That’s a wrap: 3ap highlights that made 2020 memorable
2020 was a twisted year — and one that demanded a particularly agile mindset 🙃
Looking back, we are incredibly proud of the countless milestones we achieved despite all the challenges. There were a lot of innovative ideas and we built many exciting features and integrations that really made a difference, both for us and for our clients. We could read a whole book about 2020, but we chose the 3ap highlights that marked our year.
Bridging the gap 🌉
At the beginning of 2020, we realized that there was a big gap between who we really were and how we were portraying ourselves to the world. It was time for bridging that gap, and we could never have done it without the help of CHARLES BLUNIER & CO. It was an enormous step for us, and with this rebranding initiative, we took back full control of our future.
Want to know more?
👉🏼 Read the full story behind our courageous rebranding project.
Culture DNA 🧬
The last, missing piece of our 3ap culture puzzle was found. Previously we defined our mission, vision, and finally, we uncovered our core values.
The People & Culture team took full control over this extremely important task. Since it was something which has never been done before, we’ve faced challenges and finished this task with lots of valuable learnings. We have embraced our values with excitement, and since then, we are constantly integrating them into all our business processes and we are making conscious efforts to live them in our everyday work.
👉🏼 Read how we uncovered our culture code in 2020
Venture experience💡
Last year we upgraded our unique, discipline-driven “Start-up in a Box” approach by introducing the Venture Experience Partner role.
With that, we had everything we would need, both the complete know-how and competences, during all the phases of a digital venture project: from ideation and validation to concept and design, and finally to execution and scale. Are you curious about how we do it?
👉🏼 Find out how we can be a perfect partner for digital venture projects
3ap Days ✈️
We aren’t just all work and no play. Just like every other year, in March 2020 we went on a trip to Vienna. During the prolonged weekend, we talked about our strategy and how we could make our brand promise of «bridging the gap» become a reality in 2020.
We have set up the goal bar high by keeping in mind the three most important vectors for us 👉🏼 People, Clients, and Digital Solutions. And we had so much fun during different activities in this city paved with culture!
#WFH 🏡
Unpredictable times: As soon as we returned from Vienna, we found out that the Coronavirus had officially been declared a ‘pandemic’.
Like many others, we had to switch to a fully virtual environment. To improve remote collaboration among team members, we discussed various questions: How to approach people digitally — both team and clients? And how to handle projects in this completely new environment? We set some common working standards and followed through. Thanks to our agile and efficient organization and thanks to investments into technical backup before all of this happened, we adapted very quickly.
Fast forward nine months, we’ve reflected on the past year and realized that we’ve not only managed to grow our team and services but also continued to work with our fantastic clients and even taken on new projects.
Make 3ap more famous 🖋
Last year we did not just write code. 2020 was also fruitful for the 3ap writers, thanks to the launch of the 3ap blog on Medium.
It was rewarding to see that 3ap was getting some additional attention in 2020 through regular posts. Blogging helped us gain crucial experience and feedback and we are motivated to continue to share more of our stories next year. Stay tuned since we continue with storytelling and also the brand new tech blog is to follow.
</Hack2days> ⌨️
Despite all the ups and downs this year, we conducted the traditional 3ap internal hackathon, even though a bit differently.
It was a two-day (mostly) online event. 3apers came up with fresh problems that required urgent solutions. And they found them.
Hackathons are a solid component of our company culture as we believe in their value for various stakeholders. In our very first hackathon back in 2018, we built Conperi — a machine learning platform that we still use today — both in-house and for our clients. And we are already in a full swing with solutions from this one.
👉🏼 Check how we coded the days away at our 2020 </Hack2days>
3apedia 📚
An educational initiative was born near the end of the year. Our 3ap coaches organized the very first 3ap internal conference: 3apedia.
Not being able to meet in person does not mean we can’t spread knowledge among colleagues. During the two days, we held more than 40 inspiring sessions and four workshops. 3apers shared their knowledge about engineering, business, and culture. Together, we brought the best practices from 3ap and explored various forms of intellectual self-expression.
In this edition, we even had a special guest speaker: Graeme Rocher. Despite the physical separation, we felt that this event has really helped us to break down some boundaries. Our efforts paid off and our conference will grow even more!
Bestowal 🎁
2020 was all about bridging the gaps. In every sense. For everyone. That is why we have created something special that will symbolically remind us, our clients, and partners of our mission! We crafted our very own 3ap LEGO bridges as Christmas gifts for our partners, clients, and friends. Who said that LEGO is just for kids? 😁
New Years’ online party 🎄
In a year filled with “social distancing” and a lot of uncertainties, we all felt we managed to maintain stability, positivity, and unity in the lives of people who make 3ap-3ap. And we needed to celebrate that!
For the grand finale, we have organized an online New Years' celebration. We have all entered the new decade together — 64 satisfied, smiling faces! That is the best present we could get. All we can say is that disinfecting alcohol was not the only kind of alcohol we had that day 😉
And so we say hello to 2021, a year that will bring new encounters, ideas, projects and we will of course continue with bridging the gap. We can’t spoil too much but buckle up! :)
There’s a pretty nice view from our perspective, and clear skies ahead.
