enso & tscheck
So far so good so what?
An update and a few insights on enso and Tscheck
The year hasn't developed less crazy than it started - accordingly, it might be too early for this update. We'll keep the end open … but there are some things interesting enough to share with you. When the first corona wave hit in spring and we immediately found ourselves in our remote settings, we shared two of our internal tools (and two of our favorite side projects) with the world. Tscheck and enso offer practical help and inspiration for a little more mindfulness in the everyday madness - and inspire and nurture a better together in this challenging time. It was and is very beautiful to observe how the two tools are being used. And how they develop.
More attention for attention.
With enso we have launched the first mindfulness buddy for Slack. Now and then he reminds you to pause and breathe, with notifications that reduce stress instead of causing it. We collaborate internally with Slack, so for very practical reasons this platform was our first choice for implementation. But perhaps the most important and boldest news about this concept comes from another one: Microsoft. At the last Ignite in September, the collaboration with Headspace – one of the pioneers and giants of the recent mindfulness movement – and the integration of new mindfulness features in Teams was announced. This is huge. And good news for all of us who work with such tools as it can actually help on so many levels. Other platforms will follow – the question is less whether but when and how exactly. Bringing enso to Teams was actually something we were considering to do next but now have to re-evaluate. Nevertheless, we are happy that we were and are in the right place at the right time. More than half a year earlier.
enso not only provides for attention, he also attracted quite some in professional circles. He got recognized with precious metal at several awardshows. There was gold and silver, but we were particularly pleased with bronze at the Lovies. Connected with it: the invitation to give a 7-word speech. The result: perhaps the first acceptance speech, which is also a meditation ... with the thinkers and makers behind our little friend.
Perhaps even more surprising and exciting were the messages that reached us about enso. From San Francisco, Spain and India, for example, came the desire for a feature that enso does not offer at the moment. Currently, only a 1:1 "conversation" with him is possible. The wish: to be able to add him to channels as well. This input was very valuable - we have it on the slip of paper. Just the fact that people from all over the world sit down to share their appreciation and ideas with us is quite magical. Thank you!
Q and A and A and A and A …
Besides enso we also shared our "social undistancing"-tool tscheck.in, which makes our questions for team check-ins and reflections available. It offers perhaps the biggest and most inspiring collection on the web (and also directly in Slack) for these purposes. The effectiveness and necessity of the ritual is confirmed and recommended by every HR, coaching or leadership source since the widespread remote situation. And we can observe the growing popularity of it on our own tool:
So far, check-ins have been done in 127 countries. Most frequently in Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the US. But also in Tajikistan, Mongolia and Zimbabwe, conversations were inspired by it. In April we shared the tool once and since then the number of users is not growing exponentially - but still unstoppable. This month we're breaking 10.000 barrier of active users and we had to change our database plan in order to be able to handle enough parallel database accesses. Through LinkedIn, teams regularly share screenshots of their joint check-in, which is especially nice to see - we are fans! And we stay tuned.
Our conclusion of the interim conclusion:
More exciting than what happened ... is what is still to come in both projects. We will keep you up to date.
