MS

Hello, I’m Michael Sliwinski, founder of Nozbe - to-do app for business owners and their teams. I write essays, books, work on projects and I podcast for you using #iPadOnly in #NoOffice as I believe that work is not a place you go to, it’s a thing you do. More…

Here’s how we organized a virtual team reunion in pandemic times

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In an all-remote team, getting together every now and then in “real life” is key. Every year we try to organize a Nozbe Reunion in Spring and in Fall. This year is different. Our Spring reunion got cancelled due to covid-19 pandemic and we hoped we’d get to see each other this Fall. This didn’t happen so we decided to go ahead and we organized a virtual reunion. Here’s how it went down.

Here’s how we organized a virtual team reunion in pandemic times

Details of our Nozbe Virtual Reunion

My colleague Magda wrote a great blog post about the details and she summed it up perfectly:

The Nozbe Virtual Reunion was an important event for us. We couldn’t meet in person in the spring, and as a fully remote team, we felt we needed a get-together in whatever form possible. This meeting, although not perfectly planned, let us close physical gaps through virtual solutions and brought our team together during such a critical time.

Read the entire post with details on Nozbe blog

Additional observations from me as the CEO

Below are some thoughts of mine on this special and strange reunion.

Personally it was weird doing a reunion online but I didn’t feel like I had any other option. As the CEO I’m responsible for everyone on my team and I couldn’t risk their health by even trying to pull off a normal reunion where I’d get everyone to the same place as usual. The law at the time would let me do it, but my conscience wouldn’t.

As an all-remote team, we know how to work together from our homes, but having 20+ people hang out together is a different thing.

Here’s how we organized a virtual team reunion in pandemic times 2

Some of the things that made this a success:

I hope this pandemic will be under control soon, but the current situation doesn’t inspire confidence, so if we’re to do another virtual reunion in Spring, we’ve got some things we’d improve:

There’s one thing we can’t improve and it’s the fact that we’re home with our families. The cool part of a Nozbe reunion was that we had to travel to a hotel, far away from our families and we could really disconnect. With a reunion that takes place home it was hard not to feel responsible for the family or take care of some kids drama every now and then.

Anyway, a reunion in a physical space for an all-remote team is still hands-down a much better option, but having a virtual reunion has its benefits and it went actually better than we expected.

Read all about our covid-safe virtual reunion on the Nozbe blog - Magda wrote a great summary »

Thursday, October 29, 2020 /reunion-virtual/