Today, we had the amazing opportunity of visiting Microsoft headquarters and Thinkhouse. Microsoft is one of the most well-known technology companies in the world with companies all over the globe. On the other hand, Thinkhouse is a much smaller company working as a local small marketing agency in Dublin, Ireland. When visiting both of the sites there were many differences with how they work, their mission, their vision, and the social impact they provide. All of these factors contribute to the current culture of each company.
Obviously, technology has been increasingly improving year over year and with the current rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), it has been taken to a different level none of us has seen before. Microsoft is embracing the upbringing of AI as employees have implemented different types of AI into their everyday workplace and environment around them. They are trying to be in the AI market and improve AI in many different ways. For example, Microsoft is planning on releasing the Microsoft CoPilot software which would make developing presentations, planning out agendas, project management, operations management, etc way more easier and compact. They currently have 11,000 customers on the waitlist and this software has yet to release. This just shows how much of a demand AI is in our everyday lives and how easy it is to use and streamline everything with AI.
On the other side of things, Thinkhouse does not recommend the use of AI within their marketing agency. As a small local agency, they pride themselves on personal creativity and innovation and with AI it contradicts that. For example, they tested making an advertisement with AI and with someone from the creative design team and there were evident differences between them. You can not use AI with marketing because it takes away the personalization aspect of things.
When visiting both companies today, the company culture for is very different for both. Microsoft’s company culture is very welcoming, caring, collaborative, and with an emphasis on diversity and inclusion. All of these aspects have contributed to a very successful technology company. Thinkhouse has very similar traits such as teamwork and collaboration to contribute to their creative mindsets to produce unique marketing ads and campaigns.
Microsoft’s company culture was the most appealing to me because of their past history and success that has contributed to where they are now. They obviously have a consistent working culture that has helped them become one of the largest and most successful technology companies. Along with the constant growth they are gaining with new products being launched, the culture that Microsoft has is something every company should implement into their workforce.
