Today I started on the rough drafts for the new email flow I am going to be working on. There are going to be four emails strategically sent throughout the website process. They'll be after the website launches, when the wireframe process is done, after the web development, and finally after they Quality Assurance step. Today I made rough drafts for the first two, the team wanted them to have a space theme so I made a space adventure theme for the headers and footers of each email, I made them all in Canva and used a template on Beefree.io to create the rest of the emails. I can't include the entire email, but below are the space themed headers and footers for the first two emails.
Here are two photos in the office today, one of me with the date, and the other is of one of the office dogs, Fin.
April 10th
What I did today: I attached the headers and footers of the emails I finished today. All four rough drafts are done and now I need to have a meeting with the owner to make sure it matches up with his vision.
This is Poodle, she likes to walk on the conference room table during meetings.
April 11th
What I did today: Problem-solving for the ever-changing experience of social media: it sucks. We had a problem today; I needed to help out with social media cover images primarily on Facebook. Facebook changed their dimensions for their mobile headers causing every picture to look poorly cropped. My job was to fix each one. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of myself at the office today, and I'm going to blame Zuckerberg.
Here's a picture of fin, this is much better then a tired looking picture of me anyway.
April 12th
What I did today: I had a meeting with Michael, one of the co-owners about the emails I have been making. He gave me some helpful critique and steered me in a different direction. Instead of the prominent space theme, he wanted it to be more subtle and a badge system instead. Attached below is the blueprint of his idea that he made for me during our meeting. Using the copy I wrote for the previous drafts, I was able to finish the new versions relatively quickly. The only thing I struggled with was incorporating "a human element" into the emails. I ended up adding a "meet ______" banner at the bottom of each email with a different staff member.
Analysis/ reflection on the business plan/model
W is a unique machine. It is a dental marketing agency in Point Loma. The staff does everything from website building to maintaining client's social media. The week I was at the office, both bosses were out due to their trip to Toyoko, but despite this, the office ran on without a hitch. People knew what they had to do because of the project manager "Wrike" and various sticky note walls they use to understand where clients are in the website process visually. The team is always working together and bouncing ideas off one another. There are about twelve in office staff, and two remote people who work from Chicago and New York who video chat into meetings and the team here in Point Loma are always contacting. My favorite part of the office is the laidback atmosphere and the "always down for anything" staff members. There are office dogs who come in every day who belong to the staff members; the documentary "Life" is regularly playing on the TV in the conference room, and there are couches stationed around the office. W bought another company called "Merger Labs" last quarter, it is a business that is "Digital Marketing for Deal Makers." They've had to divide their resources between both companies to accommodate for the new clients. Because of this, the company is in need of more staff under challenging positions such as SEO Managers and Copy Writers. Despite this, the staff members continue to chug on without complaint despite doing the work of two people each. The company is growing at an alarming rate, in just one year ten people were hired and to combat the ninety-five clients. My fear for the company is they're growing too fast and won't be able to sustain themselves later down the road. Something else I noticed, was how much everyone cares about each other. People continuously check in with one another and hang out after work and on the weekends. They have a group chat to post memes in and share funny stories. Everyone is included and their arent any major personality clashes. The vacation policy is loose, as long as all your work is done or covered, you can have a couple of days off. One of the staff members who was hired a year ago mentioned this summer he is taking his first vacation in five years because the company is so generous with their policy, he feels like they genuinely care about his mental health and safety. I can't imagine a workplace that didn't allow vacation days and treated their staff as of they were a machine. Michael is a great boss and mentor, one thing that I noticed was his project approach. When a staff member has a new project he wants them to conquer, he gives them little instruction to see what they come up with, but the entire time Michael knows what he wants. I understand this approach; he wants his staff to be creative and able to problem-solve. But when the team member comes back to Michael with their work, he guides them to his original idea. Each department in W functions both within itself and within other flows. For example, the copywriters get their assignments and work on them individually, but after they're done, they sit down with the content managers to make sure they're quality, before adding them to the website. Like I said, a machine, and it has to be, with this many clients and now a second company, there is not a second to waste or a moment of non-productivity. Every action needs to be well oiled to meet goals and function as a team, and I believe that at this moment in time, they are doing a great job.
A post- reflective piece
My week at W was filled with comfy chairs, dogs, and some laid back people. The month of April the office is trying to get a collective four million steps, and they invited me to help them. My highlight of every day was the "Walk Clubs" they would invite me on to break up the workload and try to reach their goal. The office environment is designed to be comfortable due to its plethora of couches, comfy chairs, and blankets scattered around. At any given time there is a dog in the office, the owner's dogs are all certified therapy dogs, two staff members have chocolate labs they often bring in, and there is also a Boston terrier who joins us a couple of times a week. They are all calming and very sweet, I believe that every environment like this should have a similar program. There is an incredible amount of benefits to therapy dogs such as lowered blood presser and endorphin releases unless there is an allergy, I can't see why dogs wouldn't be allowed. The best part of my week was the people. Everyone here is incredibly supportive of one another and goes out of their way to help solve problems even if they have nothing to do with them. The Co-owners have put a lot of work into making sure the environment is this welcoming and unfortunately had to weed out personalities that disrupted the office vibe. I got the opportunity to sit in on an interview this past week, and it wasn't surprising that there were as many questions about personality as experience. Michael isn't looking for specifics; he understands that any skill can be taught in the office. He told me that they prefer someone who is just getting out of college to someone who has been in the field for 10+ years, Michael wants someone who he can mold into the position he wants. I also assume this is for financial reasons. This last week I helped two departments, Social and Content Management. The emails I was making were part of Content Management; I was working with a team member named Paul through the process. His job is to support the web development team and make the process as smooth as possible. I also worked with the social team on Wednesday when I helped create new social media headers because of the new facebook dimensions. I worked with Chi and Chris, Chi focuses on day to day posting, and Chris boosts clients posts and does video work. My week here has been pretty good, I've gotten help every time I needed it and expanded myself creatively and improved my artistic aesthetic. I got to help more than one department and take part in putting out fires. I learned a lot this week, and I know I will continue to keep in contact with the fantastic people here, I'm already Facebook friends with a majority of the office. I had the best possible week.