An Organizer, An Observer, And An Idea Director Walk Into A Virtual Bar...
Just this month our crack developer team added some exciting new functionality to the Ideasicle X platform. If you haven’t heard, customers told us they wanted a division of labor with the implementation of idea jobs, as follows:
Organizer: sets up the idea jobs
Idea Director: monitors the team’s ideas within the Idea Stream
Observers: can view the Idea Streams but can’t engage with the teams in any way
Today, I want to share a deeper dive on these roles, what to expect, and how each can add as much value as possible to the idea-generating process.
The Organizer has the power.
The Organizer owns the Command Center, our name for the Ideasicle X dashboard. With this Command Center, the Organizer can click through to any live jobs (they can have an unlimited number of jobs going at a time), archive jobs, keep track of total freelancer spending, and start new jobs. The Organizer can even upgrade to a “Master Command Center” (free) and dole out new Command Centers to others in the organization using their same billing set up.
With new idea jobs, the Organizer sets the timing, sets the freelance budget (if any), recruits the team within the platform, uploads the video/pdf brief docs, finalizes the team, and then after the job is over pays the team. You can see why agencies didn’t want creative directors doing all that (ha ha).
Now, the Organizer has full permissions on the Idea Stream and can closely monitor the team’s progress. He or she can read the ideas as they are posted, post comments, builds, and/or course correct as needed. Organizers do not have to invite Idea Directors or Observers to monitor the jobs, in other words.
But now they can if they want.
Organizers can simply be the “project manager” of the Ideasicle X platform and be responsible for inviting the appropriate Idea Directors to monitor the jobs and any Observers who have a vested interest in those jobs.
PRO TIP: If an Organizer invites an Idea Director, the Organizer should take a back seat on that job and let the Idea Director monitor it so the team is hearing feedback from one voice.
Observers are invisible.
Observers are helpful to invite when the Organizer wants a colleague (a boss, a strategist or a lead account person) to be able to follow along with the idea generation, but not engage with the team. The reason we do it this way is that we’ve found that when there are too many people on a job’s Idea Stream, the team tends to clam up and feel as though they are on stage. And fear is creativity’s kryptonite.
Up to three Observers are allowed on any given job, but the team will not even know they are there. Only the presence of the Idea Director or the Organizer will be overtly known.
PRO TIP: If an Observer sees something great on the Idea Stream that the Idea Director hasn’t commented on, send the Idea Director a quick email separately to call attention to it. The Idea Director may have missed it, and it’s understandable, as you can expect 30-50 new ideas posted within just a few days on one Idea Stream.
Idea Directors provide energy and direction.
All creative people like to get feedback on their ideas. They want to know if their client likes it, loves it, hates it, or whatever. There’s nothing worse than throwing out ideas into a void. So one major role of the Idea Director is to provide feedback. Your feedback will energize the team because they’ll know you’re paying attention.
Unlike traditional freelance, where you brief a team of two on a Monday and don’t see their thinking until Thursday, all the while praying to God that they have work that is on strategy, with Ideasicle X you can see the team (of four, not two) and their ideas as they are posted. You will get an email when anyone on the team posts an idea or a build and that email will include a blurb from the idea and a link straight to the post. In this way, you have complete, full-time visibility into their creative process, and can influence the outcome if the team goes astray.
For example, you may see an idea that you know is off tonally and your client would never buy. So you say something like, “That’s a great idea, but this client may not have the stomach for it exactly as stated. But if we do X and Y then it could work great.” So you state the issue and then provide a potential fix. Nine times out of ten your team will build upon your direction and make it even better.
PRO TIP: Idea Directors should not be afraid to post their own ideas. Seriously, your ideas will indicate to the team what you’re looking for, but will also hopefully inspire the team in some way. Either in their builds on your idea, or in new ideas altogether.
Whomever monitors the job must know the brief.
Lastly, it’s super important that whomever the Idea Director is, be it the Organizer or someone invited into the job, that he or she be intimately aware of the creative brief materials. Make sure they have read the creative brief AND seen the video. Better yet, have the Idea Director create the video so they can start their idea directing and setting the stage from the get-go. Otherwise, the team will be following one strategy and the Idea Director another and nothing good will come of that.
Hope this new functionality helps. Please let us know your experience so we can continue to improve this little idea generating machine we call Ideasicle X.
Click here to email me and request a platform demo over Zoom.
Will Burns is the Founder & CEO of Ideasicle X. Email him at willb@ideasiclex.com or follow on Twitter @WillOBurns.