As all of our clients know, Flatsourcing is a 50/50 partnership between the U.S. side and the Russian side. With one office in New Orleans, the other in Kazan, and clients spread across the globe, we understand how important open communication is. We strive to find opportunities to take our online communication offline at least once or twice a year so that we continue to strengthen the bonds we have built over the last 4 years.

On February 22nd, Chris and I hopped a flight to Miami for Future of Web Apps 2010 and to meet up with our colleague Alex Mamaev. After an inspiring day of presentations on topics that ranged from deeply technical to highly entrepreneurial (for more check out Chris’s take on some of the presentations), we headed back to New Orleans with Alex. In the almost two weeks Alex was here in New Orleans with us, we were able to dive deeper into some of the structural issues of Flatsourcing and better understand as managers our current opportunities and challenges.

That’s to be expected and was incredibly useful, but what’s even more invigorating about these times we get to spend together is the chance to get to know each other on a more personal level. As was the case during our trip to Kazan last May, getting to see the day to day of each others work environment and lives outside the office builds an even stronger bond between all of us. The opportunity to see the office environment we have here at Launchpad New Orleans, meet the people we work around each day, as well as our friends and families gives Alex an insight into the US side of the Flatsourcing operation that is critical to our long term success.

One of the topics we closed out with was scheduling the next visit Chris and I will make to our office in Kazan for late-summer or early-fall of 2010. Last year we were lucky enough to have two of our current clients join us for the trip and we would like to extend that invitation again this year. If you’re interested in meeting the team that makes up Flatsourcing and see what makes us special, let me know and we’ll keep you up-to-date on the planning.

On a side note, Alex is also a terrific photographer, so be sure to check out his photo stream from the trip.

New Orleans City Park by Alex Mamaev