'Ball Room' Helps Tulsa Company Get Creative

By Rick Wells, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- How creative could you be in a room where you can write on the walls, and the floor is covered, ankle-deep, in rubber balls?

Chris Zenthoefer and Noah Roberts of New Medio use the new kind of ball room, where there is no dancing and no shoes. At the top of the stairs are little cubbies for your shoes, just like at Chuck E. Cheese.

"Right now we're working on Hanson's new Web site," Zenthoefer said.

On the wall, a huge piece of curved sheet metal, is a collection of current projects. Magnets stick to it, and it's covered with dry-erase wallpaper so they can write on it.

New Medio is a web development company.

"All of our sights start in here," Zenthoefer said.

They clean the wall and start writing. They bounce rubber balls and ideas off each other until they come up with something.

They are working on a Web site plan for the Invisible Bracelet and are talking about something very serious while lying around the floor with their shoes off.

"When you get someone to take their shoes off, this mental thing happens -- they let their guard down," Zenthoefer said.

Guard goes down, and creativity bubbles go up. The say they know of other companies with crazy "creating rooms" but nothing quite like theirs.

"It's not a bad place to have to come to work," Zenthoefer said.

They occasionally loan the ball room to organizations looking for a unique creative space who aren't afraid to take their shoes off.