John Corcoran 11:17
related to these are other organization related
Brett Harned 11:21
to me, but I wouldn’t be reached out to about them. And I would travel and speak at those events, or even host them, which is really cool and exciting for me for a lot of reasons. But so so the idea just kind of caught right caught on. On top of that, the meetup idea caught on. So at the second conference, we had a session about this is how you can start your local meetup, where I would kind of tell my story about what we did share some tactics, and then have others kind of share those tactics as well. So essentially, those local meetups started popping up. And those were kind of in some way connected back to our event. So, you know, I think we had that level of engagement that wasn’t necessarily related just to our event, but the community at large, right, like, we’re not trying to own a community, we’re just trying to grow it and provide a place for people to come in. So the local meetups happen, but also, you know, through the bureau, there are other opportunities. There are digital PM camps. There are channels in the slack group for digital pm specifically, there are sessions that we do, there are workshops that we do as well. So there are a lot of opportunities out there. And like I said, before, you know, businesses have grown out of this as well. There’s a website called the digital project manager, that is an amazing resource for people, if they’re looking for tools and templates and blog articles and things like that. There are other kind of like training businesses that have cropped up out of that. Like I said, before I published a book about it that is being used in classrooms across the world, and things like clothes, it’s yeah, it’s awesome. It’s cool, how many opportunities it has created for a variety of people in a variety of different ways.
John Corcoran 13:13
Yeah, you know, before our business became as focused as we are now on helping b2b businesses to create podcasts, we were really an event business for a number of years where we did events, and a lot of them were like in the e-commerce space, which is very competitive space. And one of the challenges to building any community is getting people to be vulnerable, and to share, especially if other competitors in the room. So how do you crack that nut? How do you get people to come together? And you know, if there’s another if they’re, you know, a web shop, there’s no other webshop in the room? How do you get them to come together in a local community and share best practices with one another?
Brett Harned 13:55
Yeah, well, I want to say it’s about kind of like modeling behavior, like you stand up, and you share something, and then people immediately drop their guard. But there’s another thing that was created early on at the Bureau for those small kind of gathering this kind of Camp events where there’s an oath. And the oath basically says, like, I’m going to share things, I’m going to be vulnerable. And I’m not going to share these things outside of the room. And I think just and people have to actually, it’s on-screen people read along. It’s a it’s a thing that is done, right. So it’s kind of silly initially when you did this. I mean, it’s, it’s the same, it’s done by creative people. So it’s written in a way that’s a little cheeky and fun. You know, it might mention like, you know, I won’t I won’t mention any of this even after I’ve had a few drinks or something like that, you know, but I think that’s part of it. It’s just like, giving people permission to feel like they can be vulnerable and share because then they start to recognise Nice that, oh, there are people in the room who have the same point of view or the same experience as me. And maybe if I talk to them, I might learn something or find a different approach to that challenge or that thing that we were talking about. But I’m with you, it’s tough. It’s tough to get people to open up. But I think it’s very much for the event organizer about setting the tone. And kind of giving people permission to be that way. Because I think just in general, as professionals, we’re, we’re not vulnerable for whatever reason. There are times where I can can really benefit from it.
John Corcoran 15:36
People struggle with it. We talked mostly about the community building side, but let’s shift to talking about the event management side of the equation and some of the best practices there. You touched on a little bit, you mentioned that it was it’s important, you found that not just having big speakers, but allowing, you know, people to have conversations for them to share to hear from people that are not just like some highfalutin author or something like that. But what other in terms of best practices? Have you learned over the years in putting together as many events as you have?
Brett Harned 16:13
Yeah, that’s a really good question. Well, I think location is one, right? Finding a location where you actually host the event. So we’ve done our event. The first one was in Philadelphia, I’m in the Philadelphia area. We’ve done it in Austin, Texas, we’ve done it in Orlando, Florida, we’ve done it.
John Corcoran 16:37
So a bigger city where people want to go is what you’re saying,
Brett Harned 16:40
Yeah, finding a place that’s affordable to travel to where you can find a place that’s nice enough and can kind of like fit the amount of people that you want, obviously, is really important. But I think even aside from location, it’s more about the programming. It’s more about finding the topics or the themes or ideas that people want to talk about things that people are struggling with, and want to learn more about or get better at. And I’ve been known to throw out surveys, or even just get on the phone with groups of people and just talk to them about what’s top of mind for them. think the other thing for the Digital PM Summit is you know, it’s again, a new audience a new space where there aren’t necessarily a ton of those kind of highfalutin author speakers there out there. But again, those aren’t necessarily the people that that our audience wants to hear from. So finding opportunities where, you know, I’m building a community, but also giving those people an opportunity to be on that stage. And to kind of grow into like, the business owner, or, you know, or the next top kind of digital project manager, whatever it might be, that sounds so ridiculous. But, you know, giving people the opportunity to be the event as well, like be a part of the event, but also be an attendee, I’m a really, Carl feels the same way about this at our in person events, we want our speakers to show up and attend. We think, you know, we’re really conscious of the event experience overall. And just creating a space that feels like people want to be there. How many professional conferences or events have you been to where it feels like, half the room is gone by the end of the day, because you’re in a location where they just want like, want to be out in the sun or check out something that does not happen
John Corcoran 18:43
to our events? And then press on that. So what’s a specific example of ways in which you did that? You built that so that people feel like they want to be there?
Brett Harned 18:53
Yeah, so building in sessions. So in terms of programming, it’s not just a block of keynote presentations, it’s maybe we do a couple keynote presentations. And then people go into breakout groups based on specific topics, or maybe they’re assigned to a room based on the size of their agency or the industries that they work in. And then there might be a mini workshop in the middle of the day. So there’s more interaction. So you’re not just sitting there listening to someone, and then we might come back for a keynote at the end of the day. So I think program is programming is really kind of the biggest piece of that. And I was really concerned about that going into our first online Summit. Knowing that the interaction on Zoom is not the same interaction, you know, the session a workshop sessions, not going to feel the same when it’s online.
John Corcoran 19:48
You can have the you know, happenstance the you know, just run into someone in the hallway chat over a drink and you know, yeah, are whatever. Yep.
Brett Harned 19:57
But you know, I think we’ve dun. And I think when I say we, I mean, we collectively, like human beings, we’ve done a lot to kind of make ourselves comfortable in the online space. So by the time we got to October with that event, our first online Digital PM Summit, things were pretty comfortable. Of course, people were talking about zoom fatigue, and we worried about people dropping out. But I think as long as you’re engaging people with conversations that really matter to them, or presentations that relate to or provide some benefit for them, they’re going to stay. And that’s definitely what we saw.
John Corcoran 20:37
Yeah, yeah. What about in terms of organizing an event, sometimes it can be a challenge to figure out who it’s for and who it’s not for, and figure out how you communicate that away in a way that you make sure that you have the right people in the room, even if it seems like it’s a very specific niche. So for example, you know, you know, digital project managers, well, you could have a very senior person in the room and a very junior person in the room, and maybe one of them would be kind of checked out, because they just aren’t getting out of what they need to. So how do you how have you
Brett Harned 21:15
dealt with that challenge? Yeah, so we’ve, that’s, it’s a tough one, especially in project management, because it’s really hard to determine what senior versus junior or advanced versus intermediate, right. But what we started to do was push speakers for more of that classification, so that we could kind of create tracks and know that we would have, you know, if we’re having a breakout session, there would be opportunities for people at different levels, or even in different situations, you know, being an agency pm versus like an in house corporate kind of PM. So, so that was kind of our solution to that. I don’t think there’s any kind of great answer to that, I think. But I do think that’s where the discussion sessions really tie things together, because you put into you get out of that what you put into it, right? So if you’ve got a burning question, and you feel like you’re in, in a group that kind of gets it and is on the same page as you, you’re going to get a lot out of that. So again, it’s about creating those opportunities for people as much as possible.
John Corcoran 22:21
What are you, you know, as we record this in August, 2021, digital project management world has evolved so dramatically in just in the time that you’ve been doing your Summit, there are so many more tools that are available is a very different understanding of, of working remotely and remote teams now after 18 months of pandemic. So what is top of mind for people that are in the project management world right now, digital project management world?
Brett Harned 22:54
Well, tools are always top of mind for us, right? And people always want to talk about apps. And I’m always the first guy to say like, Hey, we lead with, we lead with what’s up here, not like what’s on the computer in front of us. Like, I think our challenges are much bigger than that.
John Corcoran 23:13
And you know, for a guy like yourself, who said that you want to listen to what the community wants, right? They tell you what you want, you want to give it to them. That’s got to be a challenge, right? Because if you allow them to, they probably talk about tools all day.
Brett Harned 23:27
Yes. And here’s the thing about talking about tools all day, it’s like, you could start talking to me about zoom, and I use Google Hangouts. And so everything that you say goes in one ear and out the other, and I get nothing out of that. But then zoom gets a big kind of advertisement at the event without being a sponsor, right. And not that the sponsorship piece matters as much as like relevancy to the entire audience. So I steer clear of tools as much as I can, I think where people are now and where I have really been focused is their perception of the role. And it’s something that I’ve been really focused on from day one. I think the perception of the project management role is really that, you know, they’re kind of like the team secretary, or they’re not as strategic as they’re, though they’re kind of like box checkers, right? Like they’re, they’re the micromanager comes in check in see how teams doing that is not at all what digital project management is. And I think I’m more focused on the way people are perceiving that role, the way people are hiring for that role, the job descriptions that they’re writing the way that they’re integrating a pm into the team. And I think along with that comes a topic that’s really big is just communication and empathy. And, you know, as a PM, you’re the person who sits between a client and the team and management, and you have to wrangle all of the details and keep everyone On track and keep the project on budget. And in order to do that, you have to be a really good communicator, you have to be able to adapt to a lot of different communication styles and personalities. And it can be really challenging. And I think that’s one of the topics when it comes up, people really latch on to because they think they’re always looking for tactics to be better, to not have issues when it comes to communicating with a team, whether it be in person or remotely. I mean, talk about remote communication, and it’s like, a whole other world, right? And that’s where tools come back into it. That’s kind of like full circle. But yeah, it’s really it’s a really interesting question, because I think, at the core, it does come down to people and process. And that’s, they’re all kind of jumping off points from that.
John Corcoran 25:53
Yeah. If if a young person’s listening to this or watching this in the future, and they’re thinking this sounds like an awesome field for me, I’d love to go into this where, what should they do? What’s a good background and training for someone who’s interested in being a digital project manager?
Brett Harned 26:10
Yeah. So check out my book, project management for humans, it’s actually a very kind of entry level book for anyone who is working in an agency space and wants to know more about how to be a good PM, whether you’re a that by role or not. I also think, you know, check out the digital project manager calm, and like I said before, is a great website. And Carl and I are actually working on a little boot camp, that I’m going to be running probably early next year, training for PMS. I also have a ton of if you search me on YouTube, I was kind of free content there, too.
John Corcoran 26:52
That’s great. Yeah, a couple more things I want to ask you about before I let you go. You mentioned Carl Carl Smith, the founder of Bureau of Digital that I’ve had on this show and a couple of others, who else was, you know, part of this community who else has been a valuable member of this community and helped you to grow it over the years? And I’m also interested in knowing, you know, other than maybe just personal interest, how do you stitch together a community of people that want to be the leaders and want to help to organize this, even if maybe they weren’t? You know, I don’t know if they had a financial stake in it or not. But, you know, how did you stitch together that community people in order to be a part of building this community?
Brett Harned 27:40
Yeah, so actually, the person who really championed this with me early on with Greg Hoy. Greg was the head of Happy Cog, then. And he really helped with a lot of the community building along with Greg Storey. So I think that’s as it relates to the Digital PM Summit and that side of the community, I think there are a lot of other people who have worked within the community to do their own work. Like I mentioned, a lot of people kind of creating their own meetups and some meetups. There are a few women in Austin, Texas, who have been running a meetup for years now that is an is amazing. It’s called Kickass PM, and they have sponsors, they have regular events, they’ve run it all through the pandemic, and have done an amazing job with it. To your question about, like, how do you find the people? I don’t think you find the people as much as they find you. I think, you know, when you’re the whole idea of starting a community is trying to find your people, right. And, of course, you find your people, but you don’t find the leaders that easily. But what I quickly found was, people want to be involved. And if they want to be involved, they’re going to say, How can I help. And that is how I built a team of people in Philadelphia to manage the meetup. And I actually handed that off a couple years ago, it’s about to be too much for me. And it’s, it’s still running. And it’s happened with a digital piano. I mean, every year, we have a great group of volunteers who come and help us run the event, because they want to be there. They also want to experience the event. And they just want to help out in some way. So that’s just also a message to people. You know, people like me always do need help. A lot of times people will reach out and ask for things. But more than that people ask if they can give things connect, can I give time? Is there something that I can do to help them be a part of this? So I’d say be open and welcoming to those people because you need them for sure. That’s how community grows.
John Corcoran 29:49
So that’s the perfect transition into what was going to be my next question, but you kind of answered it already, which was about how to be a good community citizen. You know, and I’ve been saying for yours I’m a big believer that you shouldn’t spend yourself a mile wide and an inch thick. You know, you should find communities where you feel like you belong, where you share values with the community where you want to get to know more people there. And then you should go deep with that community. And you should offer to give back, you should offer to volunteer for the organizers that community see what you can do, you know, even if it’s like sitting at the front desk and checking people in coming into a meetup or something. So talk a little bit about what we’ve been talking mostly about as an organizer of a community and organizer as an event best practices. But what are some best practices? If you’re a member of a community and you want to go deeper, and you want to have that turn into business? You don’t want to be sleazy or manipulative? Of course, you want to be a good community citizen? What are some things that you can do?
Brett Harned 30:44
Yeah, I mean, I think it comes down to doing what feels right for you. You know, I think, within community, we need volunteers to help, right? And you need those volunteers to be genuine in that commitment. It can’t, it can’t be sleazy. It can’t be about finding an opportunity. It has to be about boosting one another up. That’s really what it all comes down to. But it’s also bringing ideas to the table to like when you’re starting a meetup, you’re really just trying to figure out what’s going to work, I can tell you that there were events that we threw where less than five people showed up. We’re like, whoa, wasting our time on this, you know,
John Corcoran 31:24
maybe we’ll never do not do this topic again.
Brett Harned 31:28
Yeah, right. Or it’s we actually starting to find you might laugh at this, like, we started to find that people didn’t want to do happy hours at a bar. So we stopped doing happy hours at a bar, we started doing more kind of education focused events. And I think, you know, back to your question, really, we figured that out, because people came forward and told us what they wanted. And if we didn’t have that, I think I would have been scratching my head to try to figure out what people liked to do. So yeah, it’s really just about helping one another out, I have to say, you know, through that early early community building, I made some really solid friends and some solid business contacts that I still am in touch with today. So I think that’s the that’s the selfish side of it is like, yeah, you will get the contacts you will get the benefit long term. But early on, you have to be really focused on how you can help other people and how you can grow that community. And sometimes it’s bringing other people to the to events. Sometimes it’s just sharing a link on Twitter. Sometimes it’s like stepping in and saying, Hey, I have an idea for something where you guys helped me pull it off, or can I do this for the meetup?
John Corcoran 32:44
That’s great. That’s great advice. All right, I have to ask about some of these cool clients you’ve worked with before we wrap things up. And then I’ll have one more question after that. But Zappos, MTV, Ben and Jerry’s, you have redesigned their website, you met Ben, Ben and Jerry’s? That’s so good. We’ve done yeah. So talk about some of this interesting work that you’ve done.
Brett Harned 33:02
Yeah. So, you know, my work in the agency space is, it’s been a while I’ve I stopped working in an agency in 2015. So these projects are a little bit older. But my first project at Happy Cog, I worked as I was the pm assigned to the redesign of zappos.com. So the amazing designers on that team came up with some of the design and UX architecture or information architecture that still lives on that site today. I know going through some airports, you know, like the bins that you put in your stuff, and they go through the conveyor belt, from being I think, the Chicago airport, and they were branded, they were Zappos branded, knows, like, oh, my gosh, our team actually created that. So it was like a lot of that work spread out in different ways. MTV, I have to say, you know, I was probably a few years into my career at Happy Cog when they came to the table. And I always say like, 15 year old be was so excited to get that project, to be able to step into the offices in Times Square, and get to meet these people who are working on this product that I thought was really cool. And essentially what we did was we helped them to create a new online event where fan armies would basically vote on you know, a number of topics. And then there was a big online live event that we supported. So we traveled and went and did those events and supported in person I think three years in a row, which is really exciting. Also got to work with like really amazing clients like Harvard University. And now my my favorite part of project management in an agency is the fact that you get a burst I view of your clients business and you get to see how places work, what organizations look like, how they’re structured, what personalities are, what works and what doesn’t work. And there’s a lot that comes along with that. But it’s such an education that people don’t recognise sometimes in just organizational politics process communications. To me, that’s, that’s the coolest part about that job. It’s just you just learned so much, and you meet so many cool people, and you get to deliver amazing products to
John Corcoran 35:36
Yeah, that’s cool. All right. Last question. I call it my gratitude question. If you look around at your peers and your contemporaries, however, you wanted to find that, who do you respect? Who do you admire? That’s doing good work. You mentioned Carl, you mentioned Greg Hoy. Greg Storey, you mentioned a bunch of different people, but anyone else that you would, you would want to call out on the carpet and give them some recognition?
Brett Harned 35:57
Yeah, you know, I have had the benefit of working with so many amazing people in my career that it’s hard to name one person, but I’m going to call one person out. And his name is Anthony Colangelo. He is a developer, probably the most brilliant developer I’ve ever worked with. He currently is at Big Cartel. And, you know, he’s just such a smart guy. He’s very easy to work with. But he’s also really entrepreneurial. Like, I’ve always butchered that word. He is really into space has created a space podcast. And of course, not remembering the name of it. Basically, he’s got like, over 15,000 subscribers, he’s got a Patreon. He’s just an interesting human being who does really good work, and I would trust him with any project work that came my way or probably anything that related to my family as well. So I call out Anthony. Excellent. I was also 21 When he was hired at Happy Cog. So he’s like, almost like a little brother to me, which is interesting, but yeah, cool. Cool.
John Corcoran 37:12
Brett, where can people go to learn more about you? BrettHarned.com Excellent. All right, Brett, thanks so much.
Brett Harned 37:18
Thank you.
Outro 37:19
Thank you for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast with John Corcoran. Find out more at smartbusinessrevolution.com. And while you’re there, sign up for our email list and join the revolution revolution revolution revolution. And be listening for the next episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast.