When my carpet installers failed to show yesterday due to a broken-down truck, I thought, “this would never happen on a movie.” That’s because our industry lives and breathes by what is a relatively new idea in other lines of work: “supply chain management.” This is defined on Wikipedia as “getting the right product into the right consumer’s hands in the right quantity at the right time.” Basically, ensuring everyone—employees and vendors—who have anything to do with your brand relationships has skin in the game and a reason to deliver high quality every time. Skip the MBA. Here are four things we do in video production that you can apply Right Now to making your business or nonprofit enterprise more successful.
1. Hire a Smart PA. Or Two. “Find a Way or Make One” was the motto of my high school, and is the guiding mantra for any PA (production assistant) in the video, TV or movie biz. If my carpet installation was a movie, we would have instantly deployed a PA to the broken-truck-guy’s house to drive him to a U-Haul store and rent a truck for the day. Problem solved. Customer happy. I have deployed PA’s to buy a camera-friendly tie for a CEO’s on-camera appearance, to pick up replacements for gear that has failed, or to drive a client to the airport when her time is of the essence. Once, back when I was a PA, I figured out how to ship and install thousands of pounds of rubber matting on the bottom of the Washington Monument reflecting pool so Important Actors (aka Tom Hanks and Robin Wright) wouldn’t slip in a scene there. So make a small investment in a few young, smart, problem-solvers. People who can research, find answers, are unafraid to use the telephone, and know how to build personal relationships. Don’t worry if they don’t have specific skills for your enterprise–those can be learned on the job. The goal is to ensure your business can deliver on customer promises.
2. Invest in Creative Thinking. Problem-solving is all about looking at issues from a new perspective. There’s a lot of talk about why we need more training in STEM. That’s great. But science and math also need creative thinking to discover new inventions, new drugs, new ways to power cars or fly through space. Steven Hawking understood this when he suggested that we need to put smart people (well, actually he said brilliant people) together in inspiring and creative intellectual environments, where they can go do their best thinking. Again, in the movie biz, we work in teams of incredibly smart, creative, people, who all pull together to solve some interesting problems in pursuit of creating a compelling story. Build teams who care about your brand story, and the brand stories of your customers. Give them the inspiration to do their best work. Give them the license to fail and try again.
3. Invest in Creative Spaces. Tech firms in Silicon Valley have forged their businesses on this model, and also led the way in building creative physical spaces to inspire collaboration and thinking. Now corporations and nonprofits are following suit. Here are some great examples. Production companies have always built creative spaces for their teams. Wall colors are less monotonous. Graphics suites have walls filled with inspiring designs. Employees and clients share meals during shooting breaks in the studio. Folks lounge on cushy chairs in a casual give-and-take environment while edits render. I think this is why so many of my clients like to come hang out with me during edit sessions. It’s a nice break from the Land of Grey Cubicles. But don’t be fooled by the fun stuff–I do a lot of my best writing work alone, in a room with a door. Build a creative space for your creative thinkers. Use color. Use light. Create spaces that are both private and quiet (for brainstorming) and large and open (for group collaboration). Use chalkboard paint so people can draw what they think.
4. Focus on Outcomes. When people get stuck on process, it’s usually because they’re not focused on the final outcome. In movies, we have storyboards. They help guide our thinking, so everyone can visualize the outcome of a scene. That doesn’t mean we can’t rethink a camera set-up, or rework a sequence in the final edit. But it does give everyone a shared vision of the goal. Every business can build its own storyboards for What Success Looks Like on This Project. And because your team of creative thinkers are probably visual learners, that storyboard posted across your new, colorful walls, will inspire them to new heights.
Amy DeLouise is a video producer, writer, blogger, speaker and author, appearing soon at #NABShow. She is still waiting for her new carpet to be installed.
