Kisko Year in Review 2019

As every year since 2013, we’d like to share with you what has been going on in our last 12 months, and encourage you to do your list too! As we grow, the list grows, so here’s some of what we did during 2019 😊

Projects

Continued developing Njam for Apetit https://blog.kiskolabs.com/apetitin-njam-haastaa-kasvattamaan-kasvisten-määrää-ruokalautasella

Continued developing Puhti https://blog.kiskolabs.com/asiakaskokemuksia-puhti

Loupedeck CT was released https://blog.kiskolabs.com/loupedeck-ct-antaa-kosketuspinnan-luovien-alojen-ammattilaisille

Designed new website for Otava publishing https://otava.fi/

Developed event management tools for Professio

Released working space and meeting room reservation app Cella for Oulu University

Developed TouGo 2.0 application for Touhula Varhaiskasvatus

Continued developing Työkykypassi for SAKU ry

Worked with Volkswagen on an upcoming mobility project still in stealth mode

Released Softapaljastuksia book http://softapaljastuksia.kiskolabs.com/

Added air quality monitoring to the Kisko Labs office

Events

Participated in Slush (report here), Nordic Business Forum in Stockholm and Oslo (report here), Joint Futures Conference, and Euruko, which we will be hosting next year: https://euruko2020.org/

We had our own summer party at beautiful Stockholm. We enjoyed the city, good food and excellent company 😊

Hiring

We recruited a record amount of Kiskonians this year (7!). We also revamped our onboarding process, which made everything go smoothly.

Kisko Book Club

During Spring Kisko Book Club read the Refactoring by Martin Fowler. In Autumn we were busy with projects and new ways of arranging our teams and work and didn't get to start an another book even though A Scrum Book: The Spirit of the Game was ordered and is to be started soon.

Team

Antti A. focused more and more time for content creation and marketing. He did few public talks and continued mentoring startups at Founder Institute. Antti continued his stand-up comedy hobby and has now over 200 gigs in the books. Moved to terraced house and got a puppy, Nacho

Also did four day hike with Virgil (check the video here)

Henri N. took some days off to play World of Warcraft Classic, but after 50 levels realised playing casually is no fun. He also started to invest more effort to training in the gym. Work wise he completed Scrum master course and earned his first ever certificate. React is still his jam and hooks are cool.

Matias spoke at three conferences this year (RubyFuza in Cape Town, Brighton Ruby, and RubyConf Taiwan) and also successfully pitched for Helsinki to be the next host city at Euruko in Rotterdam.

Virgil has continued working on Domo, the housing for students system and 2019 saw a new client, Pohjalaiset, using the service. The focus this year was to improve the system by expanding its features and introducing new integrations. During this year Virgil moved to a new home, practiced Brazilian Jiu-jitsu a few times (or allowed Akonniemi to practice BJJ on him) and successfully completed Karhunkierros hike together with Akonniemi in 4 days. The hunting season started during the fourth quarter of the year and we haven’t heard of him since. Virgil also bought a new hat:

Kaikki kaunistaa mikä peittää

Vesa had projects with interesting new challenges with both frontend with React and backend with Azure things. He visited Stockholm twice (Nordic Business Forum and Kisko Summer Party) and was finalist in Uutisraivaaja competition. He also got certified as a New Relic Performance Pro 😁On his free time he bought some sweet music gear and attended a five day silent meditation retreat.

HenriP was pushing his design system and co-design skills forward with two larger projects as well as preparing to launch a temporary Kisko remote office in London for 2020. Yearly highlights included Joint Futures design conference and hardware UI work with the recently released Loupedeck CT. Also bought a new apartment with plenty of renovations to come.

Simo Spent a large part of the year managing a project and working on Kisko's sales and marketing. Attended the Joint Futures design conference and saw his future self in Mike Monteiro. Blended in with the neon colors at Slush. Put effort in elevating the Kisko way of working.

Miika joined Kisko after the critical lack of ruisleipä called him back home from a winter-skipping getaway in South East Asia. He started to hack away at various mobile and web-based applications and soak in Kisko's culture and working environment. What is a better way to get to know your workmates than jumping straight into sauna (on a boat!)? Only crashing on a deserted island comes close.

Andrei joined Kisko in the first days of autumn and started deep diving into projects and working environment, moved from ArchLinux to MacOS Catalina. Did some familiar backend and database work while refreshing React and ReactNative experience.

AnttiS has been developing a new mobility service with Volkswagen, launching to a pilot in 2020. Antti has improved and raised the level of Kiskos security processes and documentation, taking the first steps on the road to be certified.

In addition Antti developed OKR process and studied the Measure What Matters -book. Also he started a new podcast for Kisko (coming 2020), about happiness in the IT-industry.

In personal life Antti bought an apartment and spent a night in laavu during the winter with AnttiA and Virgil. During the summer he also did a roadtrip in Ahvenanmaa.

Anna promoted herself to Chief (that's Chief Happiness Officer to you) to avoid sounding too mushy-mushy. The many successful recruitments and on-boardings this year have kept her busy. She also conquered her self-doubt of being able to find those hard to find developers to join Kisko all on her own efforts. She did just that, bo-joing! She's been the master of many Kisko events and parties and has kept the office G&T inventory stacked. She also dived into the world of Ruby with her first ever programming course finding the first touch to be painful but intriguing. She also studied basics of lean philosophy.

Outside Kisko Anna enjoyed some moves on a hiphop dance class this autumn, slept her first night outside in a tent and wishes to do so more in the future. She also established how badly she sucks at escape room games and guitar hero. Next year she's hoping to get a new outhouse to her summerhouse. Big dreams! She's also still trying to learn the mastery of keeping it short.

Our whole team sends a huge thanks to our clients, partners and everyone else involved, and wishes you all a Happy New Year!