We want to use design, content, and technology to help our organisations create customer-centred and sustainable digital work: services as seamless as Zipcar, mobile apps as intuitive as Instagram, customer service as helpful as Zappos, and content as useful as GOV.UK. But our culture gets in the way. Our organisations operate like factories, determined to preserve hierarchy, divide responsibility into silos, and dehumanise work so it’s more “efficient”. We’ve got plenty of ideas, we work with skilled people, and our tools get better every day—but until we start changing our organisations’ culture, we won’t achieve our objectives.

Start Changing Your Organisation’s Culture Using Storytelling and Startup Techniques from Together London on Vimeo.

In this 8 minute video I explain why we need to start changing our organisations’ culture, how storytelling can help, and what we can learn from startups.

Participate in the workshop

I’m leading a full day workshop on this topic on 23 May 2013 in London. We’re offering a discounted “early bird” price until this Friday 10 May. See you there!

We’ve come a long way from the early days of the web, when “real” business people would pat us on the head and say things like, “your digital toy is nice, but my customers will never use it,” and we’d believe them. They were responsible adults with business degrees, while we were just messing around, right?

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In Episode 11 of the Together London Podcast, I talk to Daniel Eizans about context in content strategy, mental models, and structured content at Ford Motor Company. Check out Dan’s website and follow him on twitter @danieleizans.

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In Episode 10 of the Together London Podcast, I talk to Rob Hinchcliffe about community management, transmedia storytelling, and content strategy. Check out Rob’s website, his upcoming talk at Confab London, and follow him on twitter @hinchcliffe.

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In Episode 9 of the Together London Podcast, I talk to Wiep Hamstra from the Netherlands about accessibility, how to structure web teams, and becoming an agent of change. Check out Wiep’s website, her upcoming talk at Confab London, and follow her on twitter @wiepstra.

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In Episode 8 of the Together London Podcast, I talk to Kate Kiefer Lee from MailChimp about voice and tone, writing for people’s emotions, and how to make blogging part of your job. Check out Kate’s blog at Forbes.com, the amazing Voice and Tone website, and follow her on twitter @katekiefer.

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Most conference talks make the audience feel bad about themselves, because the presenter talks about their achievements instead of how the audience can become more awesome (or how they can “kick ass”, as Kathy Sierra puts it.) This isn’t deliberate, and it’s straightforward to change, as long as the presenter is willing to take a risk by making themselves vulnerable.

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As people who work in technology, content, and the web, we’re at the forefront of cultural change. And we need to take responsibility for the way we run our communities, both online and face-to-face. Let’s talk about some of our problems.

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For much of my career I told myself I was a firefighter, fixing problems that nobody else could. I would get contract gigs as a developer, and web agencies would hire me to fix a content management system or finish a messy project.

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In Episode 7 of the Together London Podcast, I talk to Angela Colter about testing content, considering users with low literacy skills, and continuous improvement. Check out Angela’s blog and publications and follow her on twitter @angelacolter.

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