I was recently given the opportunity to co-host and moderate a virtual watch party for TrailheaDX 2021. I should stop there and tell you that I am not a technical person. At all. Hard stop. So, the actual TrailheaDX sessions are not really what this blog post is about. I do, however, work for a really fun technology-based professional services firm and more importantly (for the sake of this blog post), I love a good party! And TrailheaDX, among its many fascinating technology-based learning sessions, is also a great opportunity for a party!
I was given three main directives:
- Make it fun
- Hype it up and build engagement
- Host games
What’s even better is that I was given a dream team to pull it off with: our Team Lead was our Director of Technology, Krishna Tatta, my co-hosting & moderating partner was our Operations Admin, Kaila Cameron, and our behind the scenes superhero side-kick was our amazing and talented Product Designer, Daniel Maurice Ferreira.
We put our heads together to come up with some fun games and awards. Our first game was The Ultimate CodeSciencey CodeScientist! The rules for this game were pretty simple:
- How CodeScience-y can you (and your office / work space) get? Think swag — vintage and new. Think teal and orange. Do you have a “Brian wig”? (Brian Walsh is CodeScience’s CEO). USE IT! It does not have to be company-provided swag — extra points may or may not be given for creativity!
- Entries in this game are made by submitting your Ultimate CodeSciencey CodeScientist selfie or photo (photo needs to include YOU) to our Slack channel before the cutoff time.
- Attend a TrailheaDX 2021 session, and include which session you’ve attended with the caption of the photo.
I started the game off with my own photo…
Of course Krishna and Kaila (along with her adorable pup, Harlow) participated too…
Then everyone else started joining the fun!
So, in case you wondered what a “Brian wig” is… Mel nailed it! She won the Ultimate CodeSciencey CodeScientist – Creativity Award.
Justin entered his photo and won the Ultimate CodeSciencey CodeScientist – Best Product Placement Award:
Jeremy Engler slayed us with his display and won the Ultimate CodeSciencey CodeScientist – MVP Award!
Side note – We love swag about as much as we love a good party! (It’s A LOT!)
Did I mention that our CEO joined in the fun too?! (Sadly lacking the inspiration for the “Brian wig,” but appreciated nonetheless!)
From here, our games moved on to Power Words. The rules for this game were also fairly simple:
- What word do you think will be used the most throughout Keynote :: TrailheaDX 2021: Trailblazer Success From Anywhere?
- Choose your word and add it to our sheet for approval. A word can only be chosen once (first come, first serve!)
- No common articles or pronouns (ie: the, an, a, they, he, she, we, etc…) or simple verbs (ie: make, like, etc...)
- At the end of the session, the person whose word was spoken the most WINS a PRIZE!
This one was a tough one to moderate! We had 40 entries. Kaila and I attended the keynote together, and put all of our focus on counting those words. Our winner was Anil Pilaka with Power Word : Salesforce!
And our Runner Up was Shaz Mahmood with Power Word : Trailblazer
Our last games were Trivia based, and they got tricky! The questions were pulled from various sessions and provided by our Team Managers. The winner had to be quick to type out the answer first.
The excitement and engagement flowed throughout the day. The Slack puns and competitive banter were added treats! By the end of the day, I was exhausted and my face hurt a little from smiling so much — I’m going to call that a success! I am beyond grateful to work with such a fun team of humans that gave so much zest to this event.
Want to work with this fun group of people? We’re hiring! Take a look at our open opportunities here.
