What DoStuff's Doing: Debut

Doing Big Stuff

Well Doers, it's hard to believe we are nearly a month out from the Summit. We've been pushing hard at DoStuff to get you all ready for your redesign transitions, to onboard our newest cities, and to support you in delivering brand programs. We know you've been pushing hard to deliver those programs, to prepare for Halloween and the upcoming holidays, and to build and strengthen partnerships. Not to mention whatever else this time of year has brought you (World Series extravaganza? Rocktober? Crazy weather?)...

We want to continue the good communication with you that happened around the Summit but realized recently (with some help from you all) that there may be a disconnect between DoStuff and your team: we have a good idea of what you're up to but you may have little idea what exactly we're doing.

We've messaged you in the past about our Episode process and Projects that get our attention when we aren't directly supporting you, but we've let that drop in our effort to just keep pushing. In the spirit of open communication, we want to pick that up again in a new and consistent way.

This blog will serve as a means by which we will update you bi-weekly about our current focus and Episode progress. These updates will be for you to skim or study as your time permits.

Because we have so many other channels of communication as well (Google Group blast, NewStuff posts in Admin, Editorial Tumblr, telepathy), we will begin to consolidate much of that so we can provide a centralized source for all news from DoStuff. We'll still email you about urgent stuff, but you'll also be able to reference that communication here.

DoStuff's Big Goals

We let you all know last January that we had adopted Asana's Episode process to outline Projects that we take on in order to better envision and target our long-term growth. Then we gave you a list of those projects. But how did we choose those projects? What did they all mean?

Before we dive in to telling you about our current focus for Episode 4 (yes, we're in Episode 4!), we want to give you some context for how we choose and prioritize projects. It's easier to understand the what when you know the why.

When we pitch our projects and our servants (Scott/Fef/Kirk) prioritize them, we do so with our big picture goals for 2013 in mind. For a project to be deemed important enough given all that we could be doing, it has to best align with these 2013 goals:

Put our current metros on track for super success (defined by market-size and timeline for growth)
Add new metros and set them up to win similarly
Run awesome, network-wide brand programs that position us for explosive growth in 2014

So for example, our Dev team couldn't pitch a project to have event listings pulse to the headliner's latest hit because it would cost a lot of time and not necessarily set you all up for super success. Customer Operations will prioritize a project that is more timely than one further in the future, supporting you in metro redesign transition versus festival redesign, for example. The prioritization process isn't perfect but something we're improving every Episode.

Episode 4

Our E4 started in mid-September and will run through mid-December. The timeline for episodes is up to our discretion based on what we know we MUST accomplish in the given period. In this Episode, we determined we MUST accomplish your transition to the new site and a Bootcamp for our new cities.

Those two big items to accomplish have largely defined our project priority. Here's an overview of the projects we laid out for this episode.

Redesign

Transition all current cities to new site
Train & support all metros on new site sales - This includes ideating on what's going to work and building out the necessary documentation
Metro launch and optimization - Our dev team has worked primarily out of this project in refining the new site

New metros

Train & support new metros - Each new city (Toronto, Mexico City, Boston, Seattle, and Dallas) has a unique Project that lists what we need to do to set them up from pre-Bootcamp through Bootcamp to launch
Develop new metro account management process - Given that we want to be launching lots of new metros in the near future, we are working to streamline the process
New metros in pipeline and signed

Programs

Each current program has a separate project that may carry over to the next episode
New network programs in pipeline and signed
Bulletproof program delivery system - We want every brand program to kill it, and that can best happen when have a set process that anticipates all delivery entails

Customer Operations

Migrate HelpDesk to Google sites - We'd like to set you up with more resources on a more flexible platform
Faciliate network surveys - For your marketing/sales reference
Finish site reporting - We've developed and are refining a new reporting system

Admin/Back-end Upgrades

Finish Guestlist App - It's on its way!
Migrate to Radmin - This is our new Admin interface we debuted at the Summit
Move theme editor to Radmin - So that you have something prettier and more functional than the current SASS editor
Make repeating events work better - We want these to be more flexible and make more sense
Overhaul dupes queue

DoStuff Stuff

Bi-weekly company updates - Similar to the purpose of this blog, we needed a way to communicate big picture stuff better internally
Set-up intranet - So that we have a singular resource for documents from those for new hires to platform protocol
Affordable Healthcare Act + DoStuff - Have you all seen the news lately?
Raise $$$ - So we can grow better and faster

Whoa... Big Stuff

And that is a condensed list. From here on out, we will update you as to our progress on these Projects. As we stated in that first Episode email, we won't necessarily complete 100% of our Projects, but we are working like h-e-double-hockey-sticks to try.

The next post, expect some info on how all this applies to our revamp of the Opportunities queue so you have a clearer idea as to what happens to your valuable input.

Comments or questions? Please ask. Requests? By all means, let us know.

Thanks for your contributions to our network and your communities! We are all doing incredibly BIG stuff.

Friday, November 1, 2013