Lock down vs Development

5 years ago our company started with a so called “Development open Days” and due to Covid19 our dedicated Project Manager Pavla Rabatinova had to come up with a virtual concept. I was lucky as Pavla has invited me to join the Core team and collaborate with her and other colleagues. What I liked the most was the collaboration among all of us. First, we brainstormed what will be the topic we want to focus on, than we were put into silos – IT support, PR, team responsible for external speakers, team responsible for internal speakers, so we could deliver the best experience to our colleagues.

Our topic was Skills of the Future and during 2 weeks (May 18th – May 28th) we delivered 29 sessions! It sounds crazy but doable thanks to the team Pavla put together. She was also always available which made the work for us in silos much easier. Let me get you closer to my job: I had actually 2 jobs, I was one of the internal speakers and IT support:

• I’ve prepared all the invitations and came up with my other colleague Peter with solution how our colleagues could get those invites into their calendars
• I’ve practiced webinar zoom with each speaker (Internal and External) to make sure once the session starts we are all set
• I’ve participated in each session with my colleague Peter in case of any IT issue would occur so we could step in and fix it
• This gave me a big opportunity to meet very interesting people!

 As our focus was on Skills of the future we divided the sessions as:

• Data Science
• Effective Communication and Cooperation
• Creativity
• Design Thinking
• Complex Problem Solving
• Emotional Intelligence
• Customer Orientation
• Decision- Making

 Let me highlight few speakers that made huge impression to me:

 David Bystricky (Internal speaker) had 2 session one called “Unwritten Career Rules.” and “How to Fail With Style. Do not fear failure”. David has very unique presentation skills, he is able to attract audience and keep them interested the entire time, it’s worth to see David at least once!

Unwritten Career Rules was about: Things that nobody teaches you in school about making career. Things that you need to learn the hard way or - maybe - to learn from this presentation

How to Fail With Style. Do not fear failure was about: When it is your turn to fail, then do it with style and laugh to destiny’s face. This is what I would tell my younger self. And many more things that would have saved me a lot of trouble if I had known them. Maybe it’ll help you avoid the same mistakes I had made

Vladimir Snidl (External speaker) had a session about “How to recognize the informational chaos”, Vladimír ?nídl has been working as a journalist for thirteen years, and for the last four years, he has been refuting hoaxes circulating on social networks. He is the author of the book "The truth and a Lie" on Facebook and co-author of three educational manuals for Denník N. He has attended a dozen discussions at Slovak schools and led several seminars for teachers.

The seminar summarized specific examples of hoaxes shared among Slovaks today. It explained the difference between information from trusted media and information from unverified sources. The seminar also included demonstrations of how this topic can be communicated to our friends and relatives who believe in unverified information. This was also the very first session where people shared feedback to have it longer! Session already lasted 1.5h

Andrej Juriga (External speaker and former Dell Technologies employee) had a session about “Am I inclusive?”

Andrej Juriga is the founder of Cultural Bridge, a training company that helps individuals, teams and whole organizations to navigate the challenges of diversity and to create an inclusive environment. As a certified facilitator of emotional and cultural intelligence, Andrej delivers workshops and coaching to large corporations, medium-sized companies, and start-ups across continents and industries helping participants to manage emotional reactions to differences and to build strategies on how to bridge those differences at the organizational and personal level.

The 21st century is defined by major societal changes. Globalization enables organizations to expand internationally and attract employees of diverse cultural backgrounds. Technological progress allows us to reach out to clients, peers, and partners from all around the world. Global pandemics teach us to explore new ways of working. This is why employees, managers, and leaders are exposed to a higher level of differences than ever before.

We often hear about the benefits of diversity and what an asset it can be. But if differences are not managed well, this asset can turn into a liability. Therefore, organizations come up with strategies on how to create a more inclusive workplace, policies and programs so everyone feels that they belong. Every single employee needs to contribute to demonstrating inclusive behaviors. Inclusive behavior though is a real biological challenge. Why is that? And what are some strategies for how each of us can bypass that challenge and how to be inclusive of people around me? We found the answers on the webinar.

How did you use the time for development being in the lock down during the Covid-19? What topics/areas have you developed yourself in?