Why this IT consulting firm took a day off from billable hours

Nerf “snowballs” were flying during a meeting at Mind Over Machines HQ on Friday, and the boss was fully onboard. The fight broke out in the midst of a presentation, but fortunately the client was fictional.

The Owings Mills-based IT consulting firm held its second “Learning Day,” where employees got outside their own department and worked on a CRM (customer relationship management) project for a full workday.
CEO Tom Loveland said the idea for the event is based on similar days organized by big tech companies, like Yahoo’s Hack Days and Google’s 20 Percent Time. Those approaches encourage employees to get out of their comfort zone while still working on products for the company. Since Mind Over Machines is a services firm, it’s a little different. For the most part, Loveland said the firm took the day off from billable hours to focus on personal learning.
The three-person teams were drawn from across departments. Sean Astrakhan referenced one team that was made up of a database devotee, a .NET expert and a ColdFusion aficionado.
“It’s three people who don’t normally work together, and now they’re collaborating on this thing,” he said.