2018 Week 45 – Friday November 9th
Written by: Liberty
Featured image by: Ninja
Special guests Salesforce joins us for FRIDx
Last Friday, we kicked off the afternoon with a platter of delicious thai food for lunch. Then the team got together in our theatre room to take turns presenting on a variety of exciting subjects. Seriously, this was as close to TED Talks that we have ever had (do you remember Fred-X?). The set-up was complete with a countdown timer, digital display screen, and a diverse range of topics. This event also included some special guest appearances from some of our wonderful clients and the core PDT.
Presentations in order of appearance
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- Sarahi aka Hustle presented her history and experience as a trained professional ballet dancer. From the Rock School of her youth in Monterey, Mexico, to performing at the Winter-Wonderland at Casa Loma in Toronto, Canada. “Dance has given me everything in life.” Sarahi said. Shortly after, we delighted in a video of Sarahi in a lead role.
- Sheila from Salesforce Canada presented on chaos and order through the lens of her yearly Halloween house parties. We got to see some epic pics from this year’s WestWorld themed party. This fun party was seriously planned and gamified using Quip. A great example of how a little chaos results in genuine memories.
- Gus aka Comet presented ‘Who is Gus? Part 2’ focusing on his childhood in Caracas, Venezuela, where his father’s agency provided an escape from the dangerous reality outside. The experience has toughened him up, now always optimistic and happy, and rarely angry or sad. Working with his dad instilled in Gus a passion for graphic design.
- Sarah aka Energize taught us about Dungeons & Dragons, a fantasy role-playing game. Sarah has recently dived in this new adventure with a group of friends including a super knowledgeable Dungeon Master. Her D&D avatar: KIPRIDGE EGDIRPIK, a genderqueer rogue-gnome-mastermind with blue eyes and a heavy German-accent. Wow.
- Minyel aka Optimize embraced the role of ‘The Optimizer’ and shared some of The Dark Art of SEO with us. We learned about social signals from an SEO perspective. By staying on top of all advancements, trends, and algorithm changes, we can influence the search engine crawl and become heralded as an enemy of the Google-state.
- Lily aka Moon taught us some tips and tricks in Adobe illustrator that she recently discovered. We were treated to live art demonstration of the tool. By using the tilde key (~) and any shape/line you can create some amazing kaleidoscopic designs. Very cool.
- Nan from Salesforce Canada blew our minds with her presentation on the reality of the common banana. Tracing the history of both the Cavendish and Gros Michel commercial types from amongst the 1000s of different bananas available. We learned how a fight against the brutal TR-4 fungus has resulted in the threat of banana extinction within the next 20 years. Now through gene-editing a new hope has appeared with a controversial fungus-resistant GMO banana version.
- Next we watched a video on ‘Why beautiful things make up happy’ through the always amazing YouTube channel Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell.
- Kal aka Dreams, our CEO of Pixel Dreams was the last presenter taking us back to the founding-era of PD with ‘The Spark of Something Wonderful’. This presentation revealed Kal and Lan’s first meeting and delved into some of the original text message conversations between the future PD partners. How they bonded over a mutual love of pho, special curry, and deviant art. We learned about the three things that Lan never wanted (but now has in abundance). “And the rest is history.”
Friducation continues…
A really great afternoon of bonding. We plan to continue honing our presentation skills in the weeks ahead. With support and feedback from each other we will all improve together.
As our team and responsibilities continue to grow, it’s important to always be ready. You can always count on there being more public speaking and client pitching opportunities. So let’s get to pushing one another to be the best we can be.
Special thanks to all the presenters. Keep up the good work.
