Week 4 - 2022
Intro
Welcome to my weekly blog, where I’m sharing how my company, Together Films, is growing throughout 2022. We are working on a range of exciting projects, and I thought it might be fun to take you on the ride with me.
This week included some further conversations on 2 new projects that we are hoping to close next month. They are both initiatives that will signify a big boost to our growing company, both in stature and value to the business. I’m reminding myself this year that I should celebrate the fact that I have a seat at the table for these conversations, whether or not they come through. Still plenty of highlights that I can share publicly:
✅ Designing a personalized screening room for Patagonia
We have worked with the Patagonia team for the past 3 years on their environmental impact campaigns. We are thrilled to work with them on We The Power, a new campaign about expanding community power systems. As part of our engagement strategies, we create customized virtual screening rooms for each campaign, that include the film player, audience Q&A portal, key information about the topic, and ‘Call To Action’ buttons to direct audiences to key campaign partner actions.
This week our Head of Technical Services, Kendal Bessette, presented to our team the first look at this new player. The impact team was able to feedback on UX/UI, call to action prompts, and evaluation prompts. It looked gorgeous and I can’t wait for hundreds of screenings hosts to interact with the new player. You can request to host your own screening here.
✅ Announced a call for new team members.
As the scale of our campaigns grows, we are seeking some new team members to join us. Our work is at the intersection of impact, creativity, and technology. Together Films are looking for a talented Head of Impact & Client Management to direct and manage an internal team to deliver quality and effective services to our clients.
Delivering ‘impact’ can mean a variety of things to our client base. This may include enhanced social media performance, a screenings tour across educational campuses in the US, an engaging digital/web project or a policy screening at the White House. The scope of services that we provide has expanded to support this requirement to create impact across a range of markets and audience groups. We are now seeking a skilled project manager who can oversee a growing delivery team to ensure we hit our targets on time, on budget, and on spec. I’m really excited about meeting the right person for this role. If you have any recommendations please ask them to apply below.
✅ Invitation to speak on 2 panels about Mental Health
I am frequently invited to speak on industry panels at film festivals, and this week I was thrilled to receive an invitation to talk about mental health and the ways in which Together Films strives to create a happy & healthy workplace environment. The programs will be announced next week when I can provide links to register. Grateful to Wendy Mitchell for recommending me for one of them. I’ll be discussing our ‘Happy & Healthy’ workplace policy, mental health days (treated just like sick days), flexible working policy (including a remote working methodology), and our anti-bullying clause in our contracts.
If you are aware of any interesting workplace mental health policies, I’d love to hear about them. The panel will be widely available, and it would be great to feature any other best practice strategies.
✅ Meetings with prospective Foundation partners
The majority of our work at Together Films involves working on impact campaigns film campaigns. The financing for these campaigns is something I will explore further on this blog over the coming months. In order to enhance our abilities to help our filmmakers raise the needed capital we have registered our non-profit foundation, Impact Together. We have started the year strong with a range of funding applications and foundation meetings, and the feedback so far has been great.
My coach told me recently, “if you don’t give someone the ability to say no to you, you are never giving them the ability to say yes”. This sentiment really resonated with me. I have hesitated to reach out to new funding partners in the past (due to my anxiety), and this year, I’m determined to be more proactive. I’ve been training up our Head of Impact Strategy, Alana Jeffery, over the last 18 months to support our fundraising efforts, and we starting to really see strong results.
Feedback this week
When your husband knows you too well… I just received a text with this image. Does anyone else relate to this tweet? I feel it speaks to the core of my geeky heart.