We are Seth Insua, Katie Lewis, Sam Russell and Jassmine Vilkhu, four new recruits in JWT London’s Account Management Graduate Scheme, and we’ve been given the fantastic opportunity to take part in Squared this year. Squared is an exciting 6-week programme and Google-led initiative in partnership with Hyper Island and the IPA with the goal to “empower the next generation of leaders to drive the industry revolution.”
Sixty recent graduates across 25 agencies, newly employed in the media and advertising industries come together in Google’s London offices and work towards becoming Expert Digital Practitioners who know how to research, plan, implement and measure across multi-channel, multi-platform marketing campaigns; Strategists who understand how things fit together from a commercial angle within the wider media mix and ever-increasing boundaries set by emerging technologies; and Change Agents who adapt quickly and embrace new challenges as an opportunity for innovation.
Squared – Katie, Sam, Seth & Jass (left to right)
Broken into three parts, the first portion of the program is an intensive four-week course made up of foundation exercises and projects. In the second part, we’ll be doing work placements back at our agencies, carrying out research about the industry and trying to apply what we’ve learnt to our day jobs. And for the third and final part, we’ll be back at Squared, producing an Industry Report and wrapping up before Graduation.
Squared is designed to be challenging and fast-paced and we’re all encouraged to step outside our comfort zones. With the help of industry mentors it’s a great opportunity to take risks, fail, learn from our mistakes and come out stronger and wiser – all within a supportive educational environment.
So, what’s it like in practice?
We’re one week in and we’ve focused on our personal experiences of working in a team: how to communicate effectively, learn from mistakes, and ultimately become a well-oiled working machine. Separated into five groups of twelve: Ghostbusters, E.T., Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and the Wolf Pack, we were taken under the wings of our mentors from Hyper Island, a Swedish-based learning company renowned for producing the most coveted digital talent in the industry. Hyper Island pioneers courses are based on learning by doing, and got us into a collaborative mind set through group challenges and more. The week finished with a toolbox, a practical workshop about using AdWords. We also worked with tools like Google Insights, Ad Planner and Get Mobile to answer a selection of marketing briefs, then presented a Search campaign to all the Squares and a panel of experts.
Here’s what each of us took away from the week –
The Ghostbusters tackle a group challenge
Seth:
Wow. Five days in and I’m already exhausted! Looking back I can hardly believe I’ve learnt so much and got to know my fellow Ghostbusters so well in such a short space of time. Squared is extremely intense and fast-paced, and the Hyper Island way of collaborating, sharing and learning means you confront obstacles quickly and directly and move on.
My personal highlights this week would be the inspirational speakers and the AdWords toolbox. Richard Eyre—ex Chief Executive of Capital Radio, ITV, and Pearson Television, and current Chair of the IAB, Next 15, and the Eden Project—came in to give us advice, and his talk about how success looks different to every person and how he’s achieved many of his goals in life by taking small steps over imaginary barriers was an enormous inspiration to me. He was gracious about his successes and his failures in equal measure, and showed how important it is to challenge yourself and embrace change in our digital world.
By the end of the week I was excited to get started on the projects and our AdWords toolbox was a great teaser. I didn’t know much about Search Campaigns before the toolbox, but Sarah Tate, who runs the Squared programme, showed how exciting the creative challenges of delivering a compelling message in short copy and a selection of keywords can actually be. After the first day on AdWords we were all using the online tools like pros and (nervously) eager to deliver our inaugural presentations!
Roll on Week 2.
Katie:
The first three days of Squared have immersed us in the Hyper Island way of learning. It’s an interactive, collaborative approach, which enables us to improve the way we work, both as individuals and within a team. Two tasks in particular had transformative effect on our group.
Building personal connections in the workplace means we can better understand motivations and work together more productively.
The first was an exercise where each group member chose a person, an anecdote and a thing they felt strongly about, and shared this with the group. This activity had a huge impact on the group dynamic. Whilst it was agreed that sharing personal things did not come naturally, and was almost rude in the way it presumed people wanted to listen, it was surprisingly engaging to hear about what meant a lot to the people we were interacting with. Hearing people share things openly encouraged them to share much more themselves. In a way it didn’t matter exactly what was said, but that people were laying their guard down and sharing what they wouldn’t usually share.
The task highlighted that knowing what matters to colleagues personally is really important. Building personal connections in the workplace means we can better understand motivations and work together more productively. When we empathise with and trust our colleagues, it’s harder to make assumptions or mistakes that waste time and productivity.
The second task involved giving and receiving feedback. People found it empowering to hear positive comments, and behaviours noticeably changed and improved during the week as a result. People also enjoyed giving feedback, finding it humbling to see the effect that a few encouraging words could have.
People will always have shortcomings and areas to work on, but knowing their strengths helps them focus their energies positively in the right direction, towards what they do well.
It’s always a boost to hear the qualities people value in us, but the effect of feedback can also be a huge catalyst for success. Telling colleagues what they do well, and in a constructive way what they can do better, helps them focus on what they are good at.
People will always have shortcomings and areas to work on, but knowing their strengths helps them focus their energies positively in the right direction, towards what they do well. When it comes to constructive criticism, it has to be done with good intentions. It must come from the right place, with the aim of making the receiver a better person, or it should remain unsaid.
Giving and receiving feedback also helps foster a culture of honesty and sincerity, and it is self-perpetuating. Following the group’s official sessions, we are much more open about our behaviours and talk about them often with each other. Having self-aware individuals who can play to their strengths and build on their weaknesses form a much more efficient team.
Jassmine:
Hi! So it’s the end of week 1 and I’m feeling a bit like a child on Christmas morning who can’t decide which new toy to play with first! The first week has been packed with inspirational talks, models and processes for group and personal development and introductions to digital tools and platforms. I’m really looking forward to contributing to this blog each week as it will be the perfect opportunity to reflect on everything that I have learned and really focus on some key takeaways.
For Week 1, I was particularly inspired by Andy Sandoz’s talk on ‘The Social Web.’ Andy has been a Creative Director for a number of agencies and is currently a Creative Partner at the digital agency Work Club. His LinkedIn profile also states that he plans to invent the Hoverboard by 4:29pm on the 21st of October 2015. I wouldn’t be surprised if he achieves it!
A key takeaway from Andy’s talk was his view on changing technologies. I don’t think anyone would dispute that the ‘digital’ world we live in now is ever changing and moving at an incredibly fast pace. He looked at the way societies have constantly been dealing with changing technologies and the social patterns we can recognise in their behaviours. Smoke signals for example, were they the first tweets? Re-printing opinionated pamphlets, was that re-tweeting?
The future possibilities are exciting but one key thing for brands to recognise and find a way to embrace is that as social becomes more powerful, the power shift moves from brand to consumer. While a consumer was once voiceless, a damaging critique on a social media site can now reach millions.
Andy Sandoz – The Social Web
Sam:
A week into Squared and it already feels as though we’ve learnt so much — probably too much to squeeze into one blog post. The other guys have already done a great job of describing the inspirational speakers we have heard from this week and the potential Google AdWords has for creative agencies, so I thought I would focus on some of the team-building exercises we’ve taken part in.
So far, we’ve worked as a team to cross a crocodile-infested river (also known as the pavement outside Google HQ) and safely defuse a bucket of radioactive waste (or tennis balls). Each exercise has been followed up by a group reflection to discuss how the team worked as a whole, and how we each worked as individuals. These sessions have proved a great way of evaluating our progress as a team, and I’m sure they will become even more crucial as the weeks go on. There’s no getting away from the fact that some of these exercises have thrown us out of our comfort zones — I won’t forget mass-dancing in complete sobriety to Gangnam Style anytime soon — but they have definitely played a huge role in bringing us Squares closer together.
Each exercise has made me appreciate that evaluating a project is as important as planning one, particularly in an industry as fast-paced as advertising.
Dancing (Badly) to Gangnam Style
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