This week ends a whirlwind of travel to three countries, six cities, and two mini vacations. All over just seven weeks.
When we closed our transaction with PSG Equity we had some changes and a new CTO came on board. With our engineering team spread out in four different cities and a few fully remote, he set out to meet in person with the entire team. I decided to tag along.
This allowed me to meet in person with over 100 of our employees in just a short period of time and hold small fireside chats, sans the actual fire.
What you learn when you are sitting next to someone in an office or grabbing a coffee is priceless. Casual conversations are way more fruitful than formal, scheduled meetings.
Ditching Google Meet, Zoom, Slack, email, and the phone is absolutely the most amazing thing you can do to have a very open and honest conversation. Not only does the conversation flow better, but you can read the room and body language.
The connections made, with both old and new employees, over the last six weeks will help propel us into 2023. We have just started on our path and we need all employees engaged and excited about where we are heading.
Enough about the formal business stuff, how about some quick takeaways from each trip?
- Santa Rosa Beach, Florida (vacation) – Maybe the best beaches in the United States. Crystal clear water. Amazing seafood dinners all ended with gorgeous sunsets.
- Krakow, Poland – What a gorgeous city, I was only there for 2.5 days, but two tours allowed me to see so much of the city.
- Toronto, Canada – My favorite city in North America. The cultural diversity is amazing, which happens to lead to amazing people and food.
- Denver, Colorado – Crisp cool air, a nice dusting of snow with gorgeous sunsets.
- Asheville, North Carolina (anniversary vacation) – I would sum this up in just a few words: breweries, mountains, fall leaves, gorgeous.
- Portland, Oregon – Breweries but rainy and cold for this trip, love the summer and all the green.
While I am excited to get to so many places, I am more excited to shut it down for the rest of the year and be home with my family. Meeting almost all employees was somewhat exhausting, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.
