Donald Chesnut, MS

“90% of what makes a gathering successful is put in place beforehand.” Halfway through Priya Parker’s “The Art of Gathering” and I find this line so impactful for both its literall approach and figurative reminder for all of life’s projects. Purpose drives success. Take this example Priya highlights: 👥 Gathering Type: Back to School Night ❌ Purpose: To help integrate new families into the school community. ✅ Specific Purpose: To inspire parents to sustain on evenings and weekends the values the school teaches during the days. Applied to projects: 🗒️ Project Type: Recurring Video Series ❌Purpose: To educate audiences on financial topics. ✅ Specific Purpose: To connect with millennials on financial topics they’re starting to navigate as they approach their next phase of life. Dive into the details. Get specific. It’s easy to ask the same questions for every campaign, but if you want a successful gathering (or successful project) you have to do the proper prep and planning for the “gathering” you’re trying to curate.

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Thanks to Fast Company for publishing this. While hybrid policies have accelerated lower office utilization, the real culprit lies in our outdated concept of what offices are and the purposes they serve. But there's a better approach. Taking inspiration from our urban landscape, the host of organizations that have already blazed new trails with their workplace, and the ample amounts of research documenting best practices, a new era of office is ready for adoption. #designwithimpact #workplacestrategy #officedesign #cre #futureoftheoffice

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Hat tip to Marshall Kirkpatrick for the recent book recommendation: IntraConnected by Daniel J. Siegel, MD where the concept of identity is deeply explored as both an internal and external experience—what Siegel refers to as "MWe," the integration of "Me" and "We." Below are a few thoughts on what I take away as a creative entrepreneur and agency builder. But first, a couple of initial passages that resonated: "... 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑—𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝, 𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑗𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑢𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒—𝑖𝑠 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑡𝑦, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒, 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓." "... ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑑, 𝑏𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑛, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝𝑠 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑤𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑤𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒. 𝑂𝑢𝑟 𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦-𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓—𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑀𝑒—𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑜 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑠: 𝑎 𝑊𝑒, 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎 𝑏𝑟𝑜𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑠 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑡𝑦. 𝑊ℎ𝑜 𝑤𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑏𝑜𝑡ℎ 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑛: 𝑀𝑒 𝑝𝑙𝑢𝑠 𝑊𝑒 𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑠 𝑀𝑊𝑒, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑠." --- I find these ideas especially valuable for creatives of all kinds, as they highlight how relational awareness shapes both individual and collective identity. From personal experience, it's easy to become closed off—but recognizing that our sense of self is deeply intertwined with connections to others (e.g., clients, collaborators, and the broader community) can foster a greater sense of belonging and open doors to new, expansive ways of thinking. For those interested in an eye-opening read, I hope you enjoy ✌️ #identity #entrepreneurship

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Intuitive individuals possess unique advantages that significantly enhance their effectiveness in creative and marketing roles. This includes enhanced problem-solving skills, superior pattern recognition, increased creativity and innovation, improved emotional intelligence, greater strategic vision, and enhanced adaptability. A study by the Psychological Science journal found that individuals who rely on their intuition can make decisions up to 10 times faster than those who rely solely on analytical processes. Harvard Business Review found that intuitive individuals can process and synthesize information 60% faster on average. Forbes found that 80% of high-level executives believe intuition is essential to business strategy.

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I am gobsmacked to discover an expertise asking precisely the right question -- with the right specificity, context, insight, tone, structure and creativity --helps shortcut harnessing the power of generative AI. #whodathunk #promptengineering #generativeAI @innovationacceleration.ai

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Thrilled to have completed AI-Enhanced Group Facilitation training with @MatthewSias of Innovation Acceleration, LLC. Learned valuable Pre-Session, In-Session, and Post-Session Techniques. #ProfessionalDevelopment #AI #GroupFacilitation #Innovation #Creativethinking #Collaboration

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Ageism is built into automation algorithms.

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Acting from a Crisis Mode is rarely effective. That’s because when we’re experiencing a crisis we either feel like we’re *inside* of the problem, or the problem is inside of us. Here, I dig into getting a new perspective on the challenges you face: https://bit.ly/3zWe1Xy

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This is such cool work!! A couple of things really jumped out to me. 1) "Corporate growth is the ultimate team sport..." -- so true, which of course begs the question of how to get folks across the enterprise pulling in the same direction. Which, unfortunatley, led to 2) "78% of organizational leaders report experiencing what we call collaboration drag....". Yikes. Which led to my final thought bubble: We might be tempted to think of 'drag' as a priced-in 'tax' organizations just inevitably have to pay to execute anything of consequence. But what if it's not?? How much MORE profitable could companies be if they could harness - vs get derailed by -- all the collaboration required en route to market? Thanks for giving me that question to ponder!

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Nothing is Perfect, but Designers make things Better!! Guest - Raja Schaar, IDSA https://lnkd.in/gPGiNeNs I recently read “Designing Your Life” by Stanford professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans who wrote: Designers imagine things that do not yet exist, which they build and the world changes. Designers believe in radical collaboration which works on the principle that people with very different backgrounds will bring their idiosyncratic technical and human experiences to the team. This increases the chance that the team will have empathy for those who will use what they are designing, and that the collaboration of different backgrounds will generate truly unique and highly efficient solutions. – Who doesn’t want that!!! Nothing is perfect, but designers make things better. Let’s meet one now. Details about Raja Schaar She is an industrial designer with an extensive background in museum exhibit design who is passionate about ways design can make positive impact intersections with health, the environment, and education. #designers #radicalcollboration #advancingwomen #diversity #equity #inclusion #access #availability

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While building Toast Now, we followed a process that focused less on specific timelines and more on getting to 1,000 raving fans. I often hear from designers, in particular, that getting to just the right experience is tough especially in companies that are not “design-led”. In many ways, the discussion ends up centering around the right *design process* to get there. The reality is that great products are built not with design-led but with experience-led mindset that’s core to the way the whole triad works, ships, and iterates. Here’s how we built Toast Now. We roughly focused on three key stages: 1. Get to 10 raving fans. We started building Toast Now with 10 or so customers. We had a release out within the first month or so of kicking off the process. When I say building *with* customers, it’s literally the case. We had customers on WhatsApp groups with the product triad (product, engineering, and design). We got feedback daily. The goal was to get them to be daily active users who can’t stop talking about the product and have so much value to get from it. Once we got there and felt confident in the core experience, and even though we were far from a complete product, we expanded the circle slightly with the goal of getting to phase 2. 2. Get to 100 raving fans. Almost the same process with the exception of opening up more systematic ways of delivering feedback. We had an in-app google form that piped feedback directly into a Slack channel that we monitored all the time. Every single piece of feedback was read and actioned. It allowed us to continue to work closely with customers while making sure what worked for the initial small group actually scales. This phase is more about the way we scale the way we learn from varying different types of customers and personas than actually scaling the product itself. From there we got to phase 3. 3. Get to 1,000 raving fans. This is basically a private beta (what we now call “Test Kitchen”). This allowed us to scale similar mechanisms of feedback but also ensure that as we scale, what we learned both scales technically and most importantly, scales to different types of customer segments. By the time Toast Now went GA last November, we had both the confidence and testing to know it’ll land the way it did. The key here is three things: 1. Gate by quality not timelines. 2. Build for a small close group of customers that’s willing to build with you. Continuous learning is the key. 3. Focus on raving fans, not just early adopters. We’re building Sous-Chef, Toast’s AI Assistant for restaurant operators, exactly the same way and it’s exciting when you start seeing the initial signals of raving fans.

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The power of metaphors Here comes an experiment. 💡 I have always loved to use metaphors in workshops or presentations. They help us see new possibilities together. So I'm happy to share some of my favorites and very keen to hear from you about yours. I believe that metaphors can help us all inspire much needed positive change and innovation. 🚀 Example Here is one great example that I stumbled across again recently from Jeff Bezos at Amazon. He has a system for categorizing decisions – he feels this is crucial for the growth and success of any company. He uses the metaphor of two doors: 1. One-way door decisions – irreversible with long-term consequences 2. Two-way door decisions – reversible with short-term consequences When we work in complex situations we might hold back innovation by thinking too much about decisions that we could instead build experiments to derisk adn try to walk through a two-way door that we can come back through. And we might spend too little time analyzing the rare 'one-way door' decisions? Share your favorite metaphors:  Please comment below with metaphors that inspire you. #metaphorclub #innovation #sharing

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If your team meetings have a tendency to get loud, or to be dominated by only one or two voices, consider using turn-taking to help balance the conversation. Here are a few turn-taking methods I've found useful: https://bit.ly/3ok9SWn

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What truly drives your brand? 🧐 Join me and Srini Rao on The Unmistakable Creative Podcast where we dive deep into some really advanced brand development strategies to help you take your messaging to the next level! We discuss the concept of visibility engineering and how to put it into action. Tune in to learn… → how to create an impression and manage influence by understanding the sequential chain of motivations behind your audience's behaviors → how to identify and prioritize core motivations to communicate your brand message clearly AND effectively → how different environments shape motivations → why traditional niching methods are outdated and how focusing on motivational drivers and environmental contexts can lead to better branding results → and SO much more! As The Brand Scientist, I aim to prevent valuable perspectives from being overlooked by helping you navigate these complexities. 👏🏿 You won’t want to miss this insightful conversation! You can tune into the full episode HERE: https://lnkd.in/e9FTxXgn --- Hi there! I'm Chloé, the Brand Scientist. WORK WITH ME 👩🏿‍🔬 I can help you become impossible to ignore—with science. Click the link on my profile, or DM me STAND OUT. 🎤 Need a speaker for your program or team? I speak about underrecognition, as well as bias in branding, PR and networking DM me SPEAK. 🔔 Like this post? Want to see more? Follow me & click the bell on my profile.

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Very interesting article. I wonder how quickly designers are adapting to leverage these efficiencies in process?

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“Wow, this guy has really figured out eyeballs.” I'm not the target audience, and I don't really subscribe to the idea of assigning labels based on the year people were born, but I do think this is an important read for anyone interested in the #creatoreconomy and/or the #futureofwork and/or Internet culture in general. Fascinating insight into Mr. Beast's organization. Makes me reflect on the 6 years I spent building and operating a traditional content production studio in PDX. This is not that. By a mile. Haha. For better or worse, the seismic shifts in content creation are palpable and can't be ignored. PS. I'm sure this wasn't "leaked" 🤣 PPS. Link to full Memo in the comments. PPPS. Here's a solid summary, balancing the good, bad, ugly:

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You're likely not in the room when your idea gets shot down. B/c it's the 2ND convo where decisions get made. That's why the key to effective storytelling is making sure your ideas are easily RETOLD 👇 How do you do that? You turn your idea into a meme 💪 I bet when you read the word “meme” you pictured the Drake grid, Futurama Fry, the "this is fine" kitchen, etc. But memes are simply a method of distilling an idea into a format that is: 1) Concise 2) Memorable 3) Shareable They don't even have to be visual! Dieter Rams’ design philosophy can be summed up in three words as a meme: “Less, but better.” Now imagine your leadership team is discussing potential projects to invest in for Q3 and your idea is up next. Your passion is no longer a factor. All that matters is your product lead's ability to communicate your intent. What meme are you equipping them with? I broke down a few strategies that you can use to "meme" your design ideas below. The first one I just learned recently and I try to do it all the time now 👇 https://lnkd.in/g4HTpHHP

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