2 April 2019
Just another day at the office?
Food, drinks, a piano concert, a mini master class and a Mario Kart tournament: just another day at the office? Kind of. Here’s what went down at the one and only SparkOptimus Family Day!
‘What is it you actually do for a living?’
‘Where do you work exactly and what do you actually do all day?’. These are questions the family back home won’t be asking our Sparkies anymore. In fact, from the responses on this event, we heard that a word-of-mouth campaign is already under way among the Sparkies’ families for next year’s family day!
Building with character
During the Family Day, the Sparkies clans were immersed in all the things that make SparkOptimus tick, Tamara Schoon, PR & Communications Manager and one of the organisers of the event explains. ‘It all started out with them getting to know our beautiful office building, which in a previous life used to be a transformer substation in the Amsterdam Oud-Zuid district. It has its own courtyard where sometimes in summer an ice cream truck makes a stop and, on the other side of the courtyard, SparkOptimus recently opened a second characteristic office building. This was new to many family members, so definitely interesting to visit!’
Concert hall for a day
‘But our main office building looked nothing like it does on your average workday: for this special occasion, we transformed it into a full-blown concert stage with a grand piano as the shining centrepiece. But the real star of the show was pianist Thomas Beijer, a former winner of The Young Pianist Foundation piano competition. After a word of welcome by Alexandra Jankovich, one of the managing partners of SparkOptimus, and introductions from Marcel Baudet of The Young Pianist Foundation, our office became the ‘Royal SparkOptimus Concert Hall’ for the day. We’re a benefactor of The Young Pianist Foundation because of the crucial need to stimulate top talent. We have that same approach at SparkOptimus, too. Naturally, it’s a wonderful added privilege that we can regularly go to concerts of the Young Pianist Foundation. And how great is it that for once, we get to organise a concert in our very own office?!’
Mini master class & Mario Kart
‘With the final notes from the grand piano still reverberating, it was time to get down to business: the mini master class and the Mario Kart tournament! Although, a ‘mini’ master class…? We hosted the shortened version of the real SparkOptimus master class ‘Make Disruption Work for you’ in two large meeting rooms. Both rooms were packed and the audience kept asking questions…We ran over time by quite a bit, but apparently we filled a need of sorts: finally you get to hear what your husband/wife/daughter/father/mother gets up to at work all day. And it was the same at the Mario Kart tournament: a ‘full-on, fun-filled Mario Kart racing event’. A lot of attendees took full advantage in our SparkOptimus game room!’
