On Friday 11th April we kicked off our first #_Unbound day in Mexico City. It was hosted by the wonderful team at Extend in their centrally located office on the Reforma. We had a great free form space, a terrace, some food, coffee, wifi, work and great conversation. These guys went above and beyond on their hosting responsibility and they even made up a welcome sign for us 🙂

As per the original #_Unbound concept the day brought together a small group of people from different backgrounds and organisations to work together for the day. We had people coming and going as it fitted with their schedule, and those who couldn’t be there physically joined by phone and online. The number of people fluctuated between 5 and 10. The perfect number to allow valuable work to be done independently but also enable fluid group conversation involving everyone.

At the beginning of the day we shared our expectations and any key conversation topics we were hoping to cover with the dynamic and interesting people in the room. Although there was no set agenda for the day, we found it valuable to capture these thoughts, questions and challenges on the walls. As new people joined the #_Unbound day they could gain an insight into the minds of the people who were already there or those who had passed through.

The visual display of these expectations also provoked many interesting conversations throughout the day. Some topics which really sparked discussion were the changing role of physical office spaces, the growing gap to employees without smartphones as the reliance on technology increases and the measurement of business value in immature enterprise social networks.

As an individual attending my first #_Unbound day I really enjoyed it. I am, however, use to the idea of working remotely, from different locations with new people. So for me, the feedback from people who did not find this so ‘normal’ was more insightful. Some of the participants were from relatively rigid and traditional organisations. This was the first day that they had ever ‘worked’ out of the office. For them the idea of no set agenda, at an ‘event’ was difficult to comprehend. As a group we struggled with how to deal with this a little. In the feedback rounds at the end it was proposed that next time we would have a very basic agenda to keep the day fluid. For example, allocating individual work time and discussion time. This does sort of goes against the grain of #_Unbound but perhaps it is a way to transition to this new way of working and an approach to make those who are used to more structure feel comfortable attending their first #_Unbound day.

Overall though the day was great, and all participants said they would like to be part of a regular one. So we are looking at doing another one in June.

The #_Unbound concept is iterative. Each event is different. They are popping up in various locations around the world and people are seeing what happens when they come together for the day to get work done outside of their organisational borders. At #_Unbound Mexico DF we shared good conversation, fresh coffee and a valuable work day. Why don’t you run one, see what happens and let us know how it goes?