Operation Impact

When I first entered the digital industry it was for a small shop in Kansas City. I had just gotten laid off from a job in construction during the 2008 economic apocalypse and was looking for just about any job I could land. Thus begun my life in digital. I was ready to take my many minutes of experience playing with Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia Flash into a professional web development company.

That job turned out to be the worst professional experience of my life and ended after nine months. The company had no leadership and no idea how to run a digital agency. As bad as it was, that job provided me with a wealth of knowledge on how not to run a company.

In January 2010 I decided to go back to school and finish my construction management degree in Springfield, Missouri. I was able to land another web development job with a two man outfit that was just getting started and it’s the job I still hold today — although in a much different capacity.

That company is 40Digits and it was started by an insurance agent and a ux designer from a national telecom company. At the time it was just the two founders, myself and another developer. None of us had any idea how to run a web development company. We were totally winging it and made a lot of mistakes along the way. Our contracts, if you could call them that, were vague and probably wouldn’t amount to hill of beans in court. Pricing was a total shot in the dark and every day was a new experience we had yet before faced. Looking back, those bumps in the road make us all much more appreciative of what we’ve accomplished.

Fast forward a few years to early 2015 and I was in the position of Operations Director which I had held since roughly late 2012. Up until then, I navigated this business by relying on my construction experience and education, what little knowledge could be found online, and just basic gut instinct. There’s little to no formal education out there for running a digital agency and what few resources there were online usually didn’t address the issues we were facing. I was also lacking colleagues in the industry for which to bounce ideas. We had made a ton of progress in the business and built a very successful company that had grown from 4 to 35 in about 5 years. However, there were still a mountain of issues and obstacles we had not addressed or overcome. That’s when I first learned of Operations Camp.

One of 40Digits’ project managers had always been interested in attending Digital PM Summit and saw that the Bureau of Digital had an upcoming Operations Camp and forwarded me the information. After a quick perusal of the information I knew I had to attend. Now, 40Digits is a rather spartan company. We never been one to splurge on, well, just about anything, so I wasn’t sure if attending would be in the cards. I took the information to our Co-Captains and said this was finally the conference (but it’s not really a conference) that appeared to be worth the time and money. They agreed and I was off to New Orleans a couple of months later.

Going into Operations Camp I wasn’t completely sure what to expect but I knew what I wanted to get out my time — equal parts affirmation and education. I didn’t want to walk away only to find out that we were doing the same things as everyone else in attendance. On the flip side, I also didn’t want to have that feeling that we’ve been doing things completely wrong the last six years. In the end, Operations Camp turned out to be exactly what I wanted and so much more.

From the opening reception I knew I was surrounded by a lot of people going through the same shit I was on a day to day basis. There were also a lot that were getting ready to have to deal with some of the problems we or others had already encountered and I knew there was going to be a wealth of information in the room the next day that could help the entire group. I was not wrong.

Right out of the gate I was taking more notes than I had since Mr. Stein’s history class in 10th grade. And not just for new ideas, but also problems I heard others mention in which I felt I could help them by explaining how we did things to get over that hump or just to relay some similar experience. By the first or second break I had fellow campers approaching me with their war stories on a previous subject or to ask for more detail regarding something I had said in the session.

Like any group setting, not everyone spoke right away but the magic of these moderated discussions was evident almost immediately. The moderators did a great job of starting the conversations, oftentimes with their own experiences, and keeping them on track. They also were keen to not let any one person dominate the room. Through the reception, group dinners and activities, by the start of the second day you really felt as though you knew almost every attendee on a personal level and, slowly, everyone was involved in the discussions.

As the camp wound down and we attended the closing dinner there were a lot of hugs and you could tell a lot of us had at least formed strong professional bonds that would help in their endeavors. At most, you could see the possible beginnings of lifelong friendships. I do know that a group from my camp ended up vacationing together a few months later.

Once I got back to work with my camp knowledge there were so many things I wanted to try and implement. There was no silver bullet, but there were so many small initiatives that I knew could make 40Digits a better company. Almost a year later and I am still starting to experiment with things I learned from the first Operations Camp. I’ve been fortunate to attend another Operations Camp as well as other Bureau of Digital events and at the closing of every event Carl Smith, a partner in the Bureau, always says “this is when the magic happens, after the event”. He’s right. Each attendee now has a trusted group of people that they can reach out to with any issue they are facing.

Another great thing is that the end of the event is not the end of the experience. The Bureau goes to great lengths to keep conversations open and moving. Each event has dedicated Slack and Basecamp accounts that stay up in perpetuity so everyone is just a few clicks away. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in meetings or on phone calls and said that I knew someone that was dealing with this same thing and that I would hit up the Ops Camp Basecamp and see how they were able to tackle it for a successful outcome.

When I get asked about my experience with Operations Camp I always tell them that it was one of the most rewarding personal and professional experiences of my life. Almost a year later and I still firmly believe that. The Bureau has created a community where there was none and if everyone else has gotten out half of what I have from the experience then this community will only grow bigger and stronger.

In fact, I am so excited about the future of the Bureau that I’ve hopped on board with them and will be co-hosting Operations Camps. The great thing about this is that the hosts and moderators are as much an attendee as everyone else at Operations Camp. We all get so much out of the experience. I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to my co-hosting duties. I am ready to meet more of the community, grow as a professional in this industry and maybe, just maybe, inspire a person or two out there the way I’ve been inspired by Greg, Carl and the Bureau.