gap intelligence recently celebrated our sixth annual gapCon on July 15. Similar to previous years, the planning committee examined what the company’s needs were, with the ultimate goal of deciding what was most important for gappers to gain from the event. This year, we decided that a theme of unity would be ideal in an effort to bring the company and all of our recently hired gappers (and first time gapCon attendees) together.
Historically, gapCon has consisted of an all day agenda with presentations and guest speakers. gappers are typically asked to dress in business attire, which is quite a departure from our casual daily dress code. Going into our sixth year, the committee decided to do something a little different. The gapCon committee decided to keep the event internally focused, keeping most of the details secret from the rest of the company until the day of, only revealing to gappers that they should wear something casual and comfortable.
gapCon 2016 Begins!
gapCon 2016 kicked off with a group activity that was designed to unite the company through the creation of a shield representing the five values that are the foundational core of gap intelligence. gappers were randomly split into five teams, each with an assigned value and a piece of the shield, and asked to depict an image that represents their corresponding value. The exercise was intended to motivate everyone to really think about the individual values that we live and breathe every day and essentially bring them to life. The result was pretty amazing!
Following our icebreaker, the keynote speaker, Chris Doyle, shared his experiences in the oil industry and valuable lessons of how he united a struggling company. Chris’ insights were motivating as he described how he unified and led a large team of employees with a deeply rooted corporate history to success in an industry that can often be unstable.
Hide-A-Herbie
Surprise! The next activity was… a scavenger hunt! gap intelligence outsourced a local company to facilitate a scavenger hunt to find out who kidnapped our company mascot, Herbie, and where he was hiding in the Old Town community of San Diego. An enormous departure from our traditional gapCon presentations and guest panels, the group scavenger hunt served as a way to integrate gappers who might otherwise not work together. Despite the hot summer San Diego day, it was a blast running around Old Town solving clues and riddles at various locations in the area.
Overall, the day was a huge success and the unique and fun experiences definitely united us more as a team. The happy hour after the event didn't hurt either! A huge thank you to Chris Doyle and Murder Mystery Scavenger Hunt for being a part of our event and contributing to the most valuable day of the year for gap intelligence. We can’t wait to see what’s on the agenda for gapCon in 2017!
