Finally the day had come, the day everyone was waiting for since long (almost 2 years). We all were going for a picnic and excitement was there in the air!
The place was Shanku’s Water Park at Mehsana and we were going to have lot of fun. It is still the best water park of the state and weather on the day was truly on our side.
Everyone was supposed to gather at 7 am in the morning at Digicorp house and slowly but steadily everyone was there.
Instead of going into the office we went away from the office with loud cheers and noises in 2 buses.
One bus was filled up with the all the unmarried boys and the other one had couples and girls. Well the boys thought they had all the fun but mind well we too had lot of it during the journey.
The best thing about the journey was, its duration. It took us only one and half hour to reach the place and that too went by very fast as we played dumb charades in the bus. (I know girls won’t believe this but boys’ team actually won )
And guess what, we reached early at the place and the breakfast was not ready! Great. Anyways it did not take long and we fed our hungry bellies with Tea/Coffee, Sandwiches and Masala Dosa.
After that we played some team building games. Payal and I had selected these games. Couple of games we also played in our last team building activities held at Digicorp House in 2008.
Description of those games are as follow:
1) Do you know me? (15 to 25 mins) – make groups of 12 people
- make them tightly coupled with each other
- ask them to introduce themselves and
- A proud moment in your work or personal life,
- Something most people do not know about you,
- Interviewer’s choice of any question.
• What is your favourite season?
• What colour are your eyes?
• What’s your shoe size?
• What type of shoes are your wearing?
• What’s your favourite colour
• What’s your star sign?
• Which leg do you put into your pants first?
• Which eye do you prefer to wink with?
• Which side of the bed (left or right) do you get out of in the morning?
2) Do you know what I mean? (20 mins) Have a volunteer hold a sheet you have created with different shapes drawn on it. With their back to the group, the volunteer describes the shapes on the paper; everyone else tries to draw the same design based on only the verbal instruction of the volunteer.
How it helps: The group’s pictures will not be exactly the same as the original and some will be really far off. Everyone will be reminded of the importance of communication.
The new ones were:
3) Pictionary
This is a famous board game which is kind of dumb charades but instead of actions you have to explain the word by drawing on a piece of paper. We had to tweak the game little bit for our environment but it was a great fun.
After the games everyone was free to explore the place. Boys played cricket and few of us played memory game. We have to accept that girls have better memory as both the finalists were girls!
After lunch almost every one went in for a dive and enjoyed the water park at fullest. Some were resistant to dive in initially but due to peer pressure they all had to jump in. You see peer pressure works everywhere not only at workplaces!
Instead of a commercial, Digicorpians had to make “Trailers” or “Promos” of the movie name given to them.
We managed to came up with some crazy movie names based on real movie names.
1) Tera Pati Sirf Mera Hai (from Mera Pati Sirf Mera Hai! , I know its a pathetic movie and title but its best for such games)
2) Arjun, the Cheetah (from our favorite Indra, the Tiger!)
3) My name is Thakrey (ok you know this one)
4) 3 Junglees (You know this one too…one of the best movies in recent times)
5) Chaa (Any guesses…….!!!!!!!! well from our own Mr Big B’s “Paa”. I know this is hilarious and this was Kuntal’s idea)
6) Bogus Prem ki Bakwaas Kahani (The name says it all! I guess the actual movie name should have been this)
7) Ram Gopal Verma ki Raakh (After RGV ki Aag only Raakh was left of the distributors )
8 ) Bekaar Raaj (from Sarkaar Raaj)
Each team was given one movie and they had to make a “Trailer” of the movie. The minimum time was 2 minutes and maximum time was 4 minutes.
After almost one hour of preparation everyone was ready and most of them came with brilliant ideas and some of the best performances by individuals.
Event started in the evening and it was about to get dark to videos have not come proper but I guess if you listen to them with full volume you should be able to enjoy them.
Rangoli is one of the most popular art forms in India. It is a form of sandpainting decoration that uses finely ground white powder and colours, and is used commonly outside homes in India.
The term rangoli is derived from words rang (colour) and aavalli (‘coloured creepers’ or ‘row of colours’).
We wanted to have some fun before the Diwali holidays and we did just that in this competition. There were 16 teams consisting of 4-5 persons and almost all teams having one female participant who leads the team.
The theme given for Rangoli was “Shades of Life” and few teams came up with some brilliant stuff. They were given choice of six colors which they were supposed to use in Rangoli.
The tempo started building up from the morning and people started looking at Google for the solution (as expected!). Many came up with the original design also and congratulations to all of them.
To cut the long story short check out some of the Rangolis people came up with.
Here is the slideshow of all the photographs with description in some of them. Don’t forget to check them out.
Do let us know your comments about this wonderful event. Can’t wait to have it next year.
“The word Navaratri literally means nine nights in Sanskrit; Nava meaning Nine and Ratri meaning nights. During these nine nights and ten days, nine forms of Shakti/Devi are worshipped.”
We are proud of all the Digicorpians who participated with great enthusiasm in this event and made it a success. I was thrilled to see the energy levels amongst the dancers. On this day they proved that they can not only code, design or test but they can dance also.
In line with our tradition, we are back again with the Treasure Hunt 2009!!!
Last year in february 2008 we had it in our half constructed office with six teams and six members in each team.
Well, this time Auda Garden, Prahladnagar was the epicenter for the event. Minal and i brain stormed for a while and thought of framing the clues in and around Auda garden, including some entertainment arenas like Fun Republic, Wide Angle, CineMax, Food Junction like Bawarchi, Cakes N Bakes, Lush, Karnavati Club in addition to the shopping marts like Gulmohar park, Iskon Mall and even the impenetrable areas like Satellite Police Station, AMA and IIM.
Now you can imagine how difficult it would have been framing the clues and actually affixing them at relevant places.
The event was scheduled on 28th February,9:00 a.m. @ Prahladnagar garden with all of them divided into eight teams (Pink, Fluroscent Green, Yellow, Orange, Green, Beige, Light Green & Rust), and seven members in each. The funniest part was on the same day at around 8:45 a.m., we were still left out with 10-15 clues to be clipped. Thanx to our dear directors (Kuntal, Abhishek, Sanket & Nachiket) that they somehow managed to place the clues in time.
Some of the clues were quite traditional while the others outlandish. Here are some examples of simple and twisted clues:
B
O
B O O K S
K
S (Crossword)
chaurahe pe baith ke C roma
ta ta mat kar
C roma c roma
(Croma)
From japan to USA
Infinite is my reach
solid is my performance
but lonely in this city i am
(Infinium)
It was complete hustle-bustle with the rollicking teams looking for the clues everywhere. Inspite of the jumbled up clues, the promptness that the teams showed in solving them was clearly throwing an in sight on the team spirit and the bonding wide spread amongst the digicorp employees.
There was cut throat competition amongst all the teams; finally it was the Beige (Vishal Shukla, Kuldip, Nayan, Nishant, Darshna, Deepak, Rohit Dubaria) team that stealed the show.
Catch the excitement live, here are a few snapshots of the event…..
Congratulations to the winning team, I hope you n’joyed the Treasure Lunch(Hunt) @ Lush.
Lastly thankyou Minal for those mysterious clues; directors as well for riding the rails at 7:00 in the morning and sticking up the clues; and not to forget hetavi’s sleepless night in triming the clues.
I hope you all enjoyed the event and would like you all to put up your experiences by dropping in your invaluable comments.
Tomorrow we will officially complete 1 year at our new office. We call it “Digicorp House”. And after one year I can say it is almost complete now and there won’t be any new construction work in near future.
So now we have lot of different areas in our office where various team members sit together. We have .NET cabin, PHP cabin, Conference room, HR cabin, Lunch area, Gaming room, Server room, PM cabin, Business development cabin, Reception etc. So there was a need to name each of these cabins properly to avoid confusion.
We thought about naming them after Indian rivers, mountains, Mahabharata names and all those traditional stuff most of the companies are doing.
But then there was no fun, no uniqueness to it. So Payal and I brainstormed for a while and here is the idea!!
“We name them after some great movies of Amitabh Bachchan, arguably the greatest actor of this millennium. ”
So here are final names
1 ) Server Room -> Sholay
(as there is too much heat and noise from the servers all the time)
2 ) .NET cabin -> Deewar
(D for Dot Net, D for Deewar)
3 ) PHP cabin -> Pukar
(Same logic as above)
4 ) Sanket and Nachiket cabin – Trishul
(This is one of my favorite movie)
5 ) Conference room – Shakti (Give us strength to work after meeting )
6 ) Director’s cabin – Don (Well we are wanted at least in 11 countries )
7 ) PM Cabin – ShehanShah
(Messiahs to save the projects )
8 )HR Cabin – Sarkar (As the name suggests HR is the Sarkar who pays us)
9 ) Gaming Room – The Great Gambler (One of the most favorite areas of developers)
10 ) Reception – Lawaris (Most of the time there is no one over there )
I hope Amitabh Bachchan visits some of this areas himself one day Just kidding guys, Let me know how did you find this idea and the names?
PS: Vishal (Sr. Developer, PHP) wrote wonderful reply to my mail about these names. Read it in comments.
3 people having lunch on a normal day, spark of an idea and that’s the birth of Digicorp Cricket League (DCL).
I was so excited about the idea that in a day we (Mehul and I) decided three teams and names of the teams
1) Lions
2) Tigers
3) Panthers
I love these names as it reminds me of my school time (St. Xavier’s Loyola) where 4 dens were there. 4th one was Bears. But here we could make only 3 teams of 11 players out of more than 40 guys in the company. I was in Lions den in those days so I had to be in Lions team here.
Obviously girls were at a loss this time but I did make it up for the loss after the league.
All the matches were kept on the weekdays to avoid disturbance on the big public University Ground.
On Saturday, Sunday it is impossible to play on University Ground for most of you out there but people who do play on that ground can not play anywhere else. Energy flow on this ground is so high you simply can not miss that. This ground needs another post of its own so I will not go into details here. Perhaps someone can write a thesis on this lovely ground of Ahmedabad.
All three teams were quite equal in strength and thank you Mehul for helping me in that. League matches were of 14 overs each and Final was of 16 overs. All matches were played on the hard tennis ball.
First match was held between Lions and Tigers on Friday. Match started early morning at 7:30 and kicked off DCL.
Tigers won the match quite convincingly thank to their captain Nilesh’s performance. Nilesh was man of the match.
Second match was between Tigers and Panthers on Monday and Panthers lost the match in the last over by an inch.
So that makes an interesting, jaw dropping, do or die match between Lions and Panthers as both lost to Tigers in their league matches. Only a win was a way to get into finals.
As promised match started with sheer excitement and Lions scored well batting first. Panthers started well and played well till the end but again their bad luck came to haunt them in the last over. Panthers again lost in last over but they won hearts of everyone including mine.
So now comes the Final between Lions and Tigers. Tigers were favorites for the final as they had won both the league matches but Lions were roaring to take revenge of the first match loss.
Tigers won the toss and elected to bat first. They scored 86 runs in 16 over which is a very good score on that pitch and ground. Target of 87 runs look tough but achievable as Lions had good batting line up.
Lions fumbled early on but one person in the team stood the ground. That was Samarth and whole team had high hopes for him. He did not play well in first 2 matches so he had to play this time. He was there till the end. 14 runs were needed of the last 2 overs and he was the only recognised batsman on the ground at that time.
But there comes a part time bowler of Tigers team which was severly missing one full time bowler and Samarth hits a GIANT GIANT six in that over. Well 11 runs were scored in that over and only 3 runs were required in the last over. Aryaman took the last over but it was too late and Lions won the nail biting final of DCL.
That makes a glorious end of 2008 for Digicorp and Lions . With great hopes and aspirations we are entering a new year 2009 now.
Happy New Year to all of you and thank you for reading this article.
Don’t forget to check out the Photos of prize ceremony held on the same day at Digicorp House.
Apology for not updating for soo long…recently we have done 2 exciting events at Digicorp one of which is explained here…
29th of September 2008 and the day has come. I was waiting for this day very eagerly as I had read lot about team building and other motivational stuff lately.
Payal and I had worked hard to find out proper games for which will suit our company and its people.
We shortlisted following games:
1) Do you know me? (15 to 25 mins) - make groups of 12 people - make them tightly coupled with each other - ask them to introduce themselves and - A proud moment in your work or personal life, - Something most people do not know about you, - Interviewer’s choice of any question. • What is your favourite season? • What colour are your eyes? • What’s your shoe size? • What type of shoes are your wearing? • What’s your favourite colour • What’s your star sign? • Which leg do you put into your pants first? • Which eye do you prefer to wink with? • Which side of the bed (left or right) do you get out of in the morning?
2) Do you know what I mean? (20 mins) Have a volunteer hold a sheet you have created with different shapes drawn on it. With their back to the group, the volunteer describes the shapes on the paper; everyone else tries to draw the same design based on only the verbal instruction of the volunteer.
How it helps: The group’s pictures will not be exactly the same as the original and some will be really far off. Everyone will be reminded of the importance of communication.
3) All Aboard (15 mins) -This activity requires working together in close physical proximity in order to solve a practical, physical problem. It tends to emphasize group communication, cooperation, patience and problem solving strategy, as well as issues related to physical self and physical proximity. - The activity can be run in many different ways. - Basic method: Ask the whole group to try to fit inside a small area which can be marked by:
* small platforms, or * circle of rope, or * tarpaulin or blanket
4) Do you trust your team members? Ask one person to free fall on his back trusting that his/her team members will catch him. Same teams can be used as previous events. It will improve the trust levels between team members.
5) Evening Dress (20 mins) The instructor asks 2 pairs to take part in this game. He/she suggests their making the evening dress, using only newspapers, pins and scissors. The winner is chosen by the spectators.
We could not do game 4 as time was running out but had lots and lots of fun in all other activities. Especially in All Aboard and Evening Dress.
Looking at people getting on top of each other in All aboard was once in a lifetime moment
I have embedded album of the whole event below. Have a look at them and you will get the idea of fun we had
This line used to remind us of OSO or Deepika but now we have one more reason to remember it- our AdMad show.
I must say it was totally Mad Ad shows. We were totally on ground with those hilarious ads that were presented.
The fun of the event started when we ( Payal & I) decided the products. Well! well! well! it was difficult and funny equally.
Then we thought of giving the teams the product but the not the members. I know we played really cruel. But then this increased the curiosity and hard work.
We divided the whole lot into 11 teams( 1 team of our directors didn’t participate due to lack of resources). The team leaders( Avadhesh, Vikas, Paresha, Rohit D,Vishal, Pranav, Suraj, Darshana, Ankit and Venkat) were asked to pick up chits of products from our bowl. So it was mere luck with what they land up to.
We gave the leaders their teams , only two day prior to the event. Now thats called fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They had to prepare everything from concept to dialogue, from costumes to props in just 2 days and work their official targets out also along with this. They had no leaves.
But hats off to their unity, they worked really hard and were ready with every thing on the day. The ads had all variety of spices from Babubhai to Munnabhai, from Road romeos to Jaga don and from Africans tribal to Egyptian mummies and king . And how can i forget the MMS (Manmohan Singh ) , Mushi( Gen Musharraf) and Zuntal (Kuntal) . The ads were all full of surprise. The audiences and judges were wondering as what comes up next.
We (I and Payal) had tough time marking them for their efforts. We had marked them on the scale of 10 for Creativity, Presentation, Team effort & endorsing.
Must say everyone had endorsed their products very well. But winner was the best of the bests.
Finally Rohit’s team won everyones heart and the first prize with their Sanskar-The Rock Band’s act which included Himesh and Ek chutki Sindur. Apart from this the products that our teams endorsed were: Dr. Killer’s Dhoop, Durian Pocket Bed,
But truly, the experience was awesome with some great memorable characters of the show going down the memory lane like the Zingala la hu act, Babu bhais performance, Supriya entire look and performance( she looked like those 60s -70s beautiful actresses), Reporter from Raat Tak and Jaga don.
Everyone was just too good!!!!!!!!!!
Cheers to the spirit of the Digicorp people!!!!!!!!!!!
Looking forward for some great performance for the next upcoming event at the end of this month. Am very sorry but the videos of this awesome show are facing some trouble in uploading. I will upload them at earliest.
Hello Digitizers, Finally we are proud owner of our own bigger, better place called “DIGICorp House”! I am writing this blog on the very first day we have moved here.
After months of hardwork, tension and stress less than half of the office is completed just sufficient to encompass existing development strength of digicorp which is around 50.
Places of 4 founders are still not done and they will keep wandering around with their laptops in and out of the conference rooms.
There were mixed reactions on day one from digitizers!! few of them liked the bigger terraces and place overall but they also disliked little conjusted places for them. I think the main problem is they have lost their privacy here as everyone can see everyone in the office. They can not scream now on anyone because it will be heard in whole office. But there were some serious issues also on which we will ofcourse work.
It will take some time to get adjusted to the new place as we all are missing the 10th floor terrace of old office but we have moved to the better place that is for sure as there is scope of expansion here which we are dire need of.
I am going to upload lots of pictures and videos of the new office. Please hang on until then.
What do you think of new DIGICorp House ?? Please feel free to comment.
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