Lots of companies and organizations have mission statements, the people at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, have written a creed for themselves instead.

I will never stop learning. I won’t just work on things that are assigned to me. I know there’s no such thing as a status quo. I will build our business sustainably through passionate and loyal customers. I will never pass up an opportunity to help out a colleague, and I’ll remember the days before I knew everything. I am more motivated by impact than money, and I know that Open Source is one of the most powerful ideas of our generation. I will communicate as much as possible, because it’s the oxygen of a distributed company. I am in a marathon, not a sprint, and no matter how far away the goal is, the only way to get there is by putting one foot in front of another every day. Given time, there is no problem that’s insurmountable.

Over the years, I’ve been involved with writing more than a few mission statements for schools, offices, departments, and districts. However, with a few edits, that Automattic creed would be a great replacement for one of those bland collections of nice phrases strung together, assembled by committee and saying little of substance.

I especially like that their creed is about the members of the community, rather than a statement from the building.