Joining us is Amy Tesch Strickland of Cella, a prominent figure in the creative operations community with extensive experience on both the brand and consulting sides, known for her expertise in guiding creative and marketing operations teams.

You’ll hear about the strategic positioning of creative operations within an organization, the natural (and untapped?) potential of closer alignment between creative and marketing operations, and how this may be a key factor in  creative ops maturing from a tactical to a strategic function.

Takeaways

• Location of Creative Ops: It highlights the importance of location to how well Creative Operations can be aligned with the go to market engine and better support creative
• Natural Chemistry with Marketing Operations: The discussion points out how both of these roles have much in common (systems thinking, leveraging data, etc.) and their respective roles and work are critical puzzle pieces in the organization's go to market engine
• Career Growth and Positioning: The conversation touches on the importance of positioning for career advancement within the creative operations field. It underscores how professionals can leverage their strategic and operational expertise to ascend to leadership roles, thereby shaping the future direction of creative operations in their organizations.

Questions or a different point of view than what you heard today? Drop me a line [email protected]

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In this episode, I list various ways creative operations leaders can leverage AI to enhance their work. Using the T3 (Thunking, Thinking & Transforming with) AI framework I walk through some easy and accessible ways to leverage AI. To free up time by outsourcing your boring, rote work to it. And re-investing that time to use AI as a thinking partner and become. the 10x leader you can be. And continue your transition to being a strategic creative operations leader. 

AI Idea Categories

00:00  Introduction

05:54  AI Meeting Notes & Institutional Memory 

12:19   AI Pictures Say a Thousand Words

17:44  AI as a Thinking Partner

23:35 AI as a Data Analyst

30:11  AI for Fun

34:26 Conclusion

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This is request to you - the Creative Ops Professional - to take a moment to participate in two important surveys focused on creative operations. Links below!

As we navigate the evolving landscape of our profession, understanding where we stand today is crucial. These surveys are more than just questionnaires; they are tools that will help us benchmark our current state and envision the future of creative operations.

Your participation is vital. By contributing, you're helping to build a rich dataset that will generate valuable knowledge for all of us. As a community, profession and individual leaders. 

This is your chance to influence how creative operations is understood and valued. The results from these surveys can help guide your conversations with peers and management teams, enabling you to advocate more effectively for your role, your team, your profession. 

Your voice matters. I look forward to seeing  the results of each survey and discussing them in future  episodes. And together, continuing to advance what Creative Ops is today and what it can be tomorrow! 

• Cella Survey: closes February 16th (this Thursday) 
• Aquent Survey: closes March 1

Mark Brady, Head of Creative Solutions at HubSpot, discusses the value of self-service automation to increase content and go to market velocity and at the same time free up creatives. Said differently: Deliver More, Deliver Faster, Deliver Cost Effectively. He explains how HubSpot has implemented self-service automation through tools like Canva, web modules, and email templates, allowing marketers to create on-brand experiences. Allowing the creative team to focus on "big think" work. He also discusses the use of data to inform decision-making and measure success in self-service automation. Lastly, Mark explores how Hubspot's self-service automation journey is informing a smarter approach to how they are rolling out and getting value from the emerging crop of AI tools. 

Takeaways

• Self-service Automation is "Accessible": any creative ops leader and team can begin without needing knowledge of how to code. V1 of your self-service footprint can be entirely driven by configuration. Achieve and show value and gain right to invest into more sophisticated self-service capabilities. 
• Creative Ops Self-Service as Go To Market Enablement: self service allows marketers to move from idea to implementation at a much faster rate. At Hubspot that has translated into more experiments, campaigns and ideas seeing the light of day and at a much faster rate. Which is reflected in their meteoric growth. 
• Creative Ops Self-Service as Org Chart Content Engine: not just for marketing, but for all parts of the organization (sales, customer. support, etc.) that have a growing need and appetite for content, at speed. 
• Creative Ops Self-Service as Freeing Creatives: self-service reduces the persistent "rote work" capacity bottlenecks. Allowing creatives to focus on more "big think" work. 
• Creative Data Intelligence: leverage data to understand what to automate (i.e. what are common requests & needs, what have we had to say No to, etc.). Data also provides insights on other opportunities to enhance the self-service automation experience to allow marketers to accelerate go to market velocity with engaging and effective content. 

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In this kickoff episode of our AI Creative/Operations Wave Series, we are joined by Juliana Vail from Dreem.Ai

This conversation starts us on our journey of surfing the gentle and not-so-gentle waves of the AI Tsunami. Juliana applies her expertise from 18 years of leveraging each successive wave of new technology to unlock new possibilities and value in creative workflows. With the active participation of the audience for this live recording we tackle a number of topics. This is the first in a series of ongoing discussions where Juliana and Nish along with the audience will share and explore what is happening, working and not working as we all deal with the enormous challenges and opportunities of "AI is Going to Change Everything."

Takeaways

• How AI is reshaping creative workflows and processes in organizations: AI is enhancing efficiency and innovation in creative workflows, enabling teams to leverage automated tools for tasks like ideation and content generation, thus shifting the focus to more strategic and creative aspects.
• Keys to successful AI adoption: Successful AI adoption hinges on a blend of experimentation and hands-on learning, where organizations progressively integrate AI into their processes and learn from real-world applications and outcomes.
• Aligning AI implementation with organizational goals: It's crucial for organizations to clearly define their objectives and ensure that AI implementations are strategically aligned with these goals to maximize effectiveness and ROI.
• How roles in the creative industry are evolving, with a focus on how they may start to blend or merge: In the AI-empowered creative industry, traditional roles are evolving to become more interdisciplinary, with a growing need for professionals to possess a mix of creative and technical skills, leading to the blending or merging of roles.

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In this kickoff episode of our Data & Metrics Series, we are joined by Nickole Brown from Cella. 

The conversation dives into the critical role of data and metrics in creative operations. Nickole  elevates our understanding at the 100,000-foot view, exploring how effectively leveraging data and metrics can transition creative operations from a tactical function to a strategic role.

Takeaways

• The Importance of Data and Metrics: Understanding and utilizing data is a defining factor that separates leaders from pretenders in creative operations.
• Strategic Transformation: Data and metrics enable creative operations to evolve from being purely tactical to becoming strategic influencers.
• Facing Challenges: Acknowledging and overcoming the fear of data, bridging educational gaps, and navigating technological challenges are crucial steps in harnessing the power of data.
• Storytelling with Data: Effective communication and storytelling through data are essential for empowering creative operations leaders.

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Summary

In this episode, I share  insights and observations from my conversations with many of you across the creative ops community . In this episode I discuss the maturity of creative operations, the need for clear definitions and paths for creative operations leaders, and the importance of using metrics and data. I also explore the emergence of meta workflows in creative operations, focusing on scale and speed, as well as storytelling. Lastly, I address emerging concerns about layoffs and the opportunities for creative operations leaders to step up and navigate through these challenges.

Timestamps 

00:00 Introduction 

01:19   What is the Dots Episode?

03:40 Creative Operations Maturity

18:31.  Meta Streams of Creative Operations

24:24. Concerns about Layoffs

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The 'Takeaways' episodes offer my key insights and actionable ideas from our guest interviews. Through these episodes I am sharing what I am learning and some of the dots that I am connecting along the way. 

Questions or a different point of view than what you heard today? Drop me a line [email protected]

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Timestamps:
00:00 - Introducing Takeaways Episodes
02:22 - Principle 1: Bringing Creatives Along
04:42 - Principle 2: Positioning Storytelling as a Central Creative Superpower (w Creators in the Middle) 
07:01 - Principle 3: Cultivating a Culture of Transparent Experimentation with AI
09:17 - Exploring Open Forum Webinars and AI Experimentation Approaches
11:41 -  Discussing Storytelling as the Original Algorithm and AI's Role in Expanding Creativity
14:01 - 3 Follow Up Questions I Would Like to ask Michelle 

Joining us is Paul Nicholson who just wrapped up 20+ years with Showtime Networks, a prominent American premium television network known for its wide array of original programming, movies, documentaries, and sports.

This episode dives  into Paul's approach to implementing change to reduce friction in creative workflows. Learn about his  'Product Release' strategy for change, when and how to gather team input, the science and art (or is that experience based instinct) for how to  prioritize changes, how and why to sell change up the org chart, packaging change into mini releases, and measuring progress and impact along the way. All that and more.

Questions or a different point of view than what you heard today? Drop me a line [email protected]

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Timestamps:

06:36 Purpose of creative operations?
07:57 How does removing friction help?
09:36 Your change management definition and approach?
12:27 Distinguishing innovation and change?
13:48 Differentiating between incremental change and innovation?
15:00 Facilitating 'what's next?' discussions?
17:06 Approach to listening for friction?
18:36 Process for big changes?
21:45 Selling changes to executives?
23:33 Deciding when to make changes?
27:00 Involving people in design process?
28:57 Design process before executive pitch?
34:48 Balancing priorities from feedback?
39:09 Rollout process for changes?
42:36 Measuring change implementation success?
47:51 Using metrics in change management?
53:06 Thoughts on AI and change management?

Joining us is Dmitry Shamis whose experience includes brand and creative at SevenRooms, founding The Creative Brand, and heading creative and brand at HubSpot.

You’ll hear about the importance of creative operations as a connective hub, the role of self-service tools in accelerating marketing experiments, and the need for aligning creative operations with business KPIs.

Questions or a different point of view than what you heard today? Drop me a line [email protected]

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Timestamps:

01:09 - Asking for the definition of creative operations.
02:15 - Discussing the evolution of creative operations.
05:22 - Emphasizing creative operations' purpose.
08:18 - Shifting focus from operations to strategy.
10:19 - Highlighting marketer-creative relationship.
13:11 - Balancing creativity with efficiency.
17:21 - Exploring self-service's role in creativity.
21:55 - Focusing on business outcomes.
28:26 - Reflecting on creative operations' strategic role.
31:42 - Aligning creative ops with marketing KPIs.
35:32 - Summarizing key points, transitioning to close.
37:57 - Reflecting on AI's future in creativity.
39:46 - Concluding interview, inviting listener interaction.