smartweek 2023: A hybrid knowledge exchange

From the 26th to the 28th of September, we hosted our fourth annual peer-to-peer learning event, smartweek. What started as a knowledge exchange opportunity for our senior management quickly expanded company-wide, becoming a central pillar of our training and development initiatives. Each year, we invite smartclippers and a few special guests to host sessions on industry trends, company updates, and personal development skills. 

This year, we returned to the hybrid format, hosting all 17 sessions virtually. Although the event took place online, we encouraged those able to come to the office and watch the sessions with their fellow smartclippers. Our Berlin, Gütersloh, and Hamburg offices fully embraced the idea, planning office breakfasts, barbecues, and other in-person activities during the two-day event. 

Thomas Servatius, Co-CEO and MD Platform & Technology of smartclip, kicked off the programme with a short introduction — reminding us of the importance of the event, and giving an overview of what we could expect in the following days. Some of the tech topics we discussed included privacy, OS and browser gate-keeping, dealing with technical debt, acceptance testing, and the ins and outs of forecasting.  

In ‘Future Tech scenarios’, Thomas Servatius demonstrated how adaptability remains at the core of our company strategy. In addition to tech, another topic we spent a lot of time discussing was strategy. In the session ‘Defining a strategy for RTL AdAlliance’, we received general and strategic updates from our partner RTL Adalliance.

This year’s personal development topics covered stress management and mindfulness, public speaking tips, and revisited a favourite from this year’s company offsite — how to say ‘no’. When we weren’t working on ourselves, we took the time to revisit our internal processes and products during sessions like ‘Post Mortems’, ‘GDPR Cockpit – How do I fly this thing?’, and ‘Acceptance Testing’. 

And while smartweek is about learning and knowledge sharing, we still found time to unwind and explore other topics such as AI in ‘AI-ssentials’, sustainability in ‘The Smart & Sustainable Pub Quiz’, mental health in “Stress and Mindfulness”, and conglomerate policies on compliance in ‘Compliance Fireside Chat’.

Thank you to all our trainers who made the event such a success: Sven Teresniak at smartclip, Head of Data & Science at smartclip, Mirjam Naves, Senior Director Process Management at smartclip, Sarah Leers, Senior Recruiter at smartclip, Katharina Robrahn, Junior Manager of People Management at smartclip, Frank Plähn, VP Data Products at smartclip, Kaya Kupferschmidt, Software Developer at smartclip, Simon Gabriel, Senior Product Manager Data at smartclip, Nadine Wagner, Vice President of Data Engineering at smartclip, Miriam Blockhaus, Human Resources Intern at smartclip, Markus Hube, IT Architect at smartclip, Andreas Meier, Senior Director Employee Advocacy & Outreach at smartclip, Ekaterina Beck, Business Product Manager at smartclip, Christian Osterhues, Executive Director of People & Culture at smartclip, Jan Daniel Westermann, Senior Product Manager smartx at smartclip, Tobias Wolff, Vice President Engineering at smartclip, Rene Wagner, Chief Technical Officer at smartclip, Julian Goede, Junior Data Scientist at smartclip, Danielle Petway, Senior e-Learning & Product Communications Manager at smartclip, and Alex Tramp, Senior Product Education Manager at smartclip, Thomas Servatius, Co-CEO and MD Platform & Technology of smartclip, Olaf Christiansen, Senior Vice President Compliance at RTL Group, and Franck Litewka, Sr. Director Strategy & M&A at RTL AdAlliance.

This year’s event further proved that we don’t have to be in person to learn from one another. Thank you to those who volunteered to host a session — we couldn’t have done it without you. We had a great time learning from our colleagues and look forward to next year’s smartweek.