Six Values in Six Months: A Co-op Reflects

/ /by

My name is Meg Foley. I have worked as the marketing execution co-op at VIA’s Davis Square headquarters since January. And this is the story of how that became the most rewarding experience of my life (so far!).

That’s me!

In my two years at Northeastern University, I have already made major progress towards some of my life goals, like traveling the world, earning a college degree, and getting real-life work experience (and I still have three more years to go!). I studied abroad in Dublin my first semester, went to classes in Boston for the next two semesters, and worked at a startup in Davis Square for the past six months.

These experiences have all made me who I am today and my time at VIA is no exception. I gained essential professional experience, and each lesson stemmed from VIA’s company values.

Respect a good challenge and challenge with respect

We believe in facing challenges head-on with passion and excitement. We’ve created an environment where team members feel psychologically safe to raise alternative ideas and share their personal concerns, helping us reach better outcomes in the end.

The team loves to step out for ice cream on a hot day! And after a particularly warm day in February, J.P. Licks even featured one of our ice cream photos on their social media.

As the marketing execution co-op, one of my primary responsibilities was maintaining our Zoho CRM (a database that helps us manage all our relationships with our ever-expanding network). But more than just maintain this system, I made it my mission to make it even more efficient and effective. One component of that meant making data reports, like our sales pipeline, more visually appealing. To do this, I worked closely with VIA COO, Kate Ravanis, to hash out the goals and strategy for how this would work.

For me, the biggest challenge was putting my Excel knowledge to work and being patient with changing formats and preferences. Through many versions and rounds of feedback with VIA’s executive team, I eventually found a way to incorporate everyone’s input and all the essential details. Now that visual report is a part of the team’s biweekly demo, and this challenging project led to a new staple piece of internal communications!

Learning never goes out of style

Learning is all about feedback and trying new things. Each person, at every position in the company, has frequent feedback sessions with their manager to set goals and priorities, reflect on accomplishments, and discuss areas for improvement and additional support.

Somerville team at our brand launch (this was a huge deal to be a part of)

One of my friends, who is also on a co-op at another organization, was shocked to hear how often I speak with my supervisor on the marketing team. “I wish I could get any feedback at all!” he said. I was proud to have such an open line of communication, which has been so important and useful for my personal growth.

This open communication also meant I was able to speak up about projects I wanted to pursue, like becoming the VIA Culture Coordinator, and skills I wanted to develop, like written communication, so I was really able to shape my role at VIA to better fit me. With each new responsibility I took on, I created a comprehensive process guide so future co-ops can continue building on projects I started, like our new Instagram account. I hope these guides allow for many future smooth transitions from one co-op to another, and that it’s one way I can continue contributing to VIA’s learning-focused environment.

Be each other’s biggest fan

Everyone deserves a high five once in a while! The more we support each other, the more we encourage wide ranging contributions from diverse backgrounds to solve problems.

The marketing team treated me to a fun brunch on my birthday.

Every person on the team is recognized and celebrated for any number of reasons: professional accomplishments, personal victories, or even birthdays.

In fact, on my birthday I was taken to a lovely brunch by my marketing team. This is a fond memory I’ll treasure forever. Celebrating the individual, like we did on my birthday, is central to VIA’s culture. As the Culture Coordinator, I was proud to be a part of creating even more structure around what we celebrate and how, like birthdays (of course), work anniversaries, and fun holidays like Pi Day and Star Wars Day.

Ready, set, RESILIENCE!

We are solving problems that others have considered unsolvable. Difficult problems require patience and grit. Individuals require resilience to approach a major challenge and overcome all the smaller challenges along the way.

During my co-op, VIA achieved a lot of exciting milestones. One that stands out in particular was winning the MITX Best Technology Innovation Concept Award. We were thrilled to learn we were finalists, but in order to qualify for the next round of review, someone from VIA would need to present a demo of our blockchain-based Trusted Analytics Chain (TAC).

Due to the very busy travel schedules of our client and business development teams, the only person available on the night of the demo was a member of our marketing team. She needed to learn (in just one weekend) the inner workings of TAC and how to demo it, and prepare for any number of questions that might come up with the judges (I was happy to help her prepare by asking the most challenging questions I could think of, and many of those were actually asked on the night of!). Without her determination and ability to deal with high stakes situations, traits that come naturally to everyone on the VIA team, this feat couldn’t have been accomplished.

Love in = Love out

We believe that if you love what you do, it will show in the quality and productivity of your work. Twice a year we get together for a company-wide offsite where team members’ contributions are recognized and new ideas are discussed.

The team has grown from then to now, we have 20 employees as of June 2018.

We had an amazing company offsite this April. This experience was one of the times I felt most immersed in VIA’s love in=love out culture. For example, during the offsite we had an ongoing activity: a fun fact scavenger hunt. Everyone received a list of fun facts with blank spaces next to them, and our goal was to match the anonymous fun fact to the right person. You would not believe how much we committed to this scavenger hunt! I had so much fun getting to know everyone on the team through this activity, while enjoying some friendly competition (people even formed alliances to pool their answers!). It just goes to show that when people really love what they do, it shows, even in small moments of downtime during an all company meeting.

Stay curious

Technology today is moving at a super fast pace. Curious people who constantly explore new approaches and think outside the box help find the best possible solutions.

Some of the marketing team at a recruiting event at Northeastern.

AI and blockchain technology are two of the hottest buzzwords in the tech world (and beyond) right now. But, explaining what they mean exactly is not so simple. The marketing team stays curious about how we can better make writing about what we do more accessible, and our CEO Colin Gounden does a great job of sharing creative anecdotes and analogies to help us.

One example of that is his Van Halen story: the band’s 1982 world tour contract explicitly stated there shouldn’t be any brown M&Ms backstage. Colin explains how this seemingly bizarre request actually illustrates how Ethereum’s smart contracting functionality works. People’s eyes light up every time he explains this (a real A-ha! moment). Marketing was even able to use this to write one of our latest blogs: “Rock Science: How Van Halen Invented Smart Contracts”.

Goodbye and thank you!

That’s my team (on St.Patrick’s Day) rocking green.

I will miss VIA. It was an adventure, one I couldn’t have trekked without the team here in Somerville (shout out to Marketing!). It must seem cliché at this point, but there is not a single thing I would change about my co-op. Being at a company that cares about the individual as much as the company is rare, and I think the strong set of values is to thank for that.

Rock Science: How Van Halen Invented Smart Contracts

/ /by

Since their debut in the late 1970s, Van Halen has become one of the best-selling bands of all time, selling over 56 million albums in the US alone. Their music defined a genre (and a generation), and inspired countless musicians to follow in their footsteps. But, their impact reaches much further than the music world. In fact, you could argue Van Halen’s reach extends even into the blockchain boom we’re seeing today. How so? Well, Van Halen sort of invented the smart contract. Let me explain.

By Colin Gounden

You may be familiar with one particular bit of lore from Van Halen’s long and storied career: the band’s brown M&M clause. In their 1982 world tour contract rider, which clocked in at an impressive 53 pages, Van Halen specified that in the bowl of M&Ms in their dressing room, there should be “ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES.” Now, the rider also demands herring in sour cream and four cases of Schlitz Malt Liquor beer, so it’s easy to chalk up all this to diva-like antics. However, in his autobiography Crazy from the Heat, former frontman David Lee Roth shares insight into the genius behind this oddly specific request:

“Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, third-level markets. We’d pull up with nine eighteen-wheeler trucks, full of gear, where the standard was three trucks, max. And there were many, many technical errors — whether it was the girders couldn’t support the weight, or the flooring would sink in, or the doors weren’t big enough to move the gear through.”

Roth goes on to explain that because their equipment needed to be handled with such specific care in order to ensure the safety of band and audience members alike:

“[…] as a little test, in the technical aspect of the rider, it would say “Article 148: There will be fifteen amperage voltage sockets at twenty-foot spaces, evenly, providing nineteen amperes . . .” This kind of thing. And article number 126, in the middle of nowhere, was: “There will be no brown M&M’s in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation.” So, when I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl . . . well, line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error. They didn’t read the contract. Guaranteed you’d run into a problem. Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show. Something like, literally, life-threatening.”

Not divas at all, Van Halen used this M&M clause as a way to test that their equipment, their band members, and their audience were safe. And their if/then logic (if there are brown M&Ms in the bowl, then the contract wasn’t read carefully) is similar to how the smart contracting functionality of blockchain platform Ethereum works as well.

Similar to traditional contracts, Ethereum smart contracts set specific rules around how users can interact with each other and exchange items of value (e.g., money, information, or property, like band equipment). What makes smart contracts different than their traditional counterparts is their ability to code these rules into a secure blockchain and automatically enforce them. So, transactions on Ethereum can only happen if the specific parameters within the smart contract are met. For example, if Van Halen’s contract rider existed on Ethereum, the band could rest assured knowing that their equipment had only been handled by those who had followed the exact parameters of their contract.

Let’s face it: we’re not all rockstars like Van Halen and blockchain isn’t exactly a consumer technology (at least, not yet), so who does smart contracting benefit? Well, for starters: high-stakes industries like energy that historically haven’t been able to implement AI initiatives because of data security concerns. AI needs lots of data to make predictions, so for companies with highly confidential data, like utilities, lack of secure access to data has been a major blocker for AI. Smart contracting has the potential to spark a massive AI revolution in the industry, and that’s a really big deal.

Let’s say Utility A wants to predict when their transformers might fail. To do this, they would need to provide AI Solution Provider B with data like the exact latitude and longitude of every transformer they operate. This kind of information is incredibly sensitive (and oftentimes, a matter of national security), so without a secure way to share it, utilities could not provide the data necessary for a solution provider to build a customized AI algorithm. However, Ethereum could provide a platform for blockchain-based applications that set specific restrictions around how data can be accessed. In that case, Utility A could set the rule: AI Solution Provider B can access Data C for Purpose D, thus protecting their data from malicious actors or requests.

The potential impact of AI in energy is extraordinary. From predictive maintenance to resiliency planning to grid modernization, AI can improve the reliability and efficiency of operations and service of utilities across the world. And while adopting new technology like blockchain can be daunting for any industry, think of Van Halen’s question from one of their most recent hits: When was the last time you did something for the first time?

3 Ways VIA Prioritizes the Team Behind the Tech

/ /by

VIA is not your typical tech startup. From our unique application of AI and blockchain, to our belief that humans + AI solve problems better together than either alone, VIA has certainly carved out its own niche in a crowded field of solutions providers. But according to our team, what really sets us apart is our people-first mentality. In order for our technology and solutions to stay cutting edge, we need to continue building, cultivating, and supporting the team that got us where we are today.

By Kate Ravanis

1. Building a great team starts with recruiting great team players.

Our CEO Colin Gounden said it best in his recent interview with Inc. Magazine: “What we want are people who are smart and motivated, and who are good at solving problems. You can teach programming and data science, but not innate things like motivation and problem-solving and creativity.”

What we are really looking for are individuals willing to learn, evolve with our technology, and roll up their sleeves to do whatever comes their way.

2. Cultivating a great team requires an effective feedback process that facilitates a regular dialogue around individual’s desires and abilities.

We know that each person on our team has a unique set of strengths, areas of expertise, and career goals. And, we know these things are subject to change over time. At VIA, we rely on our feedback process to ensure we stay in tune with each person’s desires and abilities, which is the first step to ensuring they continue to feel motivated and productive.

One key component of our feedback process is frequency: we schedule bi-monthly reviews (instead of the more traditional annual review cycle) to provide consistent opportunities for self-reflection, goal evaluation, and constructive feedback. To borrow from Winnie the Pooh: frequent reviews are a chance to “stop bumping for a moment” and reflect on what’s working, what isn’t, and what we can change (and how) to become more effective.

3. Supporting a great team means balancing your team’s desires and abilities with the company’s needs. Our allocations team has a goal of matching the Desire, Need, and Ability (DNA) of people and the organization over time.
Understanding the DNA of our team is only one piece of the puzzle. The real value (for both the individuals and the company) comes from putting that information into action. At VIA, our allocations team uses this knowledge to make thoughtful decisions around project and talent management. We strive to balance what an individual wants with the tasks the company needs completed. This means making an effort to create opportunities for team members to learn new skills and tackle new challenges (and not just assign tasks within their current wheelhouse), which is essential to long-term satisfaction and team morale.