It’s getting a bit late to reflect on 2014 and definitely time to focus on 2015, but I am still in awe of what Phase2 has accomplished over the past 12 months. Therefore, I’d like to take a moment not only to reflect on that, but to thank the amazing clients and team members who made it possible.

Starting with a Plan

We began the year by setting the bar high, calling for 50% staff growth and 40% revenue growth in our strategic plan – which I am thrilled to say we exceeded on both counts. In that plan, we set a vision to end 2014 with a best-in-class team, balanced in their skillsets and workloads, and to deliver on a diversified portfolio of offerings for influential clients. We wanted our work to be known equally for its creative approach and its proven professional methodology for technical implementation.

Equally important, we aimed to maintain the culture of an authentic, pragmatic, and adaptive company with less friction, less drama, and less confusion than the prior year… While I can’t say we successfully eliminated all of the drama, we made a valiant effort!

Growing the Team

2014 was a year of significant growth for Phase2. We kicked off the first quarter by hiring the guys formerly known as SuperStar Media, establishing a strong Portland presence and team. In February, we announced a new Executive Team Realignment which included the recruitment of our former client and Reuters CTO Tom Tague to be our COO. Q4 started with another mass hiring in Portland with the former OpenSourcery team, an addition which corresponded perfectly with our expansion into a new Portland office.

In total, we welcomed 65 amazing team members to the Phase2 family between our offices in DC, New York, Portland, and San Francisco (and of course our remote team working throughout the US), bringing our total to 135! This year’s new hires have brought more diversity and renewal to our culture. We are lucky to have such a dedicated (and fun!) team.

In April, our annual “Company Days” event allowed for an amazing showing of company talent with our own mini “TEDx” event and “ShipIt Days.” Company Days let us celebrate our passions, talents, knowledge, and ultimately Phase2’s true geekiness. Company Days left us all exhausted, energized, and inspired.

Open Source Partnerships

Also in April, several Phase2 team members headed to San Francisco to attend the Red Hat Summit, where Phase2 exhibited as an Advanced OpenShift Partner. Later in the year we were celebrating the combined efforts of a Red Hat/Phase2 team as Redhat.com launched. Working closely with Red Hat teams was truly one of the more rewarding parts of 2014, a classic open source story of collaboration.

Evolving our Open Source Products

Our dedication to bringing open source to government advanced with the introduction of OpenPublic 1.0, the culmination of three years of work to produce an out-of-the-box CMS solution for public sector organizations. It was made available as an offering on the GSA Schedule in partnership with Carahsoft and Acquia and is being successfully implemented by both state and local customers, including the State of North Carolina and the County of San Mateo. In the federal government, we began work to implement OpenPublic for the Department of Interior and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Throughout the year, we remained committed to making Open Atrium the premier open source collaboration tool. We launched five major versions and made significant improvements on workflow, UI, installation, and “blueprint” functionality. We worked on implementations for Hughes Networks, the World Bank and the Stowers Institute, among others. Open Atrium now competes openly with SharePoint for enterprise social collaboration implementations worldwide.

Creating Interactive Experiences

Some of our most exciting work in 2014 revolved around creating leading-edge interactive experiences. In partnership with Harvard Business School’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, we developed Clustermapping.us, a tool which provides detailed data visualizations on regional concentrations of related industries, or “clusters.” Other similar projects included a D3-based interactive map for Bonnier Corporation and an in-house storybuilding tool for both UCSF and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Serving Mission-Based Organizations & Businesses

Our commitment to providing open solutions for non-profit organizations has not wavered. I want to thank all of the new non-profit clients that became our trusted partners this year, including the United Nations, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Americorps, the Institute of International Finance, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and Teach For America.

The majority of our work this year was done in partnership with industry-leading commercial clients. Some great projects include RedHat.com, the creation and launch of the NBA’s new league-wide team platform in partnership with Turner Sports, and a mobile application for Bassmaster. Meanwhile, we continued to work with influential organizations in the digital publishing space, including NBC Universal, Taunton Press, Al Jazeera, and Time, Inc. – each of which is pushing the envelope within the media industry for open source platform building.

Continued Commitment to Drupal

Within the Drupal community, we continue to contribute modules, patches, distributions, and ideas. We gave talks, trainings, and workshops at 12 major Drupal events. In June, 34 of us descended on Drupalcon Austin. The same week, Acquia honored us with two partner awards for best Mobile and Media sites for Pac12 Networks and The Department of Energy, respectively.

Where We Ended Up

By all measures 2014 was an unprecedented success for Phase2. We exceeded our own expectations and revelled in new experiences and success with our clients. We are extremely thankful for those organizations that continue to trust us to collaborate on some of the most trusted websites in the world.

There is no doubt that 2015 will bring new challenges and new opportunities as we strive to deliver on our vision: to change what the world’s most influential organizations can achieve using open technology.

Happy New Year!