Romy Glazer 8/20/16 Romy Glazer 8/20/16

LBP Social Sessions #001: #fluidhairpainting

Last month, I picked up a role creating content for Luxury Brand Partners and their Idealogue conference. For our first post - we chatted with #fluidhairpainting creator KL Christoffersen about getting started in the business, how she’s building her salon @cheekystrut, her best practices and how to manage it all when you’re thrust into the internet’s unpredictable spotlight.

Read the interview here: http://luxurybrandpartners.com/2016/08/11/social-sessions-001-fluidhairpainting/

Romy Glazer 5/18/16 Romy Glazer 5/18/16

Entrepreneurs and athletic directors have more in common than you might think.

We work with high school athletic directors every day, and while building our network of over 1,500 schools so far at VNN, it's hard not to notice that many of the obstacles that they face as leaders of their departments are the same ones we face as entrepreneurs.

You wouldn't think you'd find big business lessons from the heart of Michigan's apple-farming community, but when we see a school of ours consistently making an impact in their community like Jason at Kent City, Ryan and I dug deeper, and pulled what that community is doing together for a piece on Entrepreneur, published today.

Check out what business leaders can learn from Kent City's Eagle Nation here: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/275686

And if you're feeling ambitious, read our full interview with Jason on the VNN blog (part of our How I Work blog series): http://varsitynewsnetwork.com/blog/how-i-work-jason-vogel-kent-city-high-school/

Romy Glazer 2/5/16 Romy Glazer 2/5/16

Where K-12 Sports Technology is Headed in 2016

The K-12 athletic market is as fragmented as its loyalties. You can drive five miles from Cougar Country and suddenly find yourself in the Cardinal Coop. And the people who cheer for these creatures don’t often care about what’s happening down the road (unless, of course, the playoffs are looming).

Within these walled gardens, the sports technology being used isn’t anything special. The average high school can’t come close to affording the athletic technological tools being used at the college and professional levels. Yet the way these technological tools can be combined to connect a community through youth sports is inspiring.

Whether your daughter is the star of her middle school soccer team or you have no idea if the local high school supports the Wildcats or the Hurricanes, the way athletic technology will impact the fabric of our local communities in 2016 will be something worth watching.

Here are six ways that’s going to happen:

1. Sabermetrics

Statistics and big data are huge in pro sports, and the way they’re used in baseball is already trickling down to the high school level. Tools like GameChanger are making analytics more accessible to coaches and giving them a competitive edge.

Knowing a player has hit 21 home runs off left-handed pitchers in the ninth inning helps coaches determine the best times to play that individual to win more games.

2. Drones

In the past, high school coaches recorded video of practices and games from the stands or a press box with a single camera. But the explosion of cheap drone technology will bring the use we’re seeing in the pros to the K-12 scene.

Now coaches will get the same vantage point many people enjoy while playing “Madden NFL.” While there are laws limiting their use for professional practice sessions, there’s currently no federal regulation at the high school level.

3. Wearable Technology

Wearable tech will play a big role in analyzing the performance of athletes down to the microsecond. Shirts that measure things like how fast a player runs will help determine a player’s potential as an athlete. Wearable tech will also provide instant feedback. Golf shirts or accessories will ping when the wearer’s form is bad, or a shirt will be stiffer in particular areas based on an individual’s swing.

Technology, apps, and wearables will also help improve reaction times. Even a small decrease in reaction time can make players safer. Devices like the Linx IAS can help coaches and athletes monitor and prevent brain injuries. That’s why Juniper Research is predicting that by 2018, the wearable device market will be a $19 billion industry.

4. Narrative Science

Narrative Science is a company that founded the ability for computers to analyze data, extract and organize important information and insights, and create complex articles in plainspoken English. While nothing will ever replace quality journalism covering unique topics like players, sport culture, and traditions, Narrative Science will allow more sports to be covered quickly and extend the reach for all sports.

People will be able to find information about whatever sports they’re interested in, reported in a way that isn’t just a box score. This development in apps like GameChanger is currently in beta, but soon coaches will be able to produce AP Style-type articles about a game with the click of a button.

5. Virtual Reality

Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR, and Eon Sports’ SIDEKIQ are proof that the technology for high-quality virtual reality is available and affordable enough for mass consumption. Right now, VR is being treated as a hobby in the K-12 sports space, but with Facebook’s purchase of Oculus in 2014, it might be taken more seriously as a tool in the near future.

VR is already being used in recruitment efforts for Iowa State football. At their Virtual Reality Applications Center, recruits can experience what it would be like to play for the Cyclones in a virtual Jack Trice Stadium. When players of any age get “experiences” like this, it makes them want the real thing even more.

6. Streamlined Information

Although it’s surprising, to learn what games are being played at many high schools, you still need you to call the athletics office and listen to a voicemail message detailing that day’s sports schedule. Other schools have sports schedules online, but as PDFs that requires a download.

Several companies have been working in this athletic space, including Varsity News Network, BigTeams, 8to18, and in the club sports arena, Sport Ngin. They are working toward simply giving parents, fans, and athletes one place online to go for information. This next year, we’ll start to see that information not just live on websites, but also delivered to the right person at the right time, similar to how ESPN’s Sportscaster app delivers final scores to subscribers (and to how Facebook curates a specialized newsfeed depending on who’s logging in).

As these tools become increasingly accessible, the need for complex communications throughout a community and the common interest of athletics will drive people to maximize their resources. The K-12 sports scene may not be the tech innovation focal point of the country, but you still might see some amazing ideas coming out of it in 2016.

Romy Glazer 2/3/16 Romy Glazer 2/3/16

How I Work: James Marlow, Lugoff-Elgin High School (Interview)

Re-posted from the Varsity News Network blog series, How I Work -- interviews with athletic directors. Intended to extend the brand from products to ideas.

As the interim athletic director at Lugoff-Elgin High School in South Carolina, Coach James Marlow is aware that his tenure may ultimately be very short. But at the helm of Demon Athletics, he’ll be leaving the office much better than he found it, using his unique background in English, journalism, and coaching to steadily build LEHS into a digital powerhouse that focuses on community building, improved team promotion, and streamlined information.

as told to Romy Glazer

I wasn’t initially planning to be an AD. I started out as an an English teacher. At the time, I was working in another district, wanted to be closer to home, and ended up getting a job at one of Lugoff-Elgin’s middle schools. I’ve always loved football, and so while I was there, I always had one eye on the coaching openings so I could get back into the sport. Then, a softball position came open, so I interviewed. I figured that I had three years of previous experience, and it would be a good change to get my foot in the door. I went into the interview, and left hired with a coaching position on the football team! The Lord works in mysterious ways. It wasn’t until October that I was called into the AD’s office, and was asked to be the head coach of the softball team, too. And I thought I was getting a raise! Kidding aside, it’s my 5th year there, 22-5, and it’s a passion of mine. We’re building ourselves up, and that’s great.

As time went on, I became the assistant AD. At our school, the head football coach and athletic director are the same position, and when our head coach stepped out, I got the opportunity to step in. Accountability, hiring and for some reason, the unglamorous things you have to do in the job really have become my favorite parts. With that said, technology was important to me – things I could good do well based on my experience in the English department; instant information, instant community organization. That became a huge focus of mine. Getting the community involved was number one. We’ve got a great school, great kids, and making sure everyone knows what’s happening here at LEHS makes a big difference.

Where we started, information was going in every different direction you could imagine. We had one website, and 20+ pages on Facebook and Twitter. With so many places to go, it was so hard to make sure things were accurate. I understand the power of journalism and its ability to get everyone rallied around our activities at the school, but we just needed one place where everyone could go to find the official accurate information. That’s why we created the Demon Athletics website. We’re still in the foundational phase right now, because as with any new initiative, it takes time to build. The trick was to also make sure that we leveraged the communities that have already shown that they care about us. It’s a balance.

I would be lying to tell you that it’s easy to get everybody to buy into the new initiatives we’re working on, especially consolidating our communication. In general, club promotion is a new concept at our school, and before, no one really had the opportunity to do it. For now, I have to bombard my team with information, but it’s OK. Lots of them forget, and can you blame them? We’re all busy people, but the ones who have jumped on board from the beginning are getting attention. Our audience wants information, and the 14,000 page views per month without a full team drives it home to the others that they need to get on board. The numbers speak for themselves.

We’re out in the country. Couple stoplights, couple restaurants, very tight-knit. Our programs are the activity in town, and having the opportunity to set the stage for to the community to rally behind what we’re doing is really special. It’s not a task I take lightly. With our AD and head football coach a combined role, I’ll be sunsetting in this position as soon as we hire someone. I knew that when I started. It might be a short tenure, but in the meantime, I want to make sure our school is pointed in the right direction with a platform they can really to grow from. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that people love to see their kids names published, even if it’s just the results of the ballgame. The fact that you as the coach care enough to champion your team on your personal time gives them a sense of pride and loyalty to what they’re doing. If you show that you’re willing to take the time, you will attract an audience. And it helps elsewhere, including fundraising, attendance and a better culture at your school. Invest 45 minutes to round up info, get it online, and reap those benefits. Promote it, and they will come. I sound so Field of Dreams! But you know, Kevin Costner, right? It’s true.

For more information and to see photos of Coach Marlow’s teams at Lugoff-Elgin Athletics, check out their website: http://demonactivities.com

Romy Glazer 1/10/16 Romy Glazer 1/10/16

All the lead-generation and sales in the world won’t save you if your product doesn’t perform.

Digital marketing can be can be pretty straightforward. Learn about your customer, build the right content that speaks to them, get it placed in front of them, make sure your website has a way for people to show that they’re interested, and watch the leads roll in.

Pretty soon, you’ll be able to say things like, “online marketing is responsible for 25% of the company’s sales this quarter” and other fancy sentences that show your bosses, the board, and whoever else that you’re crushing it.

It’s a good life, doing things, showing a return on investment, keeping the sales queue full, but what happens when you notice that as you’re getting successful with more and more clients, engagement with your product is dropping?

That’s where we found ourselves last July. Here’s a chart.

Not only were we not keeping up with last year, we were losing ground a little bit every month. As we scaled up from 200 to 1,000 clients, our only respite was Summer break when all the schools we work with went on vacation.

That day, we kicked off a project that turned things around for a small group of our sites. In fact, it blew them up — with average traffic numbers that beat the rest of our network 300% and set new standards for our team.

It all happened because back in July, we knew that without a product that performed, new customers were useless. And we couldn’t count on our current customers to figure out how to right the ship on their own either. So we decided to break marketing out of its traditional role and make it quarterback of a cross-departmental team dedicated to understanding and improving engagement on our websites.

Here’s what we did:

Step 1: Group ’em up!

1,000 different unique customers was no joke, and we knew we wouldn’t have any kind of impact on all of them at once, so we started small — and asked our local sales team to pick a school or two from each of their states. We then took those customers, organized them, and made them our test group.

Here’s all the pretty logos:

ross the States.

(I’ve got the) Power Rankings

At the start, we didn’t really know what we were looking for. We talked to the schools, let them do what they were already doing, pulled the usage numbers at the end of the month (for us, it was pageviews), and ranked them, starting in August (when school got back in session). This gave us a chance to actually see what was happening.

Here’s how August shaped up:

Why were the best the best?

Once we had our rankings, we started at the top. What did our highest achievers have in common?

We needed a measuring stick to help us rate everyone else, and guide our plan —

The top three schools on our rankings had two things in common:

They were able to get 3x the school’s enrollment to visit their site that month. Lots of people were visiting from the community over and above the students that went there.
Once someone visited, they hit 7 pages on the school’s site or more during the month. The community was engaged with whatever it was on the site so much that they clicked around.

So, we started focusing on those two measurements, and it told us a lot.

Based on the information — if a school didn’t have 3x their enrollment visiting the site, they needed help with marketing. For one reason or another, the customer just wasn’t getting enough different people from their community there.

Then, if a school’s visitors weren’t hitting 7 pages over the course of a month, it was a content problem. For whatever reason, the articles, photos, information on the school’s site just weren’t exciting enough to get enough page views.

Now check out the power rankings again, this time with our math added:

We dragged that same math across the entire test group and learned:

Our top three hit both requirements. They didn’t need marketing or content help.
Five of our schools needed help marketing their sites.
Four of our schools needed help improving content on their sites.
Ten of our schools needed improvement in both.
Three of our schools didn’t have enough data to make the call.

Where they placed also mattered. While it wasn’t a clear trend, roughly, we noticed that if a school was placed toward the bottom of the chart and wanted to move up a little higher, it was best to concentrate on marketing their site. If the school was near the top but just couldn’t couldn’t top the charts? Work on content. Almost everyone in places 16–25 needed to work on both.

Based on this ratio, we also learned who had the most potential. Just look at #7, the Eagles. Visitors to their site hit almost 10 pages in the month, which was most in the entire group, but fell so far short in marketing their site that they couldn’t make it count. Even so, we knew that going forward, they’d be a school to watch.

These ratios taught us where to focus, and how to teach our customers how to improve.

Get specific

Ratios were a great start, but they were only the beginning. Now that we knew what needed to improve, the next question was how they could do it. So we looked back at the schools, dug deeper into the analytics, and got specific.

Analytics told us that photos were a huge driver of pageviews — more than almost every other content category.

In August, there were a couple tactics that jumped out at us at making a big difference across all the pages in our group:

Marketing the site:

Connecting an athletics page to a school’s website — As easy as hooking a school’s VNN athletics website up to their main school site so when someone clicks ‘athletics’ they are redirected on the VNN page. In the beginning, parents and fans usually go to the school’s website first when they’re looking for information.
Promotion of the athletic page on the school site — exactly what it sounds like. Did the school put a link to their site on the announcements page?
Sharing of posts on social media — Schools higher up on our list had higher share counts per article than schools that placed lower. Social media was the perfect way to increase a site’s reach in the community.

Improving Content:

“Tell me what I need to know” content — Game recaps, score reporting, and rich media type content is an integral part of what makes a VNN site valuable to a school, but at it’s most basic, it makes sense that a big number of visitors to the site are simply looking for information on where they need to be — whether that’s a schedule, tryout information, or the plans for Friday’s tailgate. We saw that posts telling people what they need to know outperformed game information over 70% of the time.
Photos — If a school posted over 100 photos in the month from games, they were almost double as likely to make the top ten. Seven pages is nothing when you’re looking at photos.

Some of the tactics, like 301 redirects and posting logistics content seem like a no-brainer, but with the amount of schools coming through our site build process, and every school being different, it was easy to miss when a school was just starting out.

One thing, every month.

From these specific tactics, we were able to create one monthly go-forward action that we thought each school on the list could benefit most from, based on what we’ve seen on their specific site. This kept it easy for our support team to communicate, and for our customer schools to remember and execute on.

For some, it was getting a bigger Facebook following, for others, it was making sure coaches posted ticket information the day before a game.

At the end of September, we charted the schools again, looked back at the actions each school took, and ran the ratios again. Then in October, and November. Every month, little things changed — in the middle of a season, photos might be more important than links, and at the beginning, announcing rosters might work better than scores — but the process stayed the same:

Use the test group.
Pull the data.
Run the measurements.
Make a list of tactics that could directly improve your measurements.
Keep it simple and give customers one thing to do.

Pretty soon, we had a good idea how to help a customer become more successful from soup to nuts, and it was showing in our monthly reporting. Of the 27 schools in our test group, 23 of them were beating our network average, and each month, we’re adding one or two more to that list. In 2016, we’re going to scale it up from our 27 school test group, to the 1,500 clients we’ve got across the company.

If you’re a marketer and notice engagement with your product dropping, it’s a problem you can fix. Take it from us and follow our steps to pull a plan together, because all the great brand building you’re doing won’t matter if you’ve got a product that’s simply existing.

Romy Glazer 1/5/16 Romy Glazer 1/5/16

How I Work: Lee Laskowski, Clayton High School (Interview)

Re-posted from the Varsity News Network blog series, How I Work -- interviews with athletic directors. Intended to extend the brand from products to ideas.

Lee Laskowski is always on. His passion for playing sports at Mizzou spilled over into his professional life early on, and since then he’s been working hard to give the kids, parents, and community of Clayton, Missouri a common thread through athletics, “every game, every day.”

As told to Romy Glazer

Being an athletic director was something that I thought about in high school, something that I would really enjoy doing but never thought it would become a reality. So I became a financial advisor at AXA/Equitable. During that time, I started coaching baseball at Clayton. Three years of that and I knew that financial advising wasn’t for me – I left the company and became a certified teacher at Langston Middle School in St. Louis. Towards the end of my first year at Langston I got a call from out of the blue from Rich Grawer, my old AD at Clayton, to catch up. Now, it’s my 8th year there as the Assistant Athletic Director.

My usual day consists of facility scheduling/management, regular day-day operations and supervision. We’re pretty unique in that we share our facilities with the City of Clayton and Fontbonne University, not to mention our Jr. Programs. Where most schools have priority scheduling because they own their facilities, we have a shared usage agreement that we have to operate within. In fact, until earlier this year, our high school didn’t even own a gym. We were using the city of Clayton’s facilities, and you can imagine what kind of logistical creativity is needed to coordinate with so many entities. With that said, the shared usage agreement is pretty great as it gives us access to facilities we might not have been able to manage previously. I make sure things run smoothly.

I really gained an appreciation for coaching and athletic administration when I was playing baseball at Mizzou. As an athlete at the D-I level you really get to experience what it takes to run a sport, program and school under one collective identity. It was amazing to see how fellow athletes, classmates, professors, alumni and community members – a group so large – were all brought together by one common thread, athletics. I witnessed first-hand the hard work and professionalism of my coach Tim Jamesion and AD Mike Alden. It was my first taste of understanding what it takes off the field and behind the scenes to have a great athletic program.

We have an open door policy at Clayton and encourage everyone to stop by and say hello. Having an open line of communication like this has really enhanced our relationships. As you can imagine though, at times it can be hard to stay on top of. Whenever something needs to be done I try to take care of it on the spot, and that’s why I try to stay extremely organized at all times. It’s worked for me to set goals for daily, weekly and monthly operations.Breaking the job up into groups makes it so much easier to keep up with daily requests and fire drills.

My goal’s always been to make sure I read every email, listen to every voicemail and make sure I follow through when I say I am going to do something. It’s inevitable that mistakes will happen, but you have to be able to own them when they occur. You also need to make sure they are honest mistakes, and not something that could have been remedied with more effort. If you can be honest to yourself and those around you everything else becomes pretty easy.

Every game, every day, has become a motto of mine. We all know that it’s impossible to see everything, but I figure that if I can make it to as many games as possible, the easier communication becomes. During certain sports it’s tempting to have the opportunity to get paperwork done but I prefer to just be able to watch and enjoy the game with our students and parents. They’re all opportunities to get to know coaches, students, parents and other AD’s on a personal level. If you can build those relationships, the more effectively you can communicate. Being there is the first step.

I can officially say the fax machine is a dinosaur. When I first started here, there were so many paper documents and faxes that we had to send, and now, information can be submitted via online forms or scanned in and sent as attachments through email. For the most part I try and organize everything digitally, because I find myself needing notes/files/information that you wouldn’t think I would use that much. Having them just a click away really helps.

It feels like all high schools are starting to follow suit of college programs. It’s just not enough to be ok. High schools and athletic directors have to constantly evolve and the biggest trend is through great content and social media. We are in the selfie and hash-tag era, and people want to be connected to what is going on. If you don’t accomplish that, your programs are going to suffer. I’ve always wanted kids, parents and the community of Clayton to have a common thread through athletics like I experienced at Mizzou. It is not just an expectation, it is what Clayton deserves.

We’ve transitioned so much information from paper to the web. It’s meant way less phone calls and way less paper wasted. I’m trying to build a a one stop shop online for our coaches, students, parents and the community to get their information. As I’ve moved forward, I’m finding that the time I used to spend on the phone is helping me enhance what we are doing. Going to games, taking photos, sending alerts, and posting articles, is helping us reach more people and improving Clayton’s image. Colleges figured it out over 15 years ago and now high schools are finally following suit.

We have been able transition so much information from paper to the web. This not only allows us to cut down on paper but on phone calls as well because coaches, students, parents and the community all have a one stop shop to get their information. The biggest positive is that we are reaching more people, and with the time saved we find ways to enhance what we are doing. Back to the every game/every day motto, if you are at games, you need to make the most of it. Taking photos, sending alerts, posting articles are things in which you can to do enhance your athletics program.

I usually will leave the office after the last home game is complete. For a football game that might be as late at 11pm and if we don’t have a game it might be as early as the end of school. This job is cyclical by nature and we go through times that are extremely busy that might include a 16 hour day and others that are just a normal schedule. It is all about finding a balance and the more organized you are, the easier it becomes. This spills over into my personal life, too. My wife usually gets off work earlier than I do, and during basketball season all the late nights can be challenging. Like a team, though, we’ve figured it out together. She was a gymnast at Mizzou, so she loves sports as much as I do. If it’s a particularly late night, she’ll come and work the clock during the games, and then we’ll go home together and eat! If your work/life balance feels a little off, try bringing a little of your life into work!

All in all, I feel like the key is building relationships and making the most out of every day. If you can embrace how unique this job is, the more you will be able to enjoy it. I love connecting with kids – now that I have been here long enough I’ve got alumni that stop by or just come to games and support Clayton. Helping kids grow and mature is truly the most gratifying part of the job. When I see a kid graduate and/or get his first job I feel a true sense of pride.

Romy Glazer 12/13/15 Romy Glazer 12/13/15

Creative Mornings Grand Rapids: Year One

CreativeMornings is a breakfast lecture series for the creative community. The free, monthly events feature a short talk and breakfast in local chapters globally — and in June 2014, we started Creative Mornings / Grand Rapids (MI). It’s been over a year. Here’s what we’ve learned.

The plan itself didn’t seem too difficult. Figure out how to book a speaker for our first event, Minimal, in just over a month. Figure out how to get food there. Figure out where we’d have it. And then, figure out how to get people to show up. That was the easy part.

We already had a great brand — the type, the colors, all the monthly illustrations, the event themes, all from the CM national headquarters in Brooklyn. But after those pieces, it was up to us, and in the last 18 months, we’ve been learning what it takes to build a non-work related professional organization work at the local level. Since then, with events that have a capacity of about 100 people, we’ve signed-up just over 800 mailing list subscribers with a steady 70% email open rate, and we’re growing at a rate of 50 new sign-ups per month in a city of 200,000.

Here’s what you need to know about how we did it:

1. Find your niche

Kathryn Chaplow — “Color” — September 2014

We’ve got a pretty great design community here, and as a team, that was the first thing we noticed. KCAD, AIGA, Ladies that UX, all were really great places for people to network, learn, and get deeper into specific design fields. So we decided to aim wider. Looking at the word creative as a bigger idea would free us to connect with networks that were underrepresented in the design space — holding events focused on fashion, the environment, technology, the arts, and start-ups just this year alone, but at the same time, also be inclusive with the different groups when our monthly events did overlap without competing.

In the future, you’ll see more of this — we’ve been having discussions on what creative might mean in the medical field, in restaurants, on our bodies, and in production arts. Keeping creative broad has let us try new things that other groups haven’t yet, and find our space in the already rich Grand Rapids programming atmosphere.

2. Keep pushing for new experiences

Our community isn’t the largest. Unlike a Chicago, or a Tokyo, getting from one side of Grand Rapids to the other takes about 20 minutes on a high traffic day. And as a result, it’s easy to fall into a routine. Our team set out to break that pattern by committing to make each of our events a little different, whether it was the space, the snacks, or the coffee. GR/CM was a great chance for us to expose our community to new things, even if it was just giving someone their first cup from our friends at Direct Trade Coffee Club.

Yes, new vendors and partners means that every event is an adventure for us to manage (and believe me, some of our adventures are more challenging than others), but at the end of the day, we decided that if we missed because we were trying something new, it was still better for our community than if we phoned it in.

3. Network with care.

James Victore — “Revolution” — June 2015

Networking events are the worst, aren’t they? You get lost finding the place, walk in, get a name tag, awkwardly try to eat whatever is available, and just, kind of, stand there wondering why you came in the first place. Conversations are all about work, and nine times out of ten, someone’s going to try and sell you something. Ugh. Even the word networking is tainted from bad memories. Ever wonder why meeting new people at your friends’ house is much easier than at DeVos Place? You’re comfortable. And that’s the vibe we wanted our organization to have- like you’re visiting friends. Too often, ‘professional networking’ events simply fall short because they don’t do the little things that put people at ease.

On our side of things, we make it a point to send out an email the night before to our event’s attendees with directions so everyone will get to the event stress-free. We know who’s new and who’s been to events before when greeting everyone and tailor what we say accordingly. Even the word we use to describe our function at the event helps sets this standard. We’re hosts, and our organizing team makes it a point to be part of the event so that everyone’s relaxed and happy to see each other. We want everyone who’s come to a CreativeMornings event here in Grand Rapids to feel like they’re part of our community, and even if it was the first time, they don’t feel like it. Being able to understand the pre-existing negative attitudes in what you’re trying to achieve, and zagging away from them is important.

4. Experience is everything.

Carson Davis-Brown — “Color” — October 2015

If you’ve had a chance to read our emails, you’ve probably got a good idea of the type of people we are as an organizing team. The Taylor Swift GIFs, slang, and links to inside jokes are there for a reason — they’re the real things we laugh about and come up with when planning events. We put our best low-maintenance, ‘it’s no big deal’ traits into our communication to lower the barrier to entry for people who aren’t quite sure about us and might be nervous.

At the same time, we’re also putting an exorbitant amount of work is into our product, the monthly events, whether that’s making sure we always have vegan food options on hand, geeking out over booking a fantastic speaker, gold tinseling the stage, hand-lettering our food signs, or color-theming our Halloween candy bags so that everything is red to match.

If either one falls short, so does the organization. Great marketing only works with a great event, and a great event only draws in attendees with great marketing. Know that every official touch point you have with a possible attendee is important, and make sure you’re covering all your bases.

5. Never stop learning

Kelley Howley — “Collaborate” — July 2015

After our first couple events selling out and all-around great vibes coming in from the community, we were pumped. But, as the true skeptics we are, we knew that new excitement could give way to boredom if we weren’t careful. CreativeMornings at its core is duplicate events with a similar program, every month, that take place before work. Just how many people actually would get up for our events more than once? Was it a good thing if everyone was new every time, or would we rather have the same people over and over again? At the end, we realized that we didn’t want either of those extremes.

On one hand, new attendees meant that we were growing our chapter, and bringing new people into the fold. On the other, people who came back multiple times meant that we were doing a good enough job that people actually wanted to spend time with us. The mix is what makes a healthy community — so we started paying attention, and using it as a barometer to help us plan. Of the 88 people who joined us for the David Dodde “Work” event in November, 65% had been to three or more events, and for 35% it was their first or second time. At Kelley Howley’s “Collaborate” event, it was 75% returning, 25% new. At Jim Murray, “Ugly,” it was 65% returning, 35% new. Knowing the numbers helps us make sure we’re on track, and is essential to helping organizations know how to move forward.

Looking back, it’s kind of a wild risk HQ took on us. During that first application process, there were really only about 30 CreativeMornings chapters globally and at the time, they were all in major cities — LA, Amsterdam, Moscow, and Bogota to name a few. Grand Rapids wasn’t on anyone’s radar. We weren’t quite Detroit, but not quite Chicago either. We joked about what the team in Brooklyn must’ve thought of us — cows, farms, and maybe a river? Looking back after two years, I doubt any of us would have guessed what we’d end up learning, but these ideas are the backbone of how our team figures out whats right for us, and what isn’t. Hopefully you’ll be able to take the lessons we’ve learned and apply them to your teams, too.

Romy Glazer 12/1/15 Romy Glazer 12/1/15

How I Work: Rob White, Saline High School (Interview)

Re-posted from the Varsity News Network blog series, How I Work -- interviews with athletic directors. Intended to extend the brand from products to ideas.

Rob White loves technology, fishing, and good efficient communication. He manages being both the athletic director and assistant principal at Saline High School in Saline, MI, all without caffeine.

as told to Romy Glazer

You could understand Rob White’s approach to athletic directing once you know his approach to school administration and teaching. Education. He’s constantly on the move and dealing with unexpected situations, but in all things, whether a mistake, scheduling conflict, or dealing with concerns, he sees it as a way to learn and get better.

My day usually starts before 6am. I’ll roll out of bed, get in the shower, and can be out the door in a half hour. We live close to the high school in Saline, which makes it easy to get there really early. I’m also the assistant principal there, so I need to be around as much as possible. It’s an extra layer on to my day.

I used to drive to work with my two kids, who also go to Saline. Now that my oldest has her driver’s license though, they’d prefer to sleep in a little more, and drive themselves. I’m sure they just love having their Dad as an administrator.

I’m technically not drinking caffeine any more. It’s been almost 10 months. The job is energizing in itself and I’ve found that I don’t need it like I used to.

Before I do anything in the morning, I’m checking my email. I have a hard time if I’m not connected. I try my best to keep on top of things, but on a normal day, I’ll usually receive somewhere between 150-200 emails. I get a good number of them done first thing in the AM from my iPhone, and then also when I’m on lunch duty. The Mophie case I use is a must-have, otherwise, I’ll drain my phone’s battery before lunch. I’ve also got an iPad which I use sometimes. Remember 10 years ago and Franklin Planners? We’d have to set aside family time to figure out who would be where. Man, times have changed, haven’t they?

My secretaries are essential to me. When I get to work, they’re the first ones I talk to. We’ll touch base on the major open items for the day, and anything that might’ve happened overnight. Is there anything big coming up that I’m forgetting? That sort of stuff. Without them, I might not see the forest for the trees.

There’s a not a hectic time in my day; you can get into a routine, but every day is different. It seems like one day there’s issues with transportation, or the fields, or something else. Always the next phone call. Being the athletic director is interruptions and unexpected situations. It’s not going to events all the time, even though I want to. My job is to help my leaders impact lives – and when they do, that’s something I can be proud of.

The two main values that I aim to practice every day is being straightforward and transparent. I also try to have an honest and open vision and philosophy, which makes this easier. I personally believe in the coaches and what we’re doing. Our coaches are incredible, and what we’re doing for the kids is hard work, but it makes a big difference. Do we make mistakes? Sure. But being straightforward and transparent helps us to correct our paths if we need to and address concerns easily. School athletics is educational. The most important part is making mistakes. We want everyone to grow together.

When I started out managing our 32 Varsity Sports and 120 coaches, I had a tendency to over-communicate, if that’s even possible. People say communication is the best way to keep everyone on the same page, and it is, but I’ll be honest, I communicate less often and get better results. When I was sending out 15 emails a day to different people and my coaching crews, they weren’t absorbing the information. One of them later told me that it all turned into ‘white noise.’ So we started sending out a monthly update email instead. It’s color coded, with the things happening the month ahead at the top, and then the things that are still important but are being repeated at the bottom. I manage it with a runningGoogle Doc – whenever I think of something I want to include, into the doc it goes, and when it gets time to make the update – I get serious about firming up what’s in there. It works.

The biggest struggle right now is online organization. I’m always making sure people know that you don’t need to call the office anymore for things like you used to. I need everyone to be doing their work. But parents, the media, and the rest of our public friends need to know what they need to know, and once they’re trained in going to our websites to get that information, I need to be sure it’s easy to find. Otherwise, there’s another phone call. We’ve got this great website with all the information they need and they’re using it! But if I’m doing my best work, I’m making sure that it’s right where they can find it.

You need to know your audience for everything. Take social media for example. I want to communicate with parents mostly, so I’m on Facebook. Parents aren’t on Twitter just yet. They’re moving there slowly, but it’s mostly a place where students hang out, like Vine and Instagram. The nice part about Facebook is that I can schedule things in advance. On the weekend, usually on Sunday, I sit down with our upcoming schedule and I’ll write announcements for the week that’ll come out the day they need to. It takes me anywhere from 1/2 to 1 1/2 hours to get it all done. If I’m using Twitter for the students, I’ll schedule the announcements to come out first thing in the morning – our kids are usually on it right when they get out of bed and until first period. Scheduling my messages for them around 6am means that they’ll see it and can retweet, favorite or talk about it to their friends first thing.

We work hard at Saline to support the local press. Sure, it’s part of their job description to cover us, but we want them to hit their goals too. Website hits, papers sold, either way, it’s all partnership. There’s too many people who don’t acknowledge that. The approach of educational athletics means the media is a part of it too. If they make a mistake I let them know.

Always hire the best coaches. It gets harder and more important every day. Back in the day, coaches always used to be teachers. You’ll know them, their character, and know they’ll be around for a while if they’ve got a teaching job. Now, that’s not always the case. Hire the right people that share your passion, vision and drive. It’ll make your life much easier. It helps me sleep at night knowing that I’ve got the right people in charge.