Autumn is upon us, and that meant it was time for our October Digital Roundtable event on 20 October. We filled the My Accountancy Place shopping trolley with juice, beer, sweets and nibbles and freewheeled over to Photolink’s HQ at the Old School House, Thirsk St.
As ever, it was a great evening of chat, cooperation and creative insights from the North West’s top digital agencies (a lot of chat in fact…so much so that there wasn’t time for Paul to deliver his planned piece on ‘Sleep Deprivation and The Responsibility of New Parenthood’). Next time, Paul, next time…
So, what were we yabbering about all night?
New ways to manage individual performance in the tech digital sector
We were very lucky to have Roger Longden from There be Giants as our guest speaker this month. Roger brought all of his business coaching and performance expertise to the (round) table, having hotfooted it over from Manchester Metropolitan University where he’d just presented.
Motivation of creative people can be a complex business, and managing a group of highly individual, highly innovative people is a challenge for any agency owner.
For Roger, it’s all about “setting the tone of the culture”, as he put it, and making sure everyone understands the culture and atmosphere of the business. It’s about being transparent and giving your people the space to be themselves and express their viewpoints.
As Mark Stringer from AHOY pointed out, “People can be outspoken as long as there is a degree of respect”. And that respect is central to creating a harmonious team where everyone knows they can voice an opinion, but equally respects the opinions of their colleagues (and even those of the boss!).
Selling the vision
Motivation and direction are both important, as Guy Levine of Return on Digital explained on the night. “Every day, my job is to sell the vision” and that’s a perspective that resonated with a lot of the creative agency owners in the room.
Guy has a novel way of bringing the vision to life for his team. He asked his team what they would buy if they had £1000? Then everyone printed a picture off of their dream purchase and put it on their white board. With these visual reminders on the board, when goals are set the team all have something concrete to aim for – and that’s helped his team really get a handle on what they’re working for.
DNAD and DBA training for digitals
Giving your people free training and development was one performance option that came up in conversation. Roger Longden believes that “the digital creative sector is ahead of peers in other sectors at developing and managing people”, which is great news for the industry. But we felt that you can always do more and that listening to feedback on the types of training people really want gets really good results from people.
Link rewards to the value people bring to the business
Performance Management Systems sound a little scary and ‘management-consultant-ey’, but there’s no reason why you can’t put them to work in an agency set-up.
Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is a popular option for the tech and creative sectors – and one that Google has been using for a while to measure performance of its people.
OKRs very much do what they say on the tin – they’re about setting ambitious objectives for the agency, and measuring the performance and (crucially) the RESULTS that your people deliver against those objectives.
It ties in your team’s goals with those of the agency, and means you’re all working towards a better, more successful, more creative and more profitable business.
Another element of building an amazing team is finding people that are the right fit for your organisation. For agencies – that are usually smaller, close-knit teams – it’s important that the new people you take on work in harmony with the existing team.
Lack of women in digital
One big point that came up was the woeful lack of women in the digital space. Even in 2015, it’s still a very male-dominated sector, even though most agencies have no issue with women in that environment.
What’s difficult is finding the female talent, and none of our Knights of the Roundtable were really sure why this is. Nobody could put their finger on one reason for the male/female imbalance, but we did think its likely there will be change over time as the education pathways develop over time.
Everyone in the room agreed that there no discrimination and that recruitment’s based on ability – and if the ability isn’t there, regardless of gender, then an applicant isn’t the right person for the role or the agency.
Retainer or project work?
Having put the world of performance and people to rights, we went off on a slight tangent to talk about another ‘P’ – this time ‘Pay’.
Daniel of DK Creative brought up the whole issue of whether getting your clients on retainer fees is preferable to project-paid work. That sparked a huge discussion around the Roundtable (no fisticuffs) about which of the two payment options is the best.
As Andy from Photolink Creative put it, “Retainers are never an issue if you have trust and transparency with the client”. And that struck a chord with people. It’s about becoming part of the client’s team and having that trust that you’ll put the ideas and the work in when on a retainer. As Guy from Return on Digital put it, “It’s a Mindshare!”, which we felt really was the quote of the night!
What’s new in the creative industry?
As always, we spent some time talking about what’s new and funky in the creative world. And the new YouTube 360 videos were a big talking point. The general feeling was that a 360 video does look visually amazing but that the audio is still lacking…so more work to do there, YouTube!
Drones also came up (the flying webcam kind, not the new album from Muse). Having an HD camera attached to a drone has given video teams an incredibly flexible way to get aerial shots and fly-bys, giving you the ability to create some stunning visuals…or to make a really great approximation of Guns ‘n’ Roses ‘November Rain’ music video, depending on your viewpoint.
We also noticed an increasing demand for work from property sector clients now that there’s more investment into building and developing property of late. Demand for property is high, and the Roundtable agreed that marketing for property is getting more and more advanced – using things like 360 degree videos and drones to view properties and development sites without having to physically needing to be there with an agent…could your next estate agent be a robot? (we certainly hope so 😉 )
Sign up now for our December Yuletide Roundtable
Phew! We certainly got through a lot in October!! Have a quick breather…
To get in on the action, we’re already planning our December shindig. Christmas is on the horizon, so don’t miss out on a place at our December Yuletide Roundtable event on Thursday 17 December at the Photolink Studios, Old School House, Thirsk, Manchester.
The gift giving doesn’t stop at Digital Round Table! Join our Webinar on Tuesday 2 February to learn How online Accounting gives you back your creative time.
