Key Takeaways from Creative Operations Exchange West, 2018

Creative operations as a discipline is still in its infancy, but as content creation has become increasingly vital (and in some organizations slightly out of control), it is now being recognized by large businesses looking to harness its power.

And it’s a discipline we take a keen interest in here at censhare, sponsoring last month’s IEN’s Creative Operations show in San Francisco, an event which brought together experts and practitioners to discuss what’s working and what’s not, to develop a technical support system among professionals with the same pain points, and share best practices for developing a plan and a roadmap for content publication success.

With presentations touching on the evolution of creative ops, creating ROI through storytelling, and an in-depth roundtable on the tech stacks which successful creative teams are using, there was plenty to take away from the event.

The intimate setting fostered meaningful conversations and a concept which resonated with much of the audience, which included teams from many household brands like Nordstrom, Sony Playstation, Airbnb, AT&T, Pandora and Beats By Dre, that content publishing is every business’s second business.

We admit, through the development of our Omnichannel, Smart Content Management solution, we have a slight bias toward the conversations surrounding technology, but here are our top three tips from these discussions which you may find helpful:

1. Orchestration through technology is key

This was the discussion which resonated most with us as content management technologists. There is an increasingly apparent need for customizable solutions which support intricate workflows to facilitate the success of a creative operations team. These teams are dependent on the software at their disposal to create an efficient workflow and content publishing process.

2. Collaboration is not just IT

Perhaps workflow is not a new challenge, it has been an important consideration for content management professionals since the earliest content management projects, implementations and systems. But today, with content sitting at the heart of a business, it is no longer a peripheral IT project. It requires cross-departmental collaboration and stakeholder buyoff.

3. Stakeholder and user engagement is key to success

The most important stakeholders with a say in the success of an implementation project are those who become its end users, especially those in creative departments with strict deliverable deadlines which either make or break the project. And this was the overwhelming message which we heard time and time again when speaking to attendees - that their success was predicated on this inclusive, collaborative process. Unfortunately, it is often the case that these creatives are simply not involved in the technology buying process.

If you didn’t manage to make it to San Francisco for the event, we hope that this short round up has given you a taste of its gems. We certainly enjoyed ourselves and will definitely be back - we also proudly sponsored Creative Operations events by Henry Stewart in London and New York as well.