Our creative genius minds {/evil_cackle} played a two-fer hand this week by producing a video for our TechCrunch 50 application. The video allowed us to chow down on some good ol’ Market7 kibble which is the only way to truly see if we are doing it right. User surveys and focus groups can never replace some first-hand experience.
The parameters were:
Create a 30-60 second video that summarizes what we do
Try not to embarrass ourselves (this one was the most challenging)
By doing this, we all gain the experience while the TechCrunch Gods get to glimpse behind the curtain to see the people responsible for creating our software. We had about 48 hours to put it all together using only our onsite resources. How did we do? Take a sniff…
We’ve got talent, yes we do, we’ve got talent how ’bout you?
This is for all of you negativisimos out there who might say we are just a bunch of talentless buffoons. I stand up proudly for Market7 and our endless pool of talented creatives. With talent like this, we could easily fall back on an exciting career in entertainment.
What can we say about Brent Bye of Boxwrench media and Ocean Studios …He uses and abuses our product, he brings us users, he offers to talk to investors and customers about his experiences… Almost too good to be true.
I flew on Virgin America Airlines for the first time and realized that our very own Seth Kenvin may not be to dissimilar from Richard Branson.
They do all of the basics right but they don’t try to force every feature on you at once. Instead, they tell you the important stuff but allow you to discover many of the goodies by yourself. On several occasions, I thought “oh, they do that too? How cool is that?”.
This is very much the approach we take with Market7. A small, unintimidating pond that any user can immediately dive into for video project management. Underneath the surface, however, the pond is infinitely deep to offer producers the depth and breadth of functions they demand.
Where does the super-duper brain trust of Market7 meet to plan their ultra-secret, world-domination strategy? At Bechelli’s in the Marina, San Francisco of course!
Eating your own dog food is sometimes a humbling one. (Here is your opportunity to see me in a dress). We started our first Full Market7 production by writing a ridiculous script revolving around items we happened to have in the office. Seth and I collaborated without communicating directly (which, frankly, is fine by me), relying only on our Market7 tools to collaborate on the script.
Production wrapped last week and the process of using the annotative player to review and comment on the video has begun. Here is some behind the scenes stuff to tide you over.
We needed a way to talk directly with our customers that was better than saving emails describing bugs they encountered or features they want to encounter. Our solution was Get Satisfaction, a place where anyone can go and “talk” about their favorite product. (”talk” includes complaints, ideas, requests, and props)
We love our Get Satisfaction. We are using it to interface directly with our customers. It’s my favorite price: free (though I suspect they will want some money from us at some point). We have already implemented a change to our software based on feedback from one of our customers via the site. (Side note, the GS team was EXTREMELY helpful in assisting in our setup)
On Monday at SxSW I watched Bryan Mason and Sarah Nelson from Adaptive Path discuss the 10 tips for managing in a creative environment. This post focuses only on two tips. Don’t worry, At the end of this, I will list the other eight tips for those of you who absolutely MUST look under the bandage.
What I love about the adaptive path research was how they took a cross disciplinary slice. They spent time studying diverse, creative groups including restaurants, theater troupes, and professional writers among others.
Tip #1: Actively turn the corner
This diagram is of the creative process:
The first half of creating anything involves a divergence of ideas. You start with a single idea and then everyone starts throwing in different ideas that diverge from the original. No idea is eliminated at this stage and often experiments and mini-models are created. Then you turn the corner. At some explicitly defined point, you stop taking in new ideas and start converging towards a single point by eliminating what is unnecessary. This reduces scope creep, release slippage and the dreaded moving target. Eliminated ideas aren’t trashed, simply put into a “future creation/release” bucket.
Tip #2: Kill your darlings
Eliminate the ideas you LOVE that don’t get you closer to the goal first. Don’t eliminate the low hanging fruit or easy choices first. Choose instead to go after eliminating the tough choices from the beginning. By biting the bullet and eliminating the difficult choices first, the low-hanging fruit (those ideas to which you are not attached) becomes easy.
The eight other tips:
3. Cross-train the entire team
4. Rotate leadership
5. Know your roles
6. Practice, practice practice
7. Make the mission explicit to the entire team
8. Leadership is a service
9. Generate the creative projects around the group’s interests
10. Remember the audience
BONUS: Celebrate Failure (after all, it’s part of the creative process)
I must post today. There will not be another February 29 post on the Market7 blog until 2012 at the earliest. I’m reclining on the floor, computer on my lap, staring up at halftime report of Golden State Warriors vs. Philadelphia 76ers.
Not sure what I should write about this Leap day. The Warriors? They just had a beautiful half, connecting on 28 of 47 shot attempts, and passing for assists on 21 of those 28 baskets.
I do sometimes consider similarities between the Warriors and Market7. Really.
The captains of the Warriors are Matt Barnes who drifted through something like six NBA franchises before settling in at the team’s training camp before last season, Baron Davis who was considered damaged goods from frequent injuries before being traded to the Ws two years ago, and Stephen Jackson who had a few occasions of news-making, startlingly bad behavior before his trade to Golden State last year.
I don’t mean to imply that any of myself, Curtis, Pat or Shannon were mediocre contributors to our prior organizations or delinquents. But like the Dubs and their captains, I like thinking we’re an eclectic crew particularly able to thrive in our loose culture with enjoyment of each other’s distinctive personality.
One other business analogy from basketball. It’s a unique sport in that each player can make each kind of play. In football an offensive lineman can’t catch a pass (unless specially designated “eligible” before the play) and in baseball a centerfielder pretty much never assists on a groundout, but in hoops a point guard can block a shot and a big man can sink a three pointer.
Earlier today, I had a meeting in which someone pointed out my relishing of our building a versatile team, each member a contributor across aspects of our business. Go Warriors.
I am amazed by how fast things are happening for Market7. My prior company makes routers for cable and telecom operators which required years of engineering and qualification and mind-numbing progression through various other obstacles encountered before we had our customers using our work. This go-round, it seems our time is now.
Two video.market7.com modules are pretty much ready to be used. One focuses on preparation of materials for a video shoot, including some of the scripting concepts Shannon’s included in blogposts. The other relates to the review of footage and management of the editorial / post-production processes. It’s the source of the screen shot on our home page. We are ready for professional producers to try these modules in cooperation with actual clients to execute real-world projects.
We’re fortunate in the influence we’ve received getting where we are. This now extends through direct interaction with our own users. Will you have a project over the next couple of months which could use a better approach to working together on writing a script and planning how to shoot it? or to reaching consensus on what’s the best footage and how it should transform to final deliverable? Do you promise to talk to us about your experience during and afterwards? Please let us know – you can reach us via the contact info on the right of this page (scroll down a little), or indicate your interest in the comments & questions part at the bottom of our feedback form. We look forward to it.
