Hi Reader,
Last week I shared an update from the middle of our Create Week hackathon. I'm happy to report that we managed to complete a functioning demo account! Here's our triumphant team in a freeze frame from our presentation video.
Now that presentations are done and I'm back to regular work, I keep thinking about one thing I observed last week:
We got so much done during Create Week because people were leaning into their skills rather than their role as defined by their job title.
Let me explain what I mean.
We recently worked on a video course that had what felt like 8 different people contributing to the script and reviewing lessons after they were edited by a contractor. It took us a long time to ship the course because there were so many rounds of feedback, and with so many stakeholders it took time to find alignment and get contributions and sign-offs from each person.
And all of that happened for a good reason: everyone was being respectful of the area of the business the others are responsible for. Staying in their lane and not stepping on toes.
During Create Week tho, it doesn't really matter what your job description is. What matters is the skillset you're bringing to the project.
Our data analyst was bouncing ideas off the engineers for how to solve problems in the code. Our workshop producer took on directing and editing our presentation video. Our sales rep designed an example landing page for our archetypal creator.
Everyone in our 8-person team saw things that needed to be done that they could apply their skillset to, and they made it happen. They didn't worry about whether or not it was their responsibility or someone else's. And we moved faster because of it.
I'm not sure yet how to bring this insight into our day-to-day work where we do have clear responsibilities and roles. But I'm keen to find ways to encourage folks to step out of their lane and make use of their many varying skills more often. I think if we can figure that out, we'll move a lot faster and likely reach some more interesting solutions.
On the brand side I mostly see this playing out in reaching the first-draft stage quicker. If I can equip the wider team with a solid understanding of our brand and the confidence to take a stab at applying it to various assets via templates or checklists; we might see more folks coming to us with things like "here's an idea I have for how we could market this feature" rather than "here's a feature I need an asset to market".
The goal isn't to abdicate our responsibility as a Brand Studio team, but to harness the creative ideas and wide skillsets of more of our team.
I'll keep you posted on the moves I make next to increase brand education internally in service of this. I have some ideas percolating...
First tho, I need to take a break π
Create Week was wonderful, but exhausting. I'll be on PTO next week so there won't be an email next Wednesday, but I'll be back the one after (maybe with an 'aha' moment to share from the brain space I'll be creating!)
Talk soon,
β
β