Peer Communication At Teknowledge Gets The WhatsApp Edge
Announcement posted by Teknowledge software 29 Jun 2015
From professional executives and movie crew members, to people with common interests and old friends and colleagues - people from diverse spheres are turning to WhatsApp groups to stay in touch with each other. Teknowledge Mobile Studio, the multiple award-winning cross-platform mobile app company, is the latest to jump on this bandwagon. An informal WhatsApp group for the Teks employees had been formed about six months back - and it has now become the preferred mode of interaction among people working at the company.
Interestingly titled as ‘Teks Freaks’, the in-house Whatsapp group of Teknowledge serves up multiple advantages. Foremost among them, according to Mr Fakhruddin (the CEO of the company) is the boost to teamwork. The group has made it extremely easy for the Android/iOS app developers to keep each other updated - while working on a common project. Important discussions between the developers, testers and mobile UI/UX designers are also carried out in the group. According to well-placed sources within the company, developers can share their daily scrum in the Whatsapp Group too!
The growing popularity of ‘Teks Freaks’ and the fact that everyone at Teknowledge own smartphones have helped the company expand its work-hours. According to Mr. Fakhruddin, Teknowledge is not a regular 10-to-7 company, and the WhatsApp group has made it possible for him to contact multiple employees at practically any time. The app developers can also interact and chalk out their coding plans on this virtual platform. It is certainly a more effective technique than simply exchanging emails.
Not everything about ‘Teks Freaks’ is work-related though. It had been initially created as a channel for informal bonding of the employees - something that is not always possible in an office environment. Even now, specific app-related topics form only a small fraction of the total conversations in the WhatsApp Group. Puzzles, brain teasers, trick questions, and general awareness tidbits are shared by the members regularly. Anyone is free to answer questions and/or send teasers of their own. Professional mobile app development experts need to be a sharp, well-informed lot - and ‘Teks Freaks’ is an interesting way of ensuring that.
The fun-quotient of the Teks Whatsapp Group does not end with text conversations either. A team of iPhone app developers informed that photos and short videos are also often shared in ‘Teks Freaks’ - often by the CEO himself, or other senior personnel. ‘Teks Freaks’ reaches its liveliest best during weekends - when hilarious one-liners, jokes, punchlines and other such fun stuff is shared around. A fair bit of good-humored leg-pulling also goes on in the group, as some of the employees at Teks testified.
Mr. Fakhruddin deserves all the credits for conceptualizing this instant chat group, and then making it the virtual hub of all interactions in his company. He makes it a point to take out time from his hectic daily schedule to contribute to ‘Teks Freaks’ (most other members feel that he is the biggest contributor in the group). The entire maintenance of the group is also handled by the CEO. Right from inviting new recruits to ‘Teks Freaks’, to monitoring the type of posts that are being shared - Mr. Fakhruddin does them all. If anything, he enjoys having casual chitchats with his team, unrelated to app development projects.
‘Teks Freaks’ is not like the scores of WhatsApp groups where only a handful of members do all the ‘talking’, while the others remain passive. Over here, everyone actively participates - including the ones who are fairly new at the company. From the eager, expressive ones to the quiet introverts - everyone takes part in the discussions. Many friendships among peers have also struck up through this WhatsApp Group. Mr. Fakhruddin had conceived ‘Teks Freaks’ as a platform for icebreaking and team-building. Clearly, the group has already become more than that.
Making a difference in the field of mobile app development has always been Teks’ motto - and this value proposition is reflected in the name of the WhatsApp group of the company. The members of the group do justice to the name ‘Teks Freaks’ - by sharing only the most interesting, most important, most hilarious things on the platform. Being freaky in a good way, that’s what ‘Teks Freaks’ allows them to do.
Creating WhatsApp groups for solely work-related purposes is nothing new. ‘Teks Freaks’, however, stands out from most other similar groups due to the sheer variety of topics that are discussed here. Mr. Fakhruddin believes that everyone at Teks should be able to express themselves - and this group has proved to be an ideal channel for that. A roaring success, one might say.
Go to http://teks.co.in to find out more about Teknowledge Software. If you wish to know more about the workflow at the company, send emails to info@teks.co.in or call 91-33-40649087. The ‘Teks Freaks’ group has done wonders to foster the spirit of togetherness among those working at the company. It’s hardly surprising that the group members refer to themselves as the ‘Teks Family!’