Posts Tagged ‘digital alberta’

Building successful teams in digital media companies, event in review

Friday, February 19th, 2010

This Tuesday Digital Alberta had one of its after-hours mixers. As always, Seven Restolounge was stylish, fresh snacks, networking and, of course, the discussion panel.

This time we talked about best practices in building successful teams in technology / digital start-up companies. A discussion panel (Jennifer Aubin of Techbent and Marc Wachmann of Grow Wireless) moderated by Kurtis Lesick of ACAD and a room of 20-25 people made for an intimate conversion about teams.

Here are some of my takeaways:

  • It's more difficult to get a good team together than to motivate it, especially in Calgary.
  • Very tricky to get senior developers on board as they are looking for life-work balance.
  • It is possible to create committed remote teams of senior developers.
  • Respect is crucial in keeping the talented individuals in a team.
  • Team events (even just going for beers) really helps.
  • How do you screen a great team member? 1) ask behavioral questions, 2) talk about things not related to work (hobbies, interests).
  • Start-up teams are a certain breed. How to choose the right team members for a start-up? 1) make sure he / she is right as a person, ready to do many things, very adventurous
  • Something that has circulated in discussions before the event was

 

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Digital Alberta, production reel: great work, go Alberta!!!

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
Just wanted to share with you a great work that I just spotted on Digital Alberta's website. I've actually been looking at the organization for a few months now, it's a great team of people. A few of my former colleagues are working to make the Digital Alberta happen and I'm extremely proud of what they have done to day! In any case, just spotted a great video editing job, as well as great execution! [pro-player width='475' height='275' type='FLV']http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8S3VSJ43jM[/pro-player]
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