Fun

Working from home (aka telecommuting) can be great for productivity and employee happiness. But not everyone is used to it – or prepared to do it (and many have been forced to recently because of COVID-19). At Kalamuna, we work on a distributed team, which means that most of us already work from home – and some of us are also used to setting up temporary workstations while travelling. It’s not always easy (or ideal), but a few small adjustments can make a big difference. Here are some of our team’s top tips for working effectively from the homefront.

As more and more companies liberate themselves from finding talent in a single geographical  location, the traditional office party could become a thing of the past. While I have had my fair share of awkward moments at office parties, they can also be critical components of building and maintaining company culture. 

Despite the political theatre and resulting uncertainty 2019 has brought us, I am overcome with gratitude for the relationships fostered by Kalamuna’s existence, and proud of the impact we have made together.

Like many of you, we are appalled by the inhumane cruelty leveled against migrants and refugees, and are especially heartbroken by the state-sponsored abuses enacted against children. BADCamp gave us an opportunity to utilize our sponsorship booth to create space to talk about this humanitarian crisis. We invited attendees at our booth to help us allocate $1,000 between three nonprofits advancing legal aid, humanitarian aid, or policy change on this issue.

As a digital agency, we believe it’s important to remember the world that exists beyond our JIRA boards. We feel a genuine responsibility to always try to do something that can be of service to the greater good; especially when the opportunity to give a damn is so constant and pervasive.

This October at the Bay Area Drupal Camp (BADCamp,) we soaked up Drupal talks, gave a few of our own, high-fived friends, and fomented literary political activism. How? In line with this year’s circus theme, we turned our sponsor booth into a place for BADCampers to step right up...and send messages to their elected representatives. It was also a chance for folks to talk with others about those messages and direct our swag budget to one of three nonprofits. Find out who BADCampers wrote to, what they had to say, and which nonprofits got our swag money.

Every year we attend the Bay Area Drupal Camp (BADCamp,) an open source technology conference in Berkeley, California. It’s an opportunity to see colleagues, meet new ones, and learn from attendees’ sessions. This year we’re using our sponsor booth to raise awareness of (and send our swag budget to) three nonprofits chosen by our staff. Check out these perhaps little-known facts about these organizations and the issues they represent.

São Paulos Batman's Alley hosts an ever-changing tapestry of works from local street artists

The Drupal community’s got heart. We partner with organizations that do work that matters, and we champion web accessibility, higher education and nonprofits in our events. This year at BADCamp we wanted to shine a light on this aspect of the community and do something different with our sponsor booth. Instead of giving away schwag, we gave away pre-paid charity gift cards that BADCampers could spend on causes they care about. See how the community spent the cards, and get a little background on how this charity donation booth came to be.

We’re happy to announce that once again, we’ll be participating in the Bay Area Drupal Camp (BADCamp,) an annual celebration of open-source software at the University of California, Berkeley. This year, in addition to contributing to the free talks and trainings, we’re excited to participate in a new way — one that we hope everyone will be a part of.