Our Hotwire tradition of global in-person Bootcamp came back with a bang this year, where we FINALLY were able to reunite as a full team… well, sort of.
For almost two decades we’ve celebrated the start to our fiscal year with Bootcamp, an event that brings together our entire team in one city to meet, learn, share and celebrate as one team. Bootcamp has taken place in cities like Barcelona and Dublin and one year we even created our own music festival outside of London. In 2020 and 2021, we moved to hosting a virtual Bootcamp and while it was great to still be able to come together virtually, lacking that IRL experience had a big impact on truly feeling connected.
Let’s fast-forward to 2022, specifically July, when we were able to come together once again (and yes, in person!). Times are not completely back to normal and neither was our beloved Bootcamp tradition. Instead of bringing our full global team to one location, we made our teams’ health and safety our top priority and held two Bootcamps, with one in Long Island, New York and the other in Brighton, UK. It was ambitious, but that’s in our nature.
Our US group included our US and Australian team, who came together at Hofstra University – a leading university based outside of NYC in Long Island. Our UK group consisted of our European team, who reunited at Brighton University, a diverse and creative university established in 1850 and located on the south coast of England. In both locations, we kicked off Bootcamp with dinner, welcome receptions and games. The highlight of both venues the first night were performances by The Borderless Thinkers, our Hotwire band!
Our second and main event day of Bootcamp included a very open roundtable discussion on diversity, equity and belonging with our Hotwire team from around the world, hosted by our Head of EMEA P&C, Kam White. We then heard from award-winning speaker and communications consultant, Shola Kaye, whose keynote focused on the power of empathy. For all those who couldn’t attend either Bootcamp, we offered a remote viewing option as well. We also launched our first Hotwire NFT at Bootcamp and we hope it will be the first of many we’ll collect over the years. After having a day filled with more team activities to learn from each other, each group then headed out to their local beach for the official Bootcamp party!
Despite not being able to fully be together, we were still able to truly embrace this year’s Bootcamp theme of “Power Up.” At Hotwire, we power up by coming together as a team – whether it’s for our clients around the globe, or to raise each other up during hard times, and most importantly, to offer support to our team members when we need it most. Bootcamp is just one example of how we value connecting with each other, taking time to learn and celebrate together.
We learned a lot putting together Bootcamp 2022 this year and will continue to look for ways to bring together our teams to get our best work done, to learn and to celebrate.