SoftwareMill conquers Berlin

Last weekend the majority of the team went on a trip to Berlin, as a form of our monthly company meeting.

We wanted to visit our CTO, Adam Warski, who moved there temporarily, attend some interesting events and of course simply enjoy beer and kebabs together.

The trip started on Friday afternoon on the train in Warsaw. Several people joined us along the way and the rest of the team met us in Berlin. Our key finding: travelling by train is a great opportunity to hash out all the things we don’t usually have time for. It’s a comfortable place, sometimes without wi-fi, with good food (yes, restaurants on Polish trains are really great) that makes everyone want to chat for hours.

phot. MBilas

In Berlin, we discovered a great pub with self-served beer and a gamified experience. Every table had a system for pouring the beer and screens to record the amount everyone at the table had drunk. A big screen on the wall showed how much beer had been drunk at each table not only in Berlin, but also in other Czech, Austrian and German bars. And guess what? SoftwareMill was the winner, of course.

phot. MBilas

We also did some sightseeing together and saw the most important places in Berlin. Despite it being really insanely cold (no, there are no polar bears in Poland and we are not used to such temperatures ;) ) we had lots of fun, as you can see in the pictures.

phot. MBilas

More pictures here: facebook.com/SoftwareMill

Some of us attended very interesting events during the stay. We went to the ‘Crossing the chasm’ Berlin TechMeetup which was held in Betahaus, a coworking space popular among startups. There were presentations by SoundCloud, 6Wunderkinder and orderbird.

We also took part in MongoDBDays – with Adam speaking about MongoDB-based queuing and messaging systems.

Generally, we had lots of fun, and some even called this trip our best weekend/meetup ever. We really recommend such trips as a natural way of bringing dispersed teams together.

And what are your best company meetups? Any particular places, activities?