Becky

Trendsights: Geeking Out

As I mentioned the other day, towards the end of this month SourceCode is launching a report on the future of work and culture. Keep an eye out for it; in the meantime, I’ve been thinking a lot about an issue our study brings up: The absolute importance of geeking out in today’s workplace.

How does this call to be a nerd go beyond generic “follow your passion” career advice? If I hire a social media manager, I’m looking for someone who had TikTok before it was cool. I want someone who will share good memes on the company Slack, not someone who thinks an “engaging” tweet is self-promotion and a string of tired hashtags. When I’m contracting a designer, I hope they have a favorite font and I’m unlikely to hire a copywriter who doesn’t read. 

When you visit SourceCode’s website, you’ll see that we talk a lot about telling stories. Public relations is a creative industry: Each and every client has its own unique story, and what works for one client may not serve another. So we hash out ideas, debate proposals, and come up with several potential narratives for each client. We geek out, we try unlikely ideas, and we take risks. It’s messy, it’s chaotic, and it’s the only way to do things.

If your idea of efficiency is an assembly line, the SourceCode offices (or, these days, the SourceCode slack and the SourceCode Zoom meetings) might scandalize you. When my team is playing with ideas, when we’re imagining new campaigns or developing new messages, we’re having fun, but we’re getting our jobs done too. Creative work needs intellectual freedom.

We’ll never entirely eliminate grind and crunch and tedium, but I firmly believe that good work in a knowledge economy is also fun work. If you’re leaving your passion at the door, you’ve come to the wrong office. 

by Becky

Trendsights: Improvisation and Competence

Later this month, Source Code will be publishing a report on work and life in the twenty-first century. I can’t wait to share the final report with you, and so I wanted to share some of the thoughts it’s set stirring in my head.

In 2020, everyone is on call every day.  

For communications professionals, speed is of the essence, and a nine-to-five schedule is ancient history. Because businesses operate across borders and time zones, my client’s morning may be my five o’clock; when I check my email over my morning coffee, I hope that no crises have sprung up overnight.

With life and work coming at us all so fast, the natural inclination is to respond equally speedily. “Move fast and break things” was an internal motto at Facebook, and if we consider nothing but Facebook’s monetary value, it seems like a wise strategy. If we look at Facebook’s effect on the world at large though, we notice that many of the things broken while Facebook execs were moving fast have not yet been fixed. And we are all facing unanticipated consequences as a result. 

My colleagues at SourceCode are experts at speed, at working on the fly, and at improvisation. They have to be. But speed for speed’s sake helps no one, and so I find myself counseling younger colleagues to give things a little extra time, because not everything is an emergency. Doing things right — polishing a statement, punching up a press release, researching a journalist you’re pitching — takes more time but delivers better results. Some circumstances require instant action; others do not. Distinguishing between these types of situations is an essential skill in today’s workplace.

How do you balance our rapid-response environment with attention to detail? How do you assess project urgency when you’re always online and on call? 

by Becky

How COVID spotlighted a move to a shared services model

In our new work-from-home world, your workplace is wherever you happen to be. Offices are an increasingly distant memory, and many of us expect to be logging into work well into 2021. We’ve all made our individual arrangements and developed our personal rituals, so you might be surprised to hear me make the case for standardizing business ops with a shared services model. 

Without a proper shared services model, daily operations can be chaotic. Now I won’t deny that sometimes a little chaos is productive, and even fun, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. No, I’m talking about proliferating inefficiencies and inconsistencies. Why does one team use one tool, a second use another, and the satellite office use a third?

What you want — and what I think my SourceCode colleagues have accomplished — is to create systems that let us devote more time to our actual jobs. We can work the same hours and accomplish more. Because we have internal consensus on little issues like workflow, I have more time to think about the big challenges and bigger opportunities fast approaching this industry.

At SourceCode, we’ve been fortunate in the shift to remote. With our shared services system, I talk with colleagues just as much as I ever did, but the content of our conversations is better. We talk about ideas and inspirations, not who is in charge of Process X or what tool we use for Task Y. It’s better for our team and for our clients.

Five months in, how have organization’s systems accommodated to the new world? How has collaboration changed, and what lessons will you take back to the office when you can go back?

by Becky

How Movements Build Community

Solidarity isn’t a strategy. Let me explain.

Across the United States and around the world, businesses have been proclaiming that Black Lives Matter, that they stand with the Black community and against racism. Like many others, I find these messages of solidarity heartening. For one thing, they normalize antiracism, even at the risk of alienating bigoted customers. For another, some institutions have pledged money or services to Black Lives Matter and other antiracist causes.

But saying the right things can’t be the end of the change we’re seeing: We need businesses to do the right things for the right reasons and to keep doing them even when the spotlight has shifted to the next big thing. Consumers are increasingly informed, able to spot the insincerity and make their opinions felt via how and where they spend their dollars. We’ve been talking about purpose with clients for years, but it feels like there has been a shift in consumer perception — what and who we stand for is becoming part of our corporate brand and we will be judged by it.

We’ve seen big-name brands and major multinationals make good statements and take positive actions, but we must remember that community begins on the ground and extends beyond the Fortune 500.

In recent months I’ve been most impressed with small businesses. Just today, I learned about a new bookstore in a small city that, with its customers, had raised $2000 for antiracism research and education. The money raised might be small in absolute terms, but proportionately it represents a real sacrifice and effort on the part of the proprietors. When they say they stand with the Black community, I believe them.

When a major corporation takes out an ad or pushes out a press release, it can feel a little bit distant. We may wear Nike shoes or watch Disney movies, but most of us don’t know or interact with representatives of those companies. When your independent neighborhood coffee shop or the mom-and-pop pizza shop you frequent says something, it often carries more weight.

If you own or run a business, you should absolutely make a statement affirming your principles and committing to action. If you’re not in charge, consider ways that you can work for change from within your organization. Just remember that words are the beginning of the process, not the end. Community and solidarity aren’t window dressing.

To view the original post and conversation on LinkedIn, please click here.

by Becky