When I started at Bynder, a marketing technology company that provides businesses with digital asset management services, I was very excited as I knew I would be working with marketers from all over the planet. With the help of Google Meets and Zoom, I was in contact with my American, European, Australian, and Middle Eastern colleagues on a daily basis. However, I never thought I would go sheep herding with all of them!
In June, my manager informed me that the marketing team was organising this “Marketing Offsite” event this year. For the first time in the history of Bynder… I assumed that it would be a get-together after office hours. But, to my surprise, it was much more than that. I was later informed that marketers working at Bynder from all over the world would fly to Amsterdam to participate in this event! The interesting part was that most of these people have been working together for years, yet they’ve never seen each other in person. I thought I was very lucky to witness this reunion during my time at Bynder.
I was expecting this event to entail some seminars and workshops, but Bynder did not cease to amaze me yet again. The activities I took part in included a personality traits workshop, brainstorming sessions, pizza baking, pedal boarding, canal cruise, and sheep herding! All of these things required the entire marketing team to work together as a team, which brought everyone a lot closer. I got the chance to introduce myself personally to everyone on the marketing team, including the CMO. I was thrilled that some of the people I talked to had never seen the rest of the marketing team before as they were working remotely.
When everyone returned home after a very eventful week of managing sheep and networking, I felt we were all looking forward to our weekly marketing meeting over Zoom. I observed that my team in Amsterdam started more projects in collaboration with the US team. Moreover, I became more comfortable asking for my colleagues’ advice on my day-to-day tasks. This marketing offsite really showed all of us the importance of having a face-to-face conversation and getting to know people on a personal level. Before, I thought the marketing team consisted of multiple smaller teams, such as the product marketing team or the lifecycle marketing team. I feel like the marketing offsite changed that. Everyone in marketing started working as one team.