VIA Reflects on its Largest Company Offsite Ever

In April, VIA brought its Somerville and Montreal teams together for our first company offsite of 2018 and our largest one ever (with 16 team members!). Offsites are essential to our company culture: they offer an uninterrupted time of sharing team wins, solving project challenges, and planning for the next big thing.

By VIA Careers

Once the Somerville team arrived at our Montreal office, we launched into our “unconference” – a relatively new format for our offsites. We found that moving away from formal presentations and towards open, free-form discussions made the overall offsite experience even more productive and engaging for everyone.

It’s not entirely unstructured, however! Team members submit topics beforehand about what they want to discuss, like best practices for communication, how to identify the right professional development opportunities, and the future of blockchain in energy and beyond. We vote as a group to finalize the list of topics at the start of the offsite.

      

CEO Colin Gounden and COO Kate Ravanis kicked off the unconference with leading the vote on discussion topics and handing out gifts. This time, each team member got a copy of the original Winnie the Pooh, by A.A. Milne, with a personalized note from Colin. You may remember from our last offsite blog, Winnie the Pooh is special source of inspiration for us.

     

The open discussion format inspires even more collaboration across the technical and commercial teams, inviting fresh perspectives and big picture thinking.

       

After our discussion sessions, we hit the links for a friendly round of (glow in the dark!) mini golf: an impressive display of athleticism from all. No offsite would be complete without this time to step away from the day to day and connect with teammates outside of work.

In the coming months, we’ll continue to grow our Somerville and Montreal teams. If you’re interested in joining the fun, check out our careers page for the latest opportunities.