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NiceWork: the back story

NiceWork documents 'the new' of innovations in the New York startup world that allow creative people to get paid. It explores a new emphasis amongst business entrepreneurs that values being happy, creative and building communities.

NiceWork communicates 'the new' using a multimedia platform which delivers a narrative via a thematic photo essay. It allows the viewer to explore the story. Rather than assuming the viewer is a passive recipient of the communication, the structure is intended to create an exploratory experience, where the viewer can view images, read more, research their own interests, watch video, communicate back, and share through social media platforms.

The audience should be informed and inspired. I anticipated that my audience may not know exactly what a startup is so one aspect of the narrative provides information about the major themes in the startup world – the business model, use of technology, communication, co-working, design and disrupting old institutions or business practices. As far as inspiring, I would like my audience to get a sense of the inspiration I felt, being in New York, meeting creative successful people who are bringing about change and living their dreams. I want them to think, as I did, ‘I could do that!’

Nicework is unique in that it uses an online photo essay format to communicate a complex environment. The intent was to tell a story visually, to engage, and keep in mind that people might not have a lot of time to read, they should be hooked in with good design and clear communication. NiceWork is present across a number of different channels: twitter, instagram, tumblr, youtube with the handle @itsnicework. My intention is that all the information can be shared, added to, people can contribute to the conversation and it can be an ongoing project.

NiceWork is presented on a website via a platform called Squarespace.

Over two weeks I interviewed business founders, visited startups and attended events. I arrived in New York having not had any success with the people I contacted prior to the study tour. These were Alldayeveryday, a creative media company, Behance, a successful startup platform where people can display portfolios and connect with work, two tech bloggers, Maria Popova of Brainpickings and Amanda Peyton of Slash Blog , plus Morgan Evans of Etsy I am a good email writer but for some reason no one got back to me. I don’t think I was specifically flattering enough or clear enough about the purpose of my project.

Another group I made contact with a few days into the tour, but didn’t manage to connect with until the week following, were Kahoots, a Toronto-based startup from Ryerson University who have created a digital collaboration platform for students. I have since skyped with the two creators and will be presenting this information at RMIT.

While in New York I exchanged emails with Marin, founder of startup Media MA, but he never finalized a date for our meeting. And I was also in communication with Jonny Olsen, a successful musician, who along with his wife are successful artists on a number of digital platforms, but we didn’t manage to meet up.

I did, however, have a full two weeks and interviewed the following people in my documentary:

Emmett Shine, founder of Gin Lane Media, a successful digital media company who create innovative brand strategies for both big fashion labels such as Adidas and Stella McCartney, and new startups such as Harrys and Warby Parker.

Brian Shevlin, founder of Con Artist Collective and co-working space in the Lower East Side.

Kristina Drury and Ellie Wendell of Tythe Design, a social good design agency.

I also attended the following events and places and included information and quotes in my documentary:

Jason Calacanis and the Phat Startup

Slow Food story tour

Ben Cheah at Media Center

Nick Shore, Astronauts Wanted: No experience necessary

Josh Gordon at Knewton

Makeshift Society co-working space

NiceWork is presented as an interactive photo essay on itsnicework.com.

The front page features 16 images with header text. The images, together with the headline text, express a narrative of my journey to New York, the people I spoke to and events I attended, and the major themes which appeared through in the course of my research.

Each square can be clicked on to get more information, so if the reader was to explore every image, they would get the full picture of my research into creative startups and perhaps a sense of inspiration into making something happen themselves.

The 'Exploring New York City' square sets the scene for the documentary. A photo gallery, along with quotes from the people I interviewed, gives you a sense of what makes New York a unique place for startups and entrepreneurs.

'A new business model' is an explanatory square for viewers who might not know exactly what a startup is.

Some squares contain key quotes from people I interviewed. They contain links to the nicework blog to read the full interview.

The second to last square ‘What’s your NiceWork?’ invites readers to contribute their own ideas. I intend to publish these on the blog so that my audience can be part of the story.

Aside from the front page, there are three other tabs on the itsnicework website.

‘About’ explains the project and a little bit about me.

'Blog' links to itsnicework.tumblr.com which contains complete interviews, as well as posts that I wanted to publish, but didn't need to be on the documentary, such as the photos from 'go skateboarding day'.

‘Connect’ gives all the social media channels, so viewers can connect.

NiceWork: my story

Before I left Melbourne, I wasn’t entirely clear on how this was going to work. I felt like we were all being thrown in the deep end. In my job, I use social media a lot, but I have intentionally chosen not to use it in my personal life. Also, at work, I am always in a team usually being directed. It’s very rare that I get to come up with an idea without input from anyone else and it never happens that I have to produce every aspect of it. Some might have seen this as an exciting opportunity but I actually felt uncomfortable with the challenge!

I felt out of my depth in the design and technical aspects. I didn’t feel confident in my aesthetic ability to produce something that was up to a professional standard – I guess I envisaged being disappointed in myself if it looked amateur.

After a lot of research, a lot of discussions and a lot of trying to clarify exactly what my idea was, I knew it should be about creative work.

My first breakthrough was meeting up with a friend, Max Olijnyk, a Melbourne writer, to hear about his new business venture with fellow writer Penny Modra. Over a leisurely coffee in the sun outside hipster Collingwood café Everyday, he told me that he had quit his well paid job to start The Good Copy. He explained, ‘I just didn’t want to work all day to live my life in the evenings and weekends, I want to be happy about what I’m doing for work’.

I came home thinking about those words. I thought about how often startups are about people loving what they do and contributing something to their community, rather than solely making money.

I thought, we all kind of want to do this, I should talk to people who are doing it and see if I can glean some secrets then share them with the world!

Then I had another lightbulb moment later that same day when I thought, why isn’t RMIT doing something like this for students? Specifically, so many students I come into contact with are studying in a creative field and want to find work that allows them to continue that while being able to pay rent. Could RMIT give them a digital platform to showcase what they do and the space to collaborate across disciplines?

This thought made me super excited about the potential of the project to contribute to the field I work in, RMIT Link.

In terms of presenting the project I thought I should focus on my strength which is writing. But I also decided that I needed to convey the narrative simply and visually. This is when I decided a photo essay would be the right structure.

I spent a lot of time researching different web platforms that I could present NiceWork on – Squarespace was exactly what I was looking for. It was extremely easy to use and looked professional, with clean, simple design.

By the time I left Melbourne I had a name for my documentary, a web platform, a very basic narrative structure, all social media set up and I had contacted six people to line up interviews…

By the time I arrived in New York, not one person had replied to my requests and I was extremely anxious. I envisaged having absolutely no content. I was stressed!

On the first morning, when we all met and Marius and Bri told us we should spend the first day tweeting and instagramming to create a #1DINYC documentary I literally had knots in my stomach. It felt really overwhelming to be in a massive city, behind with preparation, to have to interact with a new group of people, find my way around and then use social media in a fast and spontaneous way, which is something I never do. My partner Mavie was there and he said I looked totally freaked out!

However, within half an hour I was tweeting and instagramming away and totally fine.

I had a personal realisation: it’s good to get out of your comfort zone because you learn stuff.

Talking to everyone in my group I discovered other people hadn’t lined up their interviews. I also found out about some events to attend and some people who were doing similar projects to me said I could come along to meet their contacts.

After visiting three co-working spaces on the first day it became clear to me that spaces were a huge factor in startup culture.

Collaboration and co-working emerged as key themes for my project and I decided to focus on work spaces more prominently in my story. I also spoke to Bri and she offered to put me in touch with contacts she had made at Ryerson University in Toronto.

My first interview was with Brian in the Con Artist co-working space. It was inspiring that he had got the whole collective and space off the ground himself by working three hospitality jobs and I was impressed that he had put a lot of thought into the design. Later that evening I attended an art show and spoke with a friend, successful photographer Tim Barber, who put me in touch with Emmett, founder of Gin Lane Media. He was a perfect contact. I realised the difference with New York; people are really helpful but you need to be personal and push a bit to make contact.

New York has a crazy energy. I was getting 5 or 6 hours sleep a night, staying up late to do all my writing and web design, getting up at 6am to take baby Harris to the park. I was surviving on large iced coffees and pure adrenaline. I'd wake up feeling exhausted, then step outside into traffic and shouts and smells and people everywhere - I was right back in it, excited, ready for anything.

I spontaneously attended a talk called the Digital Hustle, a startup event for entrepreneurs who are into hip hop! I was slightly nervous that someone would ask me exactly what hip hop I'm into and my lack of street cred would be exposed, but luckily no one did. The speaker, Jason Calacanis, turned out to be a rock star of the startup world and his talk was delivered with a full rags to riches story and lots of 'you can make it if you try' affirmations for the audience, who lapped it up. It was hugely entertaining and gave me a lot of extremely valuable insights into the tech scene.

Meeting the two women from Tythe Design and hearing about how they got started was when I thought, 'I could actually do this too'. It made me realise that I have the expertise to start a business myself.

After this interview, my picture of New York and the startup scene became even clearer. It was so interesting how themes emerged amongst different speakers from various organisations. These helped shape my narrative. Things like the importance of collaboration, keeping your business lean, building community, adapting and being responsive.

The process of researching this project over two weeks was the same. In fact, Emmet Shine said to me, 'it's like you've had to create your own startup'. I was constantly responding to events as they happened and adapting my work. I had to find connections with different people - and I had to communicate what I was doing effectively to sell it to potential new interview subjects.

Over the two weeks my photography improved by trial and error. On day two Marius said that it would be important to capture the details. I tried to notice small things about the spaces and places I visited as well as getting the big context. I'm pretty surprised and happy with how they came out.

The process of creating the documentary was painful! It took a lot of thought and a lot of work! Transcribing all the interviews, editing them, writing it up…selecting the best photos. Trying to pull out themes was something I thought about pretty much the whole time throughout each day. I brainstormed and played around with the final structure and drew many different plans.

The disrupt square was really interesting to me. I felt like that was such an important and cool aspect of what was going on. So I selected the skateboarder image to show firstly the younger generation Z’s coming up, and secondly that clichéd symbol of skateboarders as little disruptive kids.

Overall, apart from all the things I learned about startups from my interview subjects and attending events, what I really valued from the tour was having to create a whole project on my own. This is a really valuable aspect in that it teaches so many skills. I had to find a web platform and design it myself, I had to take my own photographs. I had to design and lay out my information. Contact everyone myself, decide who to include, the look, the style, the name. Nothing was run by anyone else. Decisions had to be made fast. I really value that I did it all myself, even though it was kind of scary!

I plan to present this at RMIT and I am keen to use this to drive a project for the students – I think the university would benefit from providing a co-working space and a digital platform where students can show their work.

I also want to continue to investigate the world of creative startups and present them on my blog. In future, I could start my own business. If I keep speaking to like minded people and running my own projects, it could lead to travel and business opportunities. I feel that my skills could be used anywhere.

I feel that this study tour was the most beneficial thing I have done as part of my degree. I would passionately encourage anyone enrolled in the course to do it – it’s so valuable on so many levels and it’s an experience I’ll never forget.

Having the website is a really good showcase of my skills. It's a way of demonstrating to potential employers what I can do and that my communication skills are innovative, creative and wide ranging. I'm really proud of this project.

It's NiceWork and you can get it

Press release: for immediate release

Loving what you do and building your community through your business.

NiceWork is a documentary project exploring the way in which startups are providing platforms for creative people to connect with industry opportunities and find new forms of work.

The main aim of this project is to find inspiration to develop programs for students seeking work opportunities in the creative field.

Startups are at the centre of a culture that is about communities, collaboration and sparking new ideas. This culture is in part based on the premise that you should love what you do for work – and if there is a harmony between making money and creating the world you want to live in, so much the better.

This cultural phenomenon is having major implications for the workforce and what people can expect out of a career.

NiceWork aims to show how this unique and innovative culture can be adapted to different situations. It envisages a new way of getting people and businesses to work together, and not being restricted to old systems or even locations.

Exploring the NiceWork of others shows what else is possible.

Cassandra Scott is a Melbourne-based communications professional with aspirations to be a global practitioner. She is inspired by working creatively with others in different fields and seeing the spaces in which creative people work.

#NiceWork #ItsNiceWork #NiceWorkpressrelease

Documentary Proposal: NiceWork

Description

NiceWork will explore the way in which startups in New York are providing platforms for creative people to connect with industry opportunities and find new forms of work. The ultimate goal of this research project is to investigate whether and how this type of business model could be used within a university setting to provide opportunities for students.

Startups are at the centre of a culture that is about communities, collaboration and sparking new ideas. This culture is in part based on the premise that you should love what you do for work. Another aspect is that the work you create shouldn’t be all about business; if there is a harmony between making money and creating the world you want to live in, so much the better.

This cultural phenomenon is having major implications for the workforce and what people can expect out of a career. Universities are also having to adapt and change to this new environment. What they are promising to students, they may no longer be able to deliver. How can they adapt? What of these models could be picked and used? My documentary will explore startups keeping these ideas in mind.

My career ambitions are to firstly be innovative in my current role and secondly, in the future, be able to work anywhere. Being innovative in my current role includes using these ideas to create a project for students at RMIT. The project aim would be to provide a platform for RMIT students to showcase their work, discover ways to work creatively with others in different fields and connect with industry opportunities. It would encompass a curated digital platform, related workshops and events, and with scope to develop a co-working space on campus.

With this outcome in mind, my documentary aims to show how this unique and innovative culture can be adapted to the university setting. It envisages a new way of getting schools and departments to work together, and not being restricted to students studying on a particular campus. Exploring these opportunities will enable me to see what is possible.

Research plan

My plan is to approach this documentary as an in depth piece of investigative journalism. The end result will be a multi-layered story, featuring interviews, photos and video…and who knows…maps? With this format, I hope the viewer will be able to explore the story.

One layer will tell the story of startups in general. With this in mind I want to interview different types within a startup: a tech person, a designer/creative and a business manager. I hope to be able to get a sense of the culture and translate that into terms the layperson would understand.

The other layer will be about showing different creative spaces and conveying to my audience how they work. I want to speak to the people who use them, to document exactly what sort of work is being done and how the process is carried out. This will involve photographing different shared spaces, talking to different artists, managers and their clients, depicting projects that have been carried out in these types of spaces and attending events or performances.

My method will be to conduct interviews and document everything with photos, video and audio recordings. I will allow time for making new contacts during my trip and including them too. I hope to line up my interviews for the first week of the trip, which will allow time for further investigation, new contacts and compiling the documentary in the second week.

Key players

I will contact all of the New York-based organisations or individuals via email within the next two weeks, and hope to set up meetings for the first week I am in New York.

Melbourne

Before I leave, I am interested in looking at The Loop.

I have already had a meeting with Max Olijnyk, Creative Director of The Good Copy, a Melbourne writing startup in Collingwood and visited the co-working space Magic Johnson, also in Collingwood.

New York

Con Artist collective – as a start, this collective and shared space will be good to explore to get a sense of the scene in New York, and the artists who are part of it.

Alldayeveryday – my main inspiration. A platform for writers, artists, photographers and filmmakers to collaborate and gain exposure and collaboration. Within Alldayeveryday, I would like to meet the team and in particular speak to Philip Leifbjerknes (Digital Director and Partner) and Jamie Falkowski (Marketing Director).

New work city - a co working space in little Italy that offers events, meetups and classes. I’d like to talk to founder Tony Bacigalupo and find out about their community and how they encourage people to work together.

Behance – in the realm of what I’m thinking about: a platform to ‘remove the barriers between talent and opportunity’. Creative people connect with work.

Maria Popova of Brainpickings – creater of a wonderful blog spanning ideas about art, design, science, technology, philosophy, history, politics, psychology, sociology, ecology, anthropology, and more. Would be a good social comentator on the startup world.

Amanda Peyton of Slash Blog – a writer and technology entrepreneur who is part of a startup called Grand St, has interesting insights into the way startups are changing industry.

Morgan Evans of Etsy - Morgan is the Community Lead at Etsy, which is a hugely successful startup. It would be great to hear her perspective on creating and nurturing communities and what this involves.

Production plan

This documentary will be delivered via a blog and will include photographs, video and print.

The written part of the report will be no longer than 3000 words, the photographs will be curated into sets of around 10 and each video or audio recording will be restricted to around two minutes.

Resources required in NYC: laptop, good camera, internet connection, phone, workspace.

Timeline

Publication plan

The documentary will be presented to communications and delivery staff within the Students Group at RMIT – and potentially other RMIT departments also.

More broadly, this documentary will be suitable for publication in Australia’s professional Media and Communications publications such as:

Anthill

Marketing magazine

B&T

These outlets are appropriate to the topic and my ambitions because my project aim is to kick off a related project at RMIT. This is its first purpose. The media and communications publications provide a platform to have my work seen by a broader audience and spark a conversation about ways to use innovative media and comm's within universities.

Production sketch

Visit my Pinterest mood board for links to documentary, journalism and video I like.

Follow Cassandra's board NYM Documentary on Pinterest.

Awesome, fun, interesting videos and graphics about stuff that matters.

One of the many ways people can connect politically and disseminate information rapidly via social networking

These principles are posted in our office, which is affectionately dubbed “The War Room”: We make it easy to find, read, and share the most interesting and talked about stories on the Internet. The experience must be fast and thin. Let users go, and they will come back to you. We optimize for return visits, not pageviews per visit. Build an experience that is native to each device: smart phone, inbox, Web page. Stories must find the user, wherever they are. Users must be able to share where they and their friends already are — on networks like Facebook, Twitter and email.

A blog post from the team who started news.me and relaunched Digg

Inspired by

Snow fall in The New York Times. Beautiful design, high quality writing, innovative way of story telling

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