I seem to have spent a lot of time this month thinking about people and behaviours at work. My role as MD at Deeson is really about helping create the conditions for people to do their best work for our clients.
I was lucky enough to speak at an Agency Hackers event earlier in the month telling the story of Deeson’s transformation into a leading digital agency with a strong self-organising and autonomous culture.
In the conversations I had after the session, I reflected on the reality the work to create those ideal conditions for our team members is never done. There’s always more that could be done, but the real skill is to know when to stop and move onto the next opportunity to improve or fix something.
Lots of opportunities with potential new clients at Deeson this month too – which means a lot of proposals and presentations, as well as meeting lots of interesting new people too. And as a result of all this two fascinating new projects kicking off in the next few weeks too.
We’ve also been working hard on Deeson’s marketing this month, with new case studies launched sharing more about our work with clients Imperial War Museums, Bond and University of Derby.
We’ve also held two of our popular breakfast briefing events this month – the first looking at storytelling and online collections in the culture and museums sectors, and the second exploring the use of conversational interfaces in higher education.
Our strategy consultancy practice continues to grow rapidly. Highlights for me this month included facilitating a digital strategy day with a major UK charity and seeing the team work with another new museum client on a fascinating brief that’s quite different to what we typically help our clients with.
Last week we held the Christmas edition of the Deeson client and friends drinks evening in London – another well attended event that marks the start of the Christmas drinks and social season. It’s looking like a busy few weeks ahead on that front.
On a personal note, I’ve been doing some work on my personal value proposition – looking at what I do professionally and where I add the greatest value to the organisations I work with. It’s been fascinating applying design thinking principles to help me think about my work priorities in 2020 (“Designing Your Life” by Bill Burnett was particularly helpful).
As we look ahead to 2020, the first few months look particularly busy at Deeson, with many new major projects kicking off. As part of our growth in 2020, we’re hiring in Canterbury and London for several roles in our technical team – developers, lead developers and development managers working across an ever expanding tech stack. DM me for more details or check out our careers page.
