Weeks 11/4 - 11/18
These have been an eventful few weeks here in Austin with Fun Fun Fun Fest, F1, and fall finally settling in. They have been an especially eventful few weeks for the DoStuff network given redesign transitions and our FIRST official Onboarding Bootcamp with our newest cities. Read on for details.
Redesign Transitions
Do314 and
Do615 officially made the transition a few weeks ago, and
doNYC and
Do317 soft launched last week and hard launched this week. That's half our network now running fully on the new platform! Given that this redesign has been a year plus in planning, we are thrilled to finally see it a reality. A big thanks to their teams for inputting their detailed feedback in our
Opportunities project to make sure their sites are flawless. We're so close to getting them there!
As you have seen, we have a little pop-up survey running requesting feedback from users. Here are some points of praise:
- "Cool...cool, cool"
- "Much easier to navigate. Flows nicely."
- "I'm a graphic designer and I love the new clean flat design! First glance- very good"
- "It looks more modern but has retained all of the features I am used to from the old site. I think it will grow on me soon."
- "I like that it is responsive! Big Visuals are nice."
- "Awesome sauce with a side of clam"
Not all the feedback has been so positive, of course. Changes to products people already love can inspire resistance. (Remember Katie G's story about how they had to hunker down at Facebook HQ because people were protesting the implementation of Newsfeed!? Fortunately, DoStuff HQ and none of your offices have been similarly mobbed.) So here are some of the points of contention:
- "I love the clean responsive look. However, everything in my opinion is overbearingly huge. Usually, the more you can see in one glance, the more user friendly a website can be."
- "Font and events too big. Can see only a few events. Contrast between background and text not high enough."
- "like the old design better, it was much cleaner."
- "It's very hard to navigate. Trying to look clean and tidy and cool and new but not achieving desired intention."
We may not be pleasing everyone initially, but we will continue to improve the product and your fans on the fence will grow to love it as they discover and become accustomed to its awesomeness.
Next week, we're soft launching Do312 and Do512, our network pioneers with the largest audiences! We'll keep you posted on their press pushes and community responses.
Redesign Upgrades
Given the feedback you all have been inputting in the Opportunities queue, we have been prioritizing and pushing out many major and minor improvements. Here are some of the things we've completed:
- PHOTO pages! Here's an example.
- We have given you the ability to customize your pages. This allows you a super flexible way to represent content. Check out how Do512 used this new feature for Car2Go.
- Cleaned up mobile dropdowns
- Improved ad displays
- Fixed "Follow" button to work on Event Activity Feed
- Added auto-fill to Giveaway/RSVP modals for logged in users
- Input a fix for all the crazy characters popping up on your site so that you don't have to manually edit (phew...)
- Improved calendar and map views
We have much to do still, and please continue to help us out by inputting your feedback and following the progress of fixes in Asana.
Also, check out our
Redesign Section in HelpDesk for everything from new proposal templates to content guidance.
Onboarding Bootcamp
A few of our major Episode 3 projects involved defining an onboarding process and creating a polished Bootcamp with corresponding documentation to set up our new markets for success. While all our current teams have done extraordinarily well given the prior support setup we offered, we wanted to build something turn-key and holistic that draws from our experiences. Episode 4 has entailed actually implementing the result of those projects with Do416 (Toronto), Do617 (Boston), and HazDF (Mexico City).
Last Tuesday, we kicked off our first 2-day intensive Bootcamp with these three awesome teams. They went through several sessions led by Kristin, Michael, Stuart, and myself that covered everything from building a mission to defining their editorial voice to sales strategies to understanding the platform. There is so much to learn about what we do!
Each team member received a Field Guide relevant to their role that you can view here:
It was mostly work, but there was some play! Check out pics courtesy of Adi and Mary:
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| Tuesday night at Easy Tiger |
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| Wednesday lunch and grad ceremony at El Meson |
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| Our class photo graduation gift! |
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| Blooper group shot in the oncoming cold front bluster! |
Each of these teams is back home and raring toward an official launch. It looks like Do416 and Do617 will launch in January and HazDF will launch in April.
Do617 has already begun a social media tease. They gained 1200
Twitter followers in 24-hours and their
Facebook page is blowing up! Be sure to follow and support all our network's new cities on social!
As to our other new cites,
Do206 (Seattle) and
Do214 (Dallas), both are in the hiring stages to find their teams and ready to move forward. We will likely host them for a Bootcamp in January. If you have any leads for potential GMs or CMs, send them our way!
Programs
All the pieces of the Bud Light Platinum campaign have been put into play - wahoo! Adi continues to check in with Do415, DoLA, and doNYC regarding Tastemaker promotions for Nokia and sending Nokia reports. Thank you for your dedication to making it work! Also, some of our metros are working with Adult Swim! Do512, Do615, and DoLA are all working on a promo campaign for Eric Andre.
Festivals
Do415 got
NoisePop going! Though we are in the post-fest season, we have also been working on
Florida Country Superfest and
FloydFest.
Other Important Project Progress
We know you all have been curious about the new
newsletter template. We have been refining it and plan to have a finalized version for you within the next few weeks!
Surveys are moving forward across the network! Much of
doNYC's results have been finalized and
DoLA has settled on a sweet prize to get theirs going.
As you may be aware or have read in our
debut post, one of the important projects Scott and Michael have had this Episode is to raise a round of funding so that we can grow bigger and faster. They have been travelling to NYC, LA, SF and back again in service of this project and have had stellar conversations thus far. You can see
the deck that they share here. We will keep you posted as to their progress and what it entails for how we can better serve you all!
Fantastic Fall
Our November has started off sweetly, and we'll finish it sweetly. Thanksgiving is already next week then the holidays are here! We know you're busy and pushing hard. We hope you take time to savour the sweetness in all your hard work by celebrating and relaxing with friends and family.
As always, please comment here or reach out with questions and thoughts.
