Speed Dating Remix

There are a few givens when you work at 3 Sided Cube. One being that championing for and working on “Tech For Good” is the reason we all love to do what we do. Another is that our fellow colleagues are all the most brilliant and inspiring minds in our industry. And lastly, that we have the most crackin’ agency culture in all the land!

Maybe I’m biased because I work here, but the experience of getting to be a “Cube” is unparalleled with other jobs I’ve held.

It feels like the icing on the cake to love my job this much, and also have so much fun doing it, and all that is down to the people I work with, and the culture that management works so hard to cultivate. That is something that is instantly apparent when you first start here. From the welcome boxes, team lunches and our infamous “Speed Dating App”, the onboarding process immediately gives you a taste of the awesome-ness you are in for here!

And that very speed dating app is what brings me here! I remember that familiar daunting feeling of starting a new job on my first day here, and that app which introduced me to the team with a game of ‘two truths, one lie’, quickly put me at ease and made me feel like I was an instant part of the family from the get-go.

As we all get to work on life-changing technology day in and out, it seemed a very fitting way to onboard new staff by utilising it. So we did what we do best and built an app for it!

It’s pretty straightforward, there’s a picture of someone’s face alongside two facts and one big fat lie, and you must identify said lie during your conversation with that specific Cube to try and suss it out. Which always proves easier said than done, as all of our colleagues are very adept at making their lie unquestioningly believable…a bit worrying how good they are actually?! Then, tap the face to generate someone else to put in the hot seat and start yet another off the wall conversation and unforgettable conversation. The Nube gets a point for each lie they correctly identify and try their hardest to topple the current highest score holder!

What has categorically been an app since its inception, now needed a makeover.

That’s where I come in! To re-vamp our beloved app, and make it more accessible for people to easily hop on as they virtually join the Cube crew. For that to happen, it made the most sense to take our speed dating app and move it onto a web platform. That way we didn’t have Team Ops driving all over the ends of the earth to deliver the device to our Nube! Which is especially handy right now, as we are in the process of recruiting like crazy for a ton of passionate and driven people to join the team and help us fight the good fight at 3 Sided Cube.

With the expected high influx of new teammates to come, I was asked to flex my frontend developer skills and make speed dating an easy peasy part of the virtual onboarding process. 

Challenge accepted!

To pull it from the app, was pretty straight forward. Because it was React Native, we could re-use a lot of the code and logic we could copy over and just tweak slightly. Then it was a case of reworking it a bit for web, as you can’t simply copy the exact same style as React Native.

It took about 2 days in total to get it all switched over and ready to rock. That even included some precious time with creative to jazz it up!

While I’m partial to apps, as we do the majority of our projects on them, I think the new website is a bit more fun for the purpose it is serving. The last time I gave speed dating a make-over it was more of an overhaul to get it off the original iOS format and I needed to learn React Native. 

This new one has cool animations and just feels more fun and like Cube. The beauty of it, is that it’s all set! It doesn’t need tweaking or the dreaded yearly OS upgrade. To update and add new teammates is even easier and more straightforward than ever before! I didn’t have much involvement with the original app, but this is infinitely easier to maintain and doesn’t require a developer to tweak, this is something that pretty much any Cube with access to our Word Press can edit. Music to our busy developer’s ears!

Though this change happened because of the current COVID-19 circumstances, I think that should the glorious day come that we are all reunited back in the office, we won’t go back to the old method with the app. The website is really responsive, and can still be viewed on a mobile, but obviously comes with the undeniable bonus that the user can hop on from any device, in any location! As we are now bringing in Cubies from further afield, and now have the USA agency, this web platform is just another step in 3 Sided Cube world domination!

Now that we have our fancy new speed dating platform all fired up and ready to go, maybe you can experience it for yourself! We are still looking to bring some insanely talented Cubes into the family, so check out if any of our job openings apply to you and get in touch!