News: HP Garage now officially an historic place

AP reported this week that the legendary Hewlett-Packard garage is now officially an historic place. It’s the little garage behind the house at 367 Addison Avenue in Palo Alto where Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard (the co-founders of HP) first started in 1938.

“It was there that Hewlett and Packard developed their first product, an audio oscillator, which Walt Disney Co. used to improve sound quality in its 1940 animated movie “Fantasia.”

You can read more about the HP garage at the official website.

We often discuss how leading companies strive to improve customer satisfaction and measurement, which includes a look at HP. Recently, one of my friends referred to HP’s “Rules of the Garage” which were widely promoted by HP back in the late ’90s. Here they are for your reference:

1. Believe you can change the world.


2. Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work whenever.


3. Know when to work alone and when to work together.


4. Share — tools, ideas. Trust your colleagues.


5. No politics. No bureaucracy. (These are ridiculous in a garage.)


6. The customer defines a job well done.


7. Radical ideas are not bad ideas.


8. Invent different ways of working.


9. Make a contribution every day. If it doesn’t contribute, it doesn’t leave the garage.


10. Believe that together we can do anything. Invent.