyone was approachable, and that one could go up to any other employee at the company to ask questions and request information. Already, 25 minutes in, Ideafarms is blowing my expectations of rigid, overly structured, hierarchical experience out of the water.

Next, I am immediately thrust into helping with a pitch for a new app, quickly going over the idea and seeing firsthand how Ideafarms brainstorms. Despite the good humour and familiarity pervading the atmosphere, employees know when to get serious and are impressively quick and efficient when there is a task at hand. I watched the team put together a competent, well-organized presentation, even offering some input which they used while talking about the app. I observed the bosses’ feedback with great interest straight after the pitch – they astutely highlighted the main issues in an even, businesslike manner and helped guide the team towards making a better product.

Lunchtime, though, was the highlight of the day. It is a time for everyone to get together around the lunch table, where no work is allowed, allowing for absorbing discussions about politics, current events, and our favourite TV shows to spring up. On the first day alone I gleaned more about the current state of the city than I had from newspapers in the past week, with everyone contributing information and experiences. Thankfully there were no Game of Thrones spoilers! It was great to see how well everyone got along, and I am already excited for the homemade cake, Nirati, one of the other interns, has promised to bring tomorrow.

Going home at the end of the day, accompanied by a leaving drum roll from the one and only Eeshta, there is only one thought in my head: I think I’m going to like it here.

Shaina doodling away!
Shaina doodling away!

written by Shaina Verma.

12 reasons why we are happy in 2014!

This is not one of those existential Thought Catalog kind of post. Its just a quick 12 points summary of why we were happily grinning like monkeys on 17 April 2014.

Reason 1 – Ideafarms came into being in 2002.

Reason 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 … we continued rocking and doing kickass work.

Reason 12 – WE TURNED 12 THIS year!! And yes just like any discerning on-the-brink teenager, we enter our adolescent years kicking, screaming and very unaware of what the future has in store for us (well not quite. We’re smarter than that 😉 ). If the year so far is anything to go by, we are already on our way to having a lot of fun. This year we got the opportunity to make our very first game on Android, in affiliation with a upcoming movie called Yeh Hai Bakrapur. The game is called “Kaun Banega PM?” and you can read about it here. More on that in another post and lets bring back the focus to more mundane things like a party etc. :-D. Have a look at how we had a small celebration at work to usher in the big Thirteen in Fourteen.

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Well there was cake of course. And it was del-i-cious!

 

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Here’s our enthusiastic HR waiting to greet the founders.
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Greeted in the Indian Traditional way.
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And accepting the blessings
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Hungry tortured citizens of Ideafarms

 

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Good wishes came forth once the cake was finished!!

This was just the trailer of the celebration that is in store, a big party is under wraps and you are already invited! Watch this space for more action!!

Amaya Don’t – A tribute to all mothers. Happy Mother’s Day

Our Mother said DON’T a lot when we were growing up didn’t they? It is now when we are all grown up that we realise it was their love and that they have stood by our side no matter what. All of our mothers deserve a big hug and a tribute this mother’s day. It is with this spirit in mind that our good friends and associates Geeta & Avinash Kumar made this beautiful and touching video to celebrate the most special person in all of our lives – our Mothers .

We share this video here to wish all moms a very happy Mother’s Day.

DON’T forget to wish your mom 🙂

Happy mother’s day

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Ideafarms turns 10 ! A decade of Innovation and Design

17th April- A day that is very important to us, as this day Ideafarms was born, and now its been a decade. An important milestone has been achieved successfully.

Our celebrations began way back when we crafted our new year’s greeting card relating with all the moments that we had in our journey (our clients, our parties, our people). Take a look .. Just a click away .

We also revamped our website and launched it on our anniversary. You can check it out here. Any kind of criticism and ‘Aww! thats nice‘ will be wholeheartedly accepted 😀

Our day was special as we had a ceremony at our work-place followed by a small party. The day began with work assigned to everybody – ‘Filling up balloons ‘. Everybody was enjoying that for once they had something new to do at the work place. In no time we had decorated our place with balloons.

 

You could feel the excitement in the air, the whole office was decorated to reflect the mood that a festival brings every year, which put a big smile on everybody’s faces.

 

Our CEO Mr. Sunil Malhotra and CFO Mr. Rajeev Malhotra were given a warm welcome, followed by a religious ceremony.

 

The pooja ceremony was done to seek the blessings of the almighty and bless our souls.

 

Rangoli in office has always been a part of our celebrations – the Indian way. Ruchi put in her creative hand and made a fantastic one.

 

After the ceremony, we had another ceremony, the cake eating ceremony 😀 . The cake was tempting and yummy-licious so it was hard to get our hands off it.

 

But the party ain’t stoppin as we had a grand celebration at Chonas, Khan Market. The food was superb and we all loved it.

 

Sarvesh captured  our 10-year journey into this beautiful poem as we turn 10, and create a landmark in the history.

 

Oh ! wait its not over yet. We got a  lot of attention from our loved ones on Twitter too. Check it out.

 

Happy Diwali !!

Diwali is one festival that is celebrated with much enthusiasm by every Indian. An Indian Christmas if you may. It is that time of the year when we all get together, have fun, pray, burst crackers and wish each other happiness and prosperity for the future.

Like every year, we celebrated Diwali at Ideafarms with much zeal and enthusiasm. The celebrations started a week in advance and we started sharing Diwali greetings to wish everybody.

On Diwali eve, everyone at work was in a festive mood and dressed up in traditional India attire (well most of us).

You could feel the excitement in the air, the whole office was decorated to reflect the mood that Diwali brings to us every year …

…for those of you who are wondering this design/pattern made with powered color is called rangoli.

We organized a havan at Ideafarms, a religious ceremony where we prayed to God to bless us with good-will and prosperity.

And now with high spirits and a festive hangover we all wish u a very Happy Diwali 🙂 .

There was a post-diwali party too. For which we don’t have any pictures. Everyone was too busy eating you see 😉

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The Ladies’ Oracle

 

To all those interested in the occult, worried about the future or belonging to the female gender, I have some exciting news. Ideafarms is proud to present its first android game ‘The Ladies’ Oracle’. The Ladies’ Oracle is a fun game that never fails to give accurate answers to any question asked. Originally a book by the same name, the game comes equipped with answers to over 95 questions that every girl of every age wants to know.

Men and women alike are often curious of the unknown and ask questions like;“When will I get married?”, “Will I have any children?”,“What does the future have in store for me?”. The infallible prophet “Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa”, had long ago worked out a fascinating mechanism to help you arrive at the answer to these questions which he had compiled in the original classic book by the same name – The Ladies Oracle. The book has been for years considered the perfect bible for every woman out in the world.

The Android game by Ideafarms has been designed to preserve the authenticity and enigma of the book while adding an element of fun and mystery to make it more engaging for the user.

Ask a question, choose a symbol, and get your answer. It’s that simple! Scroll through the list of questions and you’re bound to find one that suits your fancy. (Psst: The game also has a jump index bookmark thingy that makes it easy to browse questions.)

Once you’ve found a question you like, you are taken to a shape selection page, where 16 figures are moving randomly around a grid. Just tap a block to select a shape. Your destiny is in your own hands, because it is the shape selected that determines the outcome of your fate.

Spend some time trying out its features. The game never ceases to amaze you. For some answers, the Oracle will even suggest a charm or ritual. You can even choose to keep it to yourself, or share the answer with your friends through e-mail, Facebook or Twitter.

Though there are some unlucky days, during which it is not advised to consult the Oracle, and it is not considered prudent to ask the same question twice in one day, you need not worry about it as the game is designed to help you out there.

Hard to put down, the game promises to be your constant companion, be it an important meeting, a lazy Sunday afternoon, or a fun filled slumber party.

So girls, go to the android market now and download this game. This one is for you.

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