Launching our internal Creativity & Innovation education series: In_Flux

As a fast-growing branding and digital products agency, innovation is - no surprise - of paramount importance to us all.  If you’re not innovating, you’re stagnating, right? The clients we work with bring us exciting, complex briefs and it’s our job to bring those to life, so naturally, professional development and knowledge sharing is a big part of our internal culture here at Show+Tell. 

With that in mind, we recently launched our internal education series, In_Flux.  It’s a series of monthly events where we focus on the things our people need to know, with an emphasis on sharing insights and experience across the team to help everyone be better at and more informed about what we deliver as an agency.  We’re always striving to be the best, after all, so we’re committed to ongoing learning and development which, let’s face it, is good for everyone. 

Tim Inggall, Digital Project Manager, and Aoife Robinson, Digital Marketing Executive at Show+Tell caught up to share their key takeaways from the past two In_Flux sessions, one of which was part of our quarterly ‘Work from…’ day, where the entire team migrated to Leeds for the day to hear more about the exciting work we’re doing, and the future plans for the agency from CEO, Charlie.

So let’s dive right in, shall we?

Tim's take: 

The first In_Flux session was held as part of our ‘Work from…’ day, where the team gathers somewhere out of the office to work collaboratively, share ideas, enjoy a nice lunch together and have an agency-wide meeting. 

During this session, we engaged in a dynamic creativity and innovation workshop led by Head of Design, Jordan. We explored an illustrative client project, identified customer personas, pinpointed pain points, and collaboratively worked on homepage wireframes; fostering creativity, problem-solving, and client involvement. 

As a Project Manager at Show + Tell, I frequently participate in discovery sessions with clients during the initial phase of their projects. The sessions are a stimulating aspect of our projects, as they give us the opportunity to delve deep into our client's business, gaining an in-depth understanding of their target audience and the diverse needs of their customers. 

They enable us to align our efforts towards a shared objective when conceptualising and constructing new websites, ensuring that we consistently prioritise the requirements of the business personas during the user experience (UX) phase of the project.

“It was extremely valuable to gain a comprehensive overview of the components involved in our discovery sessions and understand their pivotal role in web design and development projects.”

—Tim Inggall, Digital Project Manager at Show+Tell

In the creative innovation session, Jordan created an illustrative client and project scenario, providing insights into the business's history, its products/services, and the personas of its customers. 

Jordan then assigned each of us the task of documenting the pain points and influencers of each persona on sticky notes, which we stuck to a wall to create a comprehensive overview of each persona's requirements. 

Having recorded the pain points and influencers for each of the business's personas, in addition to the example client's requirements, Jordan assigned us to work in teams to formulate a wireframe for the homepage. During this process, each team made sure to consider not only the needs of the users of the site but also the needs of the client. 

We asked ourselves questions such as, “What pages should be included in the main nav?”, “what's the main CTA that we want to display on the homepage?”, “what’s the key messaging that we want users to read/watch when they land on the site?” and other key questions that our clients go through themselves when undertaking a new project.

Once we completed this task, Jordan went around the room to review each wireframe design, asking questions to better understand why we made the choices that we made and provided his thoughts on our design.  

This session allowed each member of the Show + Tell/Next Chapter team to better understand how we approach the initial stages of a project. It highlighted the importance of taking both a client-centric approach and a user-centric approach to website design. It also highlighted the importance of client/agency collaboration during a project, and how the information and input provided to us by the client can heavily influence our decision when creating a website.  

One of the main takeaways from the session for me was how I could adopt the same holistic approach to my work as a Project Manager to ensure that I’m always thinking of the bigger picture and continually considering the aims and objectives of the client whilst also considering the needs of the client’s own customer base.  

I’m looking forward to attending more In_Flux sessions as they give me exposure to inspiration and new ideas that I can use in my role as a PM. 

Aoife's Take:

It was fantastic to gather as a team to not only work outside of Show + Tell HQ for the day but to find out more about the agency’s future plans, and kick off the In_Flux creative innovation sessions, hosted by Jordan. Jordan demonstrated to the team what a UX workshop entails with clients. We actively participated in this dynamic workshop, in which he used a fictional client and project as an example to make this experience as real as possible. 

This was a great way to engross ourselves in a workshop where clients experience first-hand and understand the process and the key considerations required at this crucial stage.  

"The reason why I love the In_Flux sessions is it’s a way for our whole team to come together and share things that have sparked our creativity and current interests in the industry."

—Aoife Robinson, Digital Marketing Executive at Next Chapter.