BrightInsight Week, or “BI Week” as we call it, looked a little bit different this year. With BrightInsight employees around the world practicing social distancing and working from home, the annual team event was conducted entirely online. Given that our number of team members—and consequently our attendance—has more than doubled since BI Week 2020, this was no easy feat for our planning team.
Early on, we realized that they key to pulling off this event was to capitalize on the technology employees use every day: Zoom, Gmail, and Google Calendar. Each attendee was sent 30 different invitations, one for each session that took place during the 20-hour, 5-day event. The sessions were carefully timed to accommodate as many time zones as possible. This was vital, as employees logged in from nine countries and 23 US states.
Technology aside, the real heart of the event was in the wide variety of third-party speakers and entertainers who were invited to attend. Employees were delighted by the illusionist who read minds, the singer from Reykjavik who engaged with the Zoom chat while singing, and the band from India. There was also chair yoga, a presentation by our board member, Justin Butler from Eclipse Ventures, a discussion with Shellye Archambeau, one of Silicon Valley’s first female African American CEOs, and fireside chats featuring our valued customer, CSL Behring.
“My favorite part of BI Week was sitting with Kal Patel and Swati Reichmuth as they spoke with Shellye Archambeau, because Shellye’s presence and energy was immediately inspiring,” says Jasmine Alconcher, UX/UI designer at BrightInsight. “The thing that resonated most with me was that BI thought to reach out to her, because they wanted us to know her message and her journey. That shows that leadership truly invests in us as people and not just as employees.”
In addition to the entertainers and guest presenters, employees were treated to a panel with Kal Patel, Ben Lee, and Ferry Tamtoro, BrightInsight’s co-founders. They spoke candidly about BrightInsight’s history and defined the company’s carefully cultivated culture. Each day we spent 90-minutes diving deep into our company Objectives and Key Results, which were cross-functional presentations highlighting exactly what we need to accomplish quarter over quarter in 2021 and how we are going to achieve our goals.
Check out this recap video that encapsulates what a special week it really was.
Finally, thank you to everyone who helped plan such a wonderful BI Week, from our leaders who spoke, to the engaging entertainers, to every single BrightInsight employee who took time out of their busy days to truly engage in our discussions.