Aug 27, 2020

Keep Doing It Anyway 👍 #165

By Ross Chapman • Issue #165 • View online

Hi everyone,

Shipping this issue a little later than usual. I ran my Mural Remote Design Sprint workshop these past few days. Great to get sharing and for me, a lot of learning. Attendees rated it 9/10! Moreover, deadlines like these help me deliver.

At Etch, we’ve been working on next year’s strategy and setting targets. In the past two years, I’ve been working towards 25% growth. This coming year, my target is 130% growth. Yes, go big or go home. Confidence is high.

What is pleasing to see, is an increase in conflict in our discussions and decisions. It is by no way a negative.

I don’t think anyone ever gets completely used to conflict. If it’s not a little uncomfortable, then it’s not real. The key is to keep doing it anyway.

Patrick Lencioni, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, shared this on LinkedIn earlier this week.

That last point is key: Keep doing it anyway.

I’ve experienced this in a number of ways. In the design thinking work I’ve done with businesses, we run design sprints. A framework that you stick to, you keep going, you rely upon.

I’ve also found this in metrics. Decide quickly what you want to learn, start measuring, and after a while, delve into what insights are coming out. Are we discovering things? Are we measuring the right thing?

Do. Just do. The act of doing will help you understand how you can do better. As Gary Vaynerchuk would say: “Execution is the game!”

Thank you for reading this issue,

thanks, Ross

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Growth 📈

How Brands Like Google, Twitch, and Sephora Built Brand Communities — and How You Can, Too

Learn how Google, Twitch, and Sephora implement authentic community-building strategies, and how your own company can, too.

blog.hubspot.com • Share

MURAL Closes $118M For Visual Collaboration Tool

MURAL has tripled annual revenue year over year, doubled headcount, and added more than a million monthly active users around the world so far this year. Enterprises such as IBM, Autodesk, Intuit, GitHub, and Atlassian each have up to tens of thousands of MURAL members collaborating with the product each month. So happy to be supporting this business!

news.crunchbase.com • Share

The Power of Working Cross-Departmentally as a User Researcher

Want to widen your UXR impact? Make friends with folks in new departments.

dscout.com • Share

Leadership 👩‍💻

Co-founders Steven Bartlett and Dominic McGregor to leave Social Chain

Steven Bartlett and Dominic McGregor are to leave Social Chain, six years after co-founding the Manchester-based social media publishing and marketing company that has since grown to over 750 staff and revenues forecast to hit $200million this year. Loved seeing this business being built in the past few years.

www.prolificnorth.co.uk • Share

REI is going remote and selling its corporate headquarters

REI Co-op plans to sell its newly completed corporate campus in Bellevue, WA. Instead of the central location, the co-op will embrace a new HQ set-up of multiple satellite campuses and “lean into remote working as an engrained, supported and normalized model.” Don’t concern yourself in making the right moves.

retailwire.com • Share

How to Lead a Remote Design Sprint

Learn how a Spotify design sprint stayed focused and on track—even during a global pandemic.

spotify.design • Share

Tech & Innovation ⚡️

The Future of Design

Designing a 3D product? Design IN 3D. SpaceX is exploring methods for engineers to accelerate their workflow by designing more directly in 3D.

I like seeing Elon teach!

www.youtube.com • Share

Remote Product #12: Design systems and remote product design collaboration

I’m talking about product design collaboration in October. Join me then!

www.meetup.com • Share

Why investing in digital matters at all stages of growth

Sustainability, Technology, Retail, Wellbeing and Fintech predicted to thrive globally post the pandemic Due diligence, getting investor ready, creating brand playbooks for launch, content marketing programmes to engage new audiences in new territories with new products.

www.linkedin.com • Share

Coolness 😎

“A jack of all trades and a master of one”: What is the ideal skill set to balance in a creative team?

My take? You can do most things on your own now. Need a graphic? Go to Canva. Need to write words? Practice through doing. Want to be a better facilitator? Start a weekly public webinar. It’s easier than ever to learn, but your hurdle may be yourself!

www.itsnicethat.com • Share