The atmosphere at Quirky was high-pressure. Every day, we pushed the absolute limits—doodling, breaking, building, shipping, prettying, counting, labeling, collaborating, and coding to make invention accessible. The result is astonishing: three new products every single week. As you can imagine, this left us with little time to breathe.

Every good machine needs time to get tuned up/re-calibrated. Enter our (experimental) way of working: From time to time, Quirky shuts down its “machine” for a full week. A Blackout, if you will.

During Blackout, our team is encouraged to explore other interests. For some, it’s a time to clean their apartment, see the dentist, or buy a new pair of kicks. For others, it’s a time to explore an unfamiliar country or finally finish that creative side project. It’s a time to relax simultaneously, reflect on past successes and failures, and prepare mentally for the work ahead. It’s time to get our heads back in the game.

This video was particularly challenging to put together as we had to gather footage from 100’s of employees (and then edit the good parts together without leaving anyone out). This video was great as a recruitment tool, an internal joyous celebration, and a fantastic PR piece. Everyone around the country wanted to know what a ‘Blackout’ was and how it worked or made sense financially as a business.