To date, CrowdParty has hosted over two thousand games. That means over two thousand smiles. Two thousand laughs. Two thousand conversations. And two thousand moments of togetherness.

We started building CrowdParty back in June.

I was previously a Team Lead for a software company and at one point, I had to host a Happy Hour with over eighty guests. With a group that large, what in the world were we supposed to do crammed in one virtual room? I could just picture a few people talking over each other while everyone else zoned out.

So, I got creative: an hour before the event, I whipped up a Google Slides presentation with trivia and charades. I explained the rules, shared my screen, and started the game. Everyone got competitive! But the best part? People were engaged–they were laughing, they were throwing jokes, and they got to interact with people whom they've never met before. On that day, CrowdParty was born.

2020's been a tough year, and at this point, I don't think I need to remind you of that. After interviewing several culture advocates from different companies, we had a major takeaway: workplace culture had taken a hit. People's work-life balance became off-balanced. People were getting tired of back-to-back Zoom calls. People felt disconnected. And it made sense–this was, after all, relatively new to us!

The way we work continues to evolve. Several companies have permanently gone remote. Several other companies are contemplating a hybrid strategy.

The way we lead our teams and our people need to evolve too. Now more than ever, we need to actively try and engage with one another. We need to build better trust. We need to be creative with how we communicate with each other. Change isn't easy, but we have to adapt.

Our mission became clear: we wanted to bring back the fun. By providing the easiest and most exciting social experiences, we believe that we can add fun back to how we work, how we learn, and how we communicate throughout the pandemic and beyond.

As 2020 comes to an end, let's be reflective of our journey this year. Next year, let's continue to evolve as organizations, as teams, as people. Let's bring back the fun, together.

I want to leave you with this thought:

Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.

– Mark Twain

Thank you for supporting us on our mission to bring back the fun! Stay tuned for more exciting games!

Happy holidays and have a happy, joyful New Year!

Sincerely,
Justin and the rest of us at CrowdParty

🏓 ❤️