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

This week has been busier than most as Chris and I prepare to head up to New York next week for the Web 2.0 Expo. While we’re  both looking forward to the keynotes from speakers such as Anil Dash and Caterina Fake, we’re really excited to get to spend some time on the Expo floor seeing what new and intersting things technology businesses are doing.  It’s easy to get caught up in the immediacy of day to day tasks and getting to attend a conference like this is a great way to get our creative juices flowing and find ways to inject more value for our clients.

The other reason for our trip is to meet one of our newest clients who happens to be based out of New York and get to know them better. Establishing strong personal and professional relationships with each and every one of our clients is an ongoing goal for Flatsourcing, so if you are going to be in New York, whether for the conference or something else, and would like to catch up with us, just drop us a line, we’d love to get to know you regardless of whether you are a client or not.

We’re hitting the road in 2010, and we want to meet you.  If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you know that I’m planning a conference here in New Orleans next week called TribeCon.  It’s a conference about harnessing online communities to drive offline actions for brands, causes and movements.

Since conference planning is on my brain, I wanted to share our upcoming calendar and invite you to connect with us:

We hope to meet you at these conferences.  Please contact us if you are interested in arranging a meeting!