The human spirit is a resilient mofo. Amongst about a million other important things we learned in 2020, that seems to be one of the most vital. We saw how fervently people looked for ways to maintain connections to friends, family, and, yes, coworkers. Rooftop to rooftop tennis, anyone?
One of the more interesting things we saw was how hard companies fought to maintain a sense of the corporate culture that upper management had built before everyone went home. Smart people launched virtual happy hours, hosted company-sponsored lunches, and sent off weekly care packages.
Then there were the hundreds of companies that missed out on annual corporate gatherings, like the fine people at Borrego.
The Borrego Summit is an annual get-together for the folks that work at a leading provider of utility-scale and large commercial solar and energy storage. It’s an opportunity to bring together teams from across the U.S. for a combo platter of fun and education down in San Diego.
Why the heck are we talking about Borrego? Glad you asked.
Borrego’s upper management knew that it was essential to get the company together somehow, someway. Of course, it had to be virtual, but how could they make it something boring?
The internal team charged with pulling it off reached out to our friends at Atomic Productions.
“We knew we couldn’t replace the in-person Summit, but we wanted our people to be energized from the day and to get a sense of the Borrego culture,” Borrego’s Director of Marketing and Sales Operations, Jackie Pitera, said. “We wanted to find a way for them to network and get to know people from other offices.”
Jackie and Atomic’s Matt Ruby mapped out 11 videos for the day, covering the company’s response to the pandemic, its work in the states of Maine and New York, new business processes, and the ever-popular Battle of the Bands that features company employees.
Atomic brought in our Creative Strategist David Farinella to help pull off the interviews, build the video narratives, and add enough levity to keep the videos engaging along the way.
“In addition to making sure we created entertaining and informative videos, it was essential that each had its own character,” says Matt on Atomic’s blog about the project. “David and I had a blast working with Jackie to bring these things to life. She let us have a lot of rope to play with and even gave us some inside jokes to use.”
Jackie heard nothing but rave reviews from her fellow Borrego-eans. “Our people loved the videos,” Jackie reports. “We heard many accolades. Everyone was impressed by the quality, professionalism, and engagement with the videos. No one was bored.”
“I don’t think there’s a person left in the world who looks forward to another virtual call, let alone two days of online presentations,” said David. “Our challenge – and we heard from Jackie that we were successful – was to add just enough fun to these videos to keep them lively and informative. I always love working with Atomic peeps, and this was another great experience.”