In our 13 years of business, our team has probably been asked about our name as often as we’ve been asked about our vast array of Yardi services and solutions. As it turns out, the origin of the 33Floors name is both a bit random and incredibly indicative of the approach to business we’ve followed since our inception.
Just prior to our official launch as 33Floors, founders Bob Horn and David Burberry and Associate Director Colleen Carey joined forces on the massive task of upgrading commercial real estate behemoth Cushman & Wakefield from Yardi Voyager 5 to Voyager 6. This meant traveling around the world to teach Cushman & Wakefield employees how to use the system. Now, learning a new and complicated software platform is probably no one’s idea of a great time, so the team really focused on creating an engaging environment that kept people’s attention while giving them the hands-on experience they’d need to succeed.
Each training session included roughly 10 to 15 Cushman & Wakefield employees, with the first half of the period devoted to classroom instruction. During the second part of the session, we would invite participants to engage with Yardi Voyager, tasking them to navigate a series of exercises, including adding a lease, processing transactions, and so on.
To execute the hands-on portion of the instruction, we created a demonstration building that included — you guessed it — 33 floors. That number of levels ensured that a full class of 15 participants would each get two floors’ worth of space for their exercises, with a few floors left over for the teacher’s instruction. During the interactive session, our team also displayed a stacking plan of the faux 33-story building. If the level’s exercises had been completed correctly, the floor would turn green in the stacking plan. If there was an error, the floor would turn red in the diagram and need to be corrected. You can imagine how quickly folks started to pay attention and work hard to get their floor to turn green. In short, we were gamifying the training process, although the term “gamification” was barely used at the time.
This approach to training worked so well to keep people engaged in what can be a tedious subject that creating a 33-floor demonstration building became our standard for every Cushman & Wakefield training session for over a year. In fact, 33-story structures still pop up in our training approach today: Our DataFreedom team often creates scavenger hunt scenarios using a sample 33-floor building. Coincidentally, we’ve also had a surprising number of clients whose offices sit on the 33rd floor of their buildings over the years. So, it seems it was simply meant to be.
Other interesting facts about the number 33:
- In numerology, 33 is a master number, meaning it possesses more power and influence.
- The number 33 often symbolizes creativity, compassion and guidance.
- The human spine has 33 vertebrae.
- On the Newton scale, water begins to boil at 33 degrees.
- Every bottle of Rolling Rock beer is stamped with the number 33.
- Groundhog Day is the 33rd day of the year.
- Club 33 is the name of the private club found in many Disney Parks, including the original Disneyland location at 33 Royal Street in the park’s New Orleans Square.
- The longest game in professional baseball history was a Triple A International League game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings. It lasted 33 innings.
- The extra point after a touchdown in NFL football requires a successful 33-yard kick.
- The Indianapolis 500 auto race has included a 33-car field every year since 1912.
- The longest winning streak in NBA basketball is the 33 games won by the LA Lakers during their 1971-72 season.
At 33Floors, we’re constantly looking for ways to deliver innovative Yardi solutions and improve the client experience, whether that’s making each training more engaging, each implementation more efficient, or each support call more effective. It’s simply part of our DNA and a perfect complement to our mission of delivering expertise and innovation to Yardi users around the world.
