The Midpoint: Checking in on Our New Year’s Iterations

Myplanet
Myplanet
Jul 25, 2017 · 7 min read

Back in January, we wrote a blog post about our goals for the new year. Only instead of the way most of us make new year’s resolutions, aiming for a whole new way of doing things or a complete reversal of an old plan (“This year I’m going to stop smoking and exercise every day!”), we wanted to follow a more iterative process. We wanted to build on some of the things we knew were going well and push ourselves to achieve more in categories where we’d allowed complacency to seep in.

Now that we’re just past the halfway point of the year, we thought it was time to check in on those New Year’s Iterations and see how we were faring. It’s time for a retrospective.

New Year’s Iteration 1: Let Data Lead The Way More

When we set this goal originally, we were adamant that data was not merely “having a moment”, but was, in fact, here to stay. We still feel that way (if anything, we feel it more strongly), but while it’s nice to know our goal was valid and worthwhile, it’s more important to know whether we are on track to achieving it at this stage. So how are we doing? Very well.

One of the key points in our drive to embrace data more has been leveraging Acquia Lift, a data personalization tool, when we build custom Drupal projects for customers. We’ve been offering a bundle to our qualified customers that includes a 6 month Acquia Lift Starter, which gives customers the chance to familiarize themselves with the power of their own data without the high-cost risk. By including Lift, we’re making personalization standard and putting data front and centre.

We’ve also partnered with IBM Watson to begin harnessing the power of AI in more dynamic ways. With Watson, we’ve been able to create some incredible proof of concept pieces, like Stylefinder, a tool that uses machine learning to make personalized recommendations based on an individual’s social profile (as well as a few others our Concepts team has been working on that we’ll be talking about in the coming weeks).

With Acquia Lift, we’re engaging with data and personalization in real-time, helping our customers take control over the vast tracts of information available to them to create more meaningful, engaging experiences for their customers. And with IBM Watson, we’re pushing the boundaries on what data and information can do, exploring new ways of interacting with it and finding use cases that haven’t been fully developed to better understand the power of what’s possible. But we’ve also turned our focus on data internally, and implemented new tracking systems for everything from meeting schedules to staff demographics in an effort to better understand ourselves and find areas we can be improving from within. All in all, our data driven year had a great first half.

New Year’s Iteration 2: Re-invigorate Our Innovation Focus

Back in January, we noticed that even though we had a system that allowed for — even encouraged — our staff to take up to five days of paid company time to work on projects that were interesting, exciting, challenging, and completely free of any specific outcomes or expectations, very few of our staff were taking advantage of that system, and our stated company value of Innovation was suffering somewhat as a result. So we decided we needed to address the issue head on.

One of the main ways we sought to tackle our innovation challenge was through the creation of our Concepts Team. We wanted to have a core team dedicated to playing around with new tools, experimenting with new ideas, and testing out untested things that we believed had the potential to be applicable for our customers. At minimum, we would have at least a small team that was constantly innovating, but our hope was that the existence of the team would bolster the innovative drive around the office. Just over six months into things, we are thrilled with the results.

The Concepts team has been partnering with IBM Watson on a number of experiments that have pushed our understanding and capabilities with AI and machine learning as well as opened up avenues for potential new use cases for those technologies. They’ve developed several new proofs of concept and as an organization, we’ve been able to take advantage of our in-house innovation team by folding production team-members into some of the Concepts work and cross-pollinating knowledge.

But it’s not just the Concepts team who have been bringing an innovation focus to the fore. Our Product team has been focused on developing a chatbot that can make marketers’ dreams come true, extending their expertise into a rapidly expanding category. Our Customer Experience team has been spearheading subtle but significant changes to the way we approach and think about the way we connect and interact with customers. One of our biggest changes has been to our branding, which we’ve revamped to more accurately reflect who we are and what we do (not strictly what we would qualify as “innovation”, but certainly keeps the spirit of change and openness to new ideas top of mind for everyone at the company). We’ve even been lucky enough to have customers who wanted to push the edge of what they could do: our Professional Services team worked on a number of innovative new concepts, such as the PoC we did for AMI using Apple’s TVOS.

New Year’s Iteration 3: Seek More Balance

When we set out to seek more balance, we wanted it to extend beyond just the traditional concept of work-life balance. We recognize that leaving work on time and having weekends to enjoy without worrying about projects is important, but that’s not the whole of what balance can mean. It’s just one part of it. We wanted to achieve more balance in our own work, to grow our presence and participation in the greater community and use our expertise to make a difference outside of the projects we complete for customers.

For us, bringing back our Fellowship program is a huge step towards achieving that balance. Fellowship is a program that offers students a chance to gain real-world experience and learn from our staff about all the aspects of being a developer or designer working today while solving real challenges. After several successful years of running it, we took a hiatus the past few years, but we’re bringing it back.

In just a few weeks we’ll have students in technical fields coming to work with our own team and our partner IBM Watson on projects that will help them gain a leg up in the industry and help our charitable partners — the Toronto Public Library, Pathways, and Girl Guides of Canada — solve challenges they’re are facing. We’re thrilled to be supporting our own community in this way again, helping industry newcomers gain experience while working on projects that can create real value and offer potential solutions for charities and organizations that need them.

As was the case with our data focus, we’re also looking at internal structures to help create more balance. From small things, like creating a system to share the non-core responsibilities of keeping an office running, to bigger things, like overhauling our first floor to make it more welcoming for visitors and staff, we’re continuing to find ways to bring more balance to every aspect of our work.

And while we can’t exactly take credit for it as an organization, we’re also in the midst of a baby & weddings boom — one that looks like it’ll continue for a while yet. Even though it’s sheer dumb luck in terms of timing with our goals, we’re still happy to see people personally directing their lives in more balanced ways as their own priorities shift and change. And we’re doing everything we can to support those shifts with flexible work hours, work from home options, and staff events that recognize the demands of people’s lives outside of the office. Sometimes things just work out!

We’re only halfway through the year, there are lots of elements we’ve only just started to scratch the surface on, and all this progress will mean nothing if we don’t sustain it, but so far, we’re enormously pleased with how well our year of iterating is going.

Are you a student or recent graduate in a technical field that’s interested in our Fellowship program? We’re accepting applications until August 1st. Apply now!

Interested in the innovative work we’ve been doing with Watson? Fascinated by what the shifting landscape of big data can do? You can reach us here to talk about what we can do for your organization.

We’re hiring! Take a look at our open positions and apply here.

Myplanet Musings

Thoughts, ideas, insights, and more from the Myplanet team.

Myplanet

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Myplanet

We're a software studio. We make smarter interfaces for the workplace.

Myplanet Musings

Thoughts, ideas, insights, and more from the Myplanet team.

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