10 Years of MobileThinking
[2016]

Here we are again! We meet this month to continue our journey through time and explore 2016, as well as the events that marked this year for our MobileThinking team.

In 2015, the Team Building day was themed around indulgence. Maybe it was out of guilt, or just because of a love for winter sports, but the Team Building day in 2016 took a more physical turn. The associates embarked on a cross-country skiing session. There's nothing like a team walk in the Swiss mountains to enjoy a breath of fresh air and start the year off right.

While the team had previously comprised 3 collaborators: Jérôme, Jody, and Carlos, Mattia joined them shortly after completing his doctorate! Our 5 co-founders wanted to celebrate by organizing a trip to Locarno in Ticino at Mattia's place. After all, getting a doctorate doesn't happen every day!

A few months later, Hassan joined the crew as an intern, the first in MobileThinking's history. He completed an internship while pursuing his Master's degree at the University of Lausanne.

Following the success of the Abbatiale de Romainmôtier application developed in 2015, the DEA concept (Discovering a Space Differently) expanded its catalog by once again turning to MobileThinking to develop 2 additional applications : the Église Saint-François de Lausanne and the Cathédrale de Lausanne application, both derived from the Abbatiale de Romainmôtier application. As a reminder, these applications provide a unique, guided, and interactive experience for visitors to these locations. The application also offers personalized photo and video content based on your location within these 2 Lausanne buildings, using Bluetooth beacons.

Next up is the development of the joHdi platform, aimed at showcasing companies' employer branding (the perception of a company among its employees and potential candidates, including marketing and communication efforts to enhance and communicate it). On the platform, potential candidates can create profiles and find job offers, advice, and tutorials written by experts, as well as many other customized features. This marks the beginning of a collaboration that will still be ongoing 9 years later.

Another noteworthy application from MobileThinking in 2016 was the Traverse (patrimoine en partage) app, which allows personalized and dynamic exploration of Franco-Swiss heritages. Its goal is to guide users in interpreting landscapes, visiting monuments, or even sampling local products. The app will be publicly available in 2017 and developed in partnership with Ulrich Fischer and 8bitstudio, so we will revisit this project in a month, during the next time leap.

There was also the Wigigo app, which allowed users to effortlessly gift items to their friends. Users could create a wishlist containing desired products, which could be viewed by their friends who could then gift an item from that wishlist to the intended person. The objective was to offer a gift that would undoubtedly be appreciated and prevent duplicate gifts.

And finally, the POPit app enables users to explore and share articles within their network. Users can access a curated selection of Swiss and international news, which they can share with their network, while also receiving article recommendations from their network of friends.

In 2016, MobileThinking had the opportunity to sponsor a local festival called Gena Festival. If you were present at this event, you surely spotted the company's logo on the poster or among the partner and sponsor displays.

This year also saw the first user study presented at MobileThinking. You might be wondering what a user study is? It's a way of presenting an application or a website using paper or digital mock-ups to assist future users in visualizing and adapting the solution more effectively before development begins.

The adventure continues with a new move. These new offices are simply 3 times more spacious than the previous one (going from 20m2 to 60m2), and that's a good thing because with Mattia and Hassan joining us that year, space was becoming tight.

This move, just like the previous one, was punctuated by renovation work and plenty of painting.

To inaugurate the new premises, the team organized a cocktail party. What could be better than celebrating such an occasion with delightful appetizers and refreshing drinks?

After the exertion ➡️ comes relaxation. Following this relatively intense move, our team deserved a few days of rest. Off to Carvoeiro, Portugal, for sunny and rejuvenating holidays.

This trip didn't involve Hassan, who remained alone on the ship in Geneva (and as you can imagine, in the middle of October, he couldn't count on the sun for comfort).

Alright, we'll confess, even abroad, work eventually caught up with the MobileThinking team. In the end, they spent the week coding an application. But the bright side is that they were able to do it in the sun with their feet in the sand. 🌞

In 2016, remote work wasn't common, at least not like it is today. Yet, MobileThinking was conducting its first long-distance work tests with Carlos, who was in Russia. Google Meet didn't emerge until 2017, and the best solution available to team members at the time was Skype, which, as seen in the photo below, worked quite well.

The journey is far from finished! We'll see you next month to find out what's going on at MobileThinking in 2017!