On Velocity’s Culture: airing out something that maybe we shouldn’t

I’m a big believer in culture as a driver of business success.

But I’m not a big fan of “Values Statements”.

They tend to be anodyne at best and downright Stalinist at worst.

By statute, they all must include, “The customer comes first!” and “Our people are our most blahblehbluh”.

And they’re almost always a bit… patronizing.

Most businesses employ adults—grown-ups who already have values and don’t look to their employer to shape such a fundamental part of being human.

So when one of our writers asked if maybe it would be a good idea to capture what makes Velocity Velocity, I dismissed him with a backwards-wave of my regal hand and a sound that is best spelled, “Ffffffh.” (That last h is important—adds that touch of weary disdain.)

But he refused to be so easily dismissed (pain in the arse) so I started to let the idea percolate.

“What if,” I percolated, “This wasn’t so much a What We Know And What We Believe kind of thing but more a Things We’ve Learned Along The Way kind of thing?”

So I thought I’d write a draft. And if it felt anodyne or Stalinist or patronizing, I’d spike it and tell no one.

So I did.

And it kind of didn’t. To me, at least. Or to Stan and Jess.

In fact it felt kind of good.

So we published it to the company—and now, in light of COVID and all— we’re opening it up for other marketers to read, too, using the handy search-optimised link, Velocity’s Marketing Agency Culture Thing.

Not so much because you might care about Velocity’s culture (no illusions there); but because you almost definitely care about your own culture. And worry about keeping that culture alive through lockdown.

Who knows, maybe this kind of conversation might help you clarify your thinking about it all.

So here it is (in case you missed the way more attractive link above).

It’s a Work in Progress!

The thing is kinda long (it also serves as an employee handbook of sorts) and it’s not complete—some important sections coming. But you’ll get the idea.

A new format is born

The piece is the first example of a new format we’re developing at Velocity, called a River (a companion to the Velocity String format we’ve loved creating and using.)

It may not look so new but it kind of is:

Because it’s built on a pre-coded baseplate which will make it really easy to produce long-form, mobile-optimized, scrolly, text-rich-but-still-visual pieces (with added animations)—but without a lot of custom coding.

So you get pieces that are full of nice UX touches like chapter navigation, scroll progress indication and yummy typography—but without all that dev time. And they’re SEO friendly, so discoverable.

The idea is simple: downloadable, PDF ebooks are fine for some purposes, but more and more, people want that chunky content online, where it belongs. For one thing, your prospects consume it in a live session, so you can track important stuff (like time on page, scroll depth, clicks, etc).

We’re big believers in ‘sessionizing’ your content (wrote a post about called Why You Should Sessionize Your Content.)

Anyhoo — Culture. Culture docs. Our culture doc.
We’d all welcome your feedback, even if it’s hate-filled.