A Look Into Blue Sky Week 2023: Thinkific’s Innovation Week
Hey there 👋
I’m Afro, the R&D Program Manager here at Thinkific!
At Thinkific, we believe when you unite business with education, you create an unstoppable force for positive change. We’re on a mission to revolutionize the way people learn and earn online, by giving them the tools they need to turn their expertise into a sustainable business that impacts both them and their audience.
In this spirit, Thinkific hosts Blue Sky Week twice a year. It’s become an exciting internal hackathon-style event that many Thinkers look forward to!
If you’re wondering, what exactly is Blue Sky Week? It’s a week of pure innovation and collaboration. It’s an opportunity for anyone at Thinkific to propose new ideas, build out their projects, and share their vision for our platform, regardless of their role or which department they work in. We believe everyone at Thinkific should take a week to work on fun and innovative projects outside their day-to-day. When Blue Sky Week comes along, Thinkers pitch ideas to the company, form teams, and collaborate to complete their awesome projects! These projects can be anything from improving an existing feature to creating something completely out of the box on our platform. At the end of the week, we gather together to vote on our favourite project and celebrate innovation!
“My favourite part is the fantastic opportunity to have a different point of view about the experiences we work hard to provide for the community. A window for fresh ideas to unlock the future”
— Gustavo, Senior Front End Engineer
Hosted virtually and in person at Vancouver’s HQ, we had Thinker’s across Canada join in on the fun! Let’s take a closer look at Blue Sky Week 2023 ⤵️
📣 Pitches
We started Day 1 with an introduction by Greg, Thinkific’s Co-Founder and CEO, on the history and the importance of Blue Sky Week. Then, we dove right into the pitches! We shared 10 incredible pre-recorded pitches led by Thinkers from many departments including Finance, Product, Engineering, and Marketing. They shared their amazing new ideas, along with what problem they were solving, the impact it would have on our customers and business, and what support they needed from others (whether it be a product designer, marketer, engineer, or product manager). As the pitches play, everyone thinks about which team they want to join!
#TeamThinkific is made up of incredible and intelligent Thinkers who always live out our values of being Fanatical about Customer Success and Succeed Together, so we had no doubt we would see stellar ideas this year!
🛠️Build
Immediately after the pitches are presented, it’s time to form teams and build! The innovation goes all day, and even sometimes into the night! Each team has 4 days to build out their project and record a demo for the final presentations. The best part of Blue Sky Week is that our Thinkers get the chance to collaborate with people they don’t usually get to work with.
“Creation, learning, and impact are what our customers and employees are most passionate about. Blue Sky Week lets us think outside the box about how to better impact the world by solving customer problems in new or better ways. It also brings a voice to anyone in the company that may not always get a seat at the table, supporting greater inclusion and equity across our business”
— Cadie, Product Manager
🪩It’s Demo Day!
At the end of the week, it’s Demo Day! The teams get ready for the final demo ceremony. All Thinkers join the Zoom chat or at Vancouver’s HQ to watch each demo in action and learn about the progress made in the last 4 days.
We brought in some tasty ice cream for those at Vancouver’s office, and also encouraged distributed Thinkers to gather together and use their social stipend to buy their own treats!
🏆Awards
A little friendly competition doesn’t hurt, right? Who doesn’t love bragging rights while also having the satisfaction of making a huge impact in innovation! The winning teams are awarded custom Blue Sky Week lego pieces (we love Lego around here 😀).
Judge’s Choice
- The Judge's Choice award is determined by a group of volunteer judges who are from different teams across the business. During the live demos, each judge will award the team's points based on value, creativity, gains, completeness, quality of demo, and lessons learned.
- It was a nail biter this year — the top 3 were separated by only a few points!
People’s Choice
- The People’s Choice is awarded to the team with the highest number of votes from all Thinkers watching the demos.
Most Deleted Lines of Code
- This one is for our Engineers — cleaning up code always feels so good!
👋Until Next Time
At Thinkific, we are extremely proud to host Blue Sky Week to inspire, collaborate, and foster a culture of learning within our team. This event reminds us of our values that make Thinkific a great place to work — Learn and Grow, Fanatical about Customer Success, Be Helpful and Give a Shit, to name a few.
As an organization that practices Radical Candor, we can’t end Blue Sky Week without gathering feedback. After Blue Sky Week, we surveyed the team to find out what went well, what didn’t, and how we can support the team next time around. Each time we aim to make Blue Sky Week more innovative than the last.
Until next time, Blue Sky Week! 👋
Want to be part of an incredible and innovative team?💡Check out Thinkific’s Careers page for open roles and join our Talent Community to learn more about what our team is up to, new job opportunities, company news, and more! 🙌🏼
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