Tech, Travel, and Twang!
Come for the thoughts, stay for the tea. The co-founders of Destination Innovate, Jennifer Barbee and Kristen Cruz brew up the latest industry tea every Tuesday - diving into simmering issues, hot trends, and special guests. Grab a cup and let’s spill the tea!
Tech, Travel, and Twang!
Monday Momentum Ep. #2 | Cracking the Code on Remote Collaboration Success
We're unpacking how a team can not just survive but truly excel in a remote work environment! Shedding light on the autonomy and trust required to foster creativity and productivity outside the traditional office. As we navigate through our agency's own journey of wholly remote operations, we share how flexible hours and geographical freedom are reshaping the way we work and live. And, for those who think out-of-office means out-of-sync, we're ready to bust those myths wide open, showing how passion and teamwork can flourish far beyond the confines of the cubicle.
Looking for a behind-the-scenes peek at the hottest industry events? Get ready for an exclusive scoop from the tourism summit in Vegas and the DMA West conference, where the future of Destination Marketing Organizations takes the spotlight. We'll be talking tech trends, the delicate balance of media strategies, and the quest for authentic, purpose-driven work. Plus, don't miss our upcoming conversation with Josh Collins and the big reveal of our transformation services supporting local talent and businesses. If you're seeking that "kick in the pants" to catalyze your professional drive, tune in and get your regular dose of disruption courtesy of our daily newsletter.
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The Tech, Travel, and Twang Podcast is hosted by Co-Founders, Kristen Cruz and Jenn Barbee with Destination Innovate. Learn More! https://destinationinnovate.com/about/
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Well, hell, welcome back to Tech Travel and Twang. Well, happy Monday. Welcome back to Tech Travel and Twang. This is our Monday momentum edition. I'm Jen Barbie and my co-host, kristen Cruz, is with me. Happy Monday, kristen.
Speaker 2:Happy Monday. It's another Monday it is.
Speaker 1:It is, and we're making a commitment to celebrate Mondays instead of, sure, go away from them. Yes, so you know getting ourselves ready, getting our teams ready and you know really spreading out some good nuggets of you know how to keep that momentum with your team. One thing I think we want to dial into today, and if we get this question a lot, because we are a wholly remote agency, we have people in Arizona, we have people in Florida, in Texas, in New Mexico, and everyone always asks how are you efficient, how are you making One of the big questions how are you making sure your employees are doing what they're supposed to be doing? Now, to me, I kind of find that a little bit offensive, because don't hire people you can't trust.
Speaker 1:Number one we're adults. We're adults here, so I found it way more efficient to stay remote and even when we started way back in the, you know, mid, early 2000s, we were hybrid. So we've always embraced this culture and especially since we have a lot of creative people and this is something you know, I think, just to take back for anybody in their staff, dmo or otherwise, a creative personality. It can't be a nine to five schedule. You can't just turn that on and turn that off. So that's fine If you want to get some regular client work done between, let's say, morning to noon and then siesta, and then get back on it, you know, six or seven at night when your creative is kicking in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everybody has their flow. You know, and I think the last question when you're hiring someone or you're bringing someone onto your team, and even after they've been on your team, the question about when they work, where they work from you know, all of those logistics are not necessary unless it becomes a concern down the road. You know, you know when to address it when something like that becomes a concern. But I think in the get go, there's no need to ask those questions these days. You know we are. I think, if you focus a lot more and I think this is what our discussion today is about collaborating with your teams, keeping a collaborative environment, no matter how that environment looks, whether that's hybrid, whether that's entirely remote, whether that's in an office somewhere, however that looks, a lot of your people are passionate about what they're doing and they look at what they're doing as fun and vibrant and exciting and purposeful. They're going to do that from anywhere.
Speaker 2:They're going to do that on vacation, when they're supposed to be taking days off, they're going to do that from there at home cooking dinner with their kids, because they just can't shut their brain off from the day. So that should be the last thing on your mind. We are over the days of counting heads in an office at this point. If you're still doing that, you need to reassess ASAP.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's what the article that you and I shared about economic development. I think that may be the real concern for our DMO partners out there, Because the workforce doesn't embrace a fully eight to five, nine to five in the office. There's a lot of those commercial real estate places that are not yielding the tax income they used to, but then that's where. But you still have to change with the times. So if one area goes down, how do you build that up? If the downtown is suffering because of that, how do you make it more vibrant and more accessible For your visitors.
Speaker 2:Absolutely it needs to be. Every environment needs to have some sort of like live, work, play, right, because we spend okay. So the general population, those of us who are all grind in every day, we are, for the most part, spending the majority of our days working. We come home or we're at home and we do our nightly thing and we get some sleep and we wake up and we do this all over again. So it has to be an organic environment where you can live, work, play, do out your day in some capacity.
Speaker 2:But we were just talking about this yesterday with the whole TikTok ban situation, what that looks like for an influx of social media and content creators and influencers who aren't sure of the future. So what are they going to be looking for? They're going to be looking for roles in social media or probably something of that realm. Do you think they're going to want to go to a nine to five after being free all over wherever, to create content and to live a virtual life? So it's just we have to again roll with the times. Things are changing and things are evolving. We do, and it's less focused on that and more about being passionate with your team.
Speaker 1:And to me it's such a misconception and outdated concept that if you're not sitting behind a desk, you're not working, because that's great, but I have my whole office right here all the time.
Speaker 2:So or you're always connected. There's no, there's really no time of the day or night that you typically can't reach someone. These days, everyone kind of lives next to their cell phone, everyone lives next to a mobile device, so essentially you're never turning things entirely off. So that creates an added sense of anxiety for most everyone, even business owners, right Because you're never quite fully able to just walk away. It's not a clock in, clock out situation.
Speaker 2:So to make that already connected piece feel even more stuffy by saying, okay, from this time to this time you're going to be in this location consistently, with minimal days to work from home or minimal hybrid options, is really kind of, for most people in no go. They're just, in general, regardless of what you're paying, what the other perks are, they want that creative freedom and that's how they're accustomed to at this point. So that's super important. But what I think is even more so important is something along the lines of what we're doing for our team, which is dedicating time to being together and collaborative. And because we're all virtual, obviously we do things a little bit differently. You know we're completely in a hybrid office space environment. We have a virtual conference room, we have virtual rooftop decks for fun, happy hours and stuff like that, and so we're in our virtual studio right now, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but we're always together and connected in some form or fashion. A lot of it's visual, because we have adopted some of that visual technology. But I think thinking about what we're doing with Think Weeks and what we're doing for ourselves, which is very much like our very own Think Week, is extremely important because it puts all that other chaos, all that other stress of just what you're carrying throughout the week down and you're focusing on your team and what you and your team together need to be thinking about and concentrating on without those distractions. It kind of this is team building, but it also kind of puts the puzzle pieces back together, Because a lot of times those can get fragmented because we're all pulled in so many different directions, so we're being pulled further and further away. Think Weeks really kind of bring people back into the fold.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Because I think that I am too. I'm excited to roll out Think Week for our own company. I'm excited to roll that out for clients. I mean it's just an opportunity for some space and some collaboration in very new ways. And I feel like, coming off of what you just said, it's important to have remote employees feel flexible, feel like their ownership is not on punching a clock but their ownership is on creating these amazing things for their clients, for themselves, for us. But I'm excited to roll that out in the next few weeks Because Think Week is an opportunity for us to put some tech down and pick some tech up.
Speaker 1:That's more nourishing and creative and strategic planning. Because, also, you can get overwhelmed Like you do the best at this. Like I'm like squirrel, squirrel, I have a notification, but you can give some great advice on like blocking your time and just because someone throws a ball at you doesn't mean you have to throw it back immediately. Like you need that think time. Back to our think. You need that think time Absolutely. These quick knee jerk reactions are not strategic either.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely not. I think one of the first things that you can do for your team and for yourself and I think this has helped us so much, it's helped me tremendously is not being a slave to your email, not feeling like you need to be hyper responsive to each and everything that rolls in there, because 99% of the time, whoever has emailed you is not looking for a quick response. They're not looking for just that, they're looking for a solution, they're looking for the correct answer or a thoughtful answer. You can't do that in mere seconds or mere minutes. So don't be a slave to your email. Give that time to breathe.
Speaker 2:That also loosens up some of that email, constant communication anxiety and frees up some energy so we can be creative. We're not stuck in that like super grind. That is. That's extremely helpful and I think training your team to also follow that. Follow suit in that, because in the early days, I think, jen you and I both we were trained to be you get back to this client within seconds, minutes, as quickly as you can. Do not let them, do not leave them waiting for an answer, and so we were always trained to be quick on our feet, go find the answer, think fast, do this Not. You can't as human beings, we can't always be right.
Speaker 1:And I think how we've responded, or rather evolved that kind of thinking, is we still have a little bit of a policy Like get back within four hours but you don't have to have the answer in four hours. Within the four hours is got this received back to you Exactly yes, 24 hours you have time to deal with it. So I think those are some like little tools that can help reduce the overall stress of the incoming kind of pieces of it. You know.
Speaker 2:Totally Absolutely, but yeah. So I think getting your team ready from an email perspective gets them ready for a think week. Like put it all down, you know, like don't feel like you have to be a slave to communication. Let's focus on us and I'm so excited because we're focusing on us, which, for our team I think for anybody's team right the most passionate project you can do is the project or the purpose behind the business you work for or the company you represent.
Speaker 2:And I feel like we're a very purposeful team, like we all need to feel like we are serving a purpose every day. We're not just marketing for somebody, we're not just building numbers somewhere, we're not just, you know, doing some really cool, creative and putting it out and walking away from it. We want things that we do to be purposeful, and a lot of times we don't necessarily have time to do that for ourselves. And so this and again, this is this goes the same for any DMO, for any anyone in tourism. Essentially, sometimes you just have to find time to put that that purpose driven collaboration, like why are we here? What all drives us, what makes us motivated each day, what keeps us going, it keeps us excited about what we're doing that.
Speaker 1:All needs to be readdressed every so often, you got to feel that cup and I think also on that piece of it. Every so often you've got to go analog you got to like pop off of that and prioritize. We have so much conversation about, you know, ai or whatever's going to take this job or that or the other. Where you know how to defend that, work your noggin, work your brain, stretch that I love going analog.
Speaker 2:I don't know how we use that, but that's the. Actually that's taken. Now, guys, we are using Go analog, I mean it makes such a difference.
Speaker 2:It does. And again, like there's so much tension and buildup that we don't realize as a society because of how connected we always have to be, how on point we have to be, how much we're exposed to throughout the day from everywhere, that we don't realize that all of that technology and that just constant communication and constant like distraction it builds up in us and blocks a lot of energies that we can be using to really change the game for ourselves personally and for the businesses we represent. Like. So shaking it off and just like getting back to basics is extremely important. That part I'm excited for putting some of that.
Speaker 1:I'm excited. I'm excited We'll be doing some conference moving around in the next few weeks and that's exciting for us. So I will see you in person again in Vegas at the tourism summit. I know a lot of our listeners are going. We'd love to.
Speaker 2:That's always a good conference Always done, catching up with those that go every year to eat tourism and a lot of good content this year Gets on, revised by the Stage, seems very diverse in terms of who's speaking and what the contents focused on. So that's good, that would be good. And, jen, before that you'll be at DMA West. Oh, I'm so excited. I know that's gonna be a really important conference, just with the angle from the tech side of things for DMOs out on the West side.
Speaker 1:I know I gotta say and I know we put a teaser piece about this, but I'm gonna double down and throw a jenga on it because this I'm excited about digital destinations and future-proofing and going there long-term but also short-term. There's so much conversation to be had about that and, like we put out yesterday about the TikTok thing, like your social media managers are not okay and we talk about your employees and employee retention and all of that, we've gotta quit piling on and just adding and adding, and adding and adding, because that has diminishing returns too. Back to going analog and thinking a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Right, right, shrinking and going deeper is better than an inch deep and a mile wide.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, that's definitely. It's definitely still very much the case with all things, social media especially. Just and just so, given the uncertainty I mean there's owned versus paid and earned, earned all of it is extremely. This is the time that we should be talking about owned, earned and paid media and the differences and the importance is between each, because TikTok just goes to show that you could put money and dollars and efforts in a basket that you don't own. You don't own that basket. So your followers, your content if you're not going to back in that content up, if you're not finding, if you're not connecting with those influencers in another space and creating content there, you're just putting all your eggs in a basket that it's very uncertain.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that's definitely a conversation, definitely something that's gonna have to happen here very soon with things going on. But, yeah, very exciting conferences coming up, but we'll see each other and then, after our conference duo is over, we go into our think week, which is again why I'm so excited for the next month. I think we have some great conferences coming up. Teams excited about that because we always bring back really important knowledge from conferences. We try to, jen and I always talk about what do we say, jen, if we can't take pages and pages of notes from sessions ourselves, then why are we even there at the conference?
Speaker 1:And if I?
Speaker 2:can't glean something from it, why are we really sitting through sessions and thinking about it?
Speaker 1:It gives us some intelligence and a pulse on the industry to come back and we call it rethink week and think about how we best serve the issues, problems and opportunities with our client and with the industry. Because we do and what I love about what we do whether you call it volunteer work or whatever is we do our passion is to do a lot for the industry, whether you're a paying client or not.
Speaker 1:So for me it's taking that in and seeing what are those pieces we can put back out. That maybe moves that ball further down the line, but with less stress, because we really, if you look at visitors too visitors, the latest tourism sentiments are not high adventure, high fuel, it's rest and respect.
Speaker 2:And that's just-. Oh, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:We are living in and we've got and that's what we talk about with being virtual too. We are living in a time that at least I can't remember in my 50 years of being more stressed, more expensive, like chasing all that down, and what really matters at the end of the day is the quality of your life. Live your damn life.
Speaker 1:Right, absolutely Live it in a way with intention and purpose so that's what I think about when I think about our Monday Momentums is this week, next week, any week could be hairy, could be great, but how do we keep that mindset and that spirit of serving the industry as a whole, serving our clients individually and serving each other with purpose?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I love that. Amen, amen, yes, yes, yes, yes, no, that's awesome. So hopefully we'll see some of our listeners out there in the industry streets. It's a good opportunity to conferences, yeah, and we get to actually talk face to face. We'll be obviously follow us on social, because Jen and I love to. We love to get social together when we're together. Sometimes it's not as far as when we're not together, but we love to get out there and, and at least we're pretty sure, at least we're pretty sure LinkedIn's not going anywhere anytime fast.
Speaker 2:So girl, knock on, all the things would around you.
Speaker 1:Could you imagine?
Speaker 2:But yeah, it'll be good.
Speaker 1:So follow it, follow along for that, and then afterwards we'll get into after conference time frame, we'll get into think week and speaking of think week little teaser on that coming up by the time we come out to these conferences is a new suite of services that we spent some think time on, which is transformation, our transformation services. Like, I think that is going to be not a shout out or not a sales piece, like to us, and the reason, one of the reasons we're doing these Monday Momentums is we all focus outwardly A lot of times, like the meeting planner, the leisure traveler, all of that but we also need to, you know, encompass what's going on with our teams and our extended teams, our stakeholders and our small businesses. And one thing on the TikTok blog from Daily Disruptor that I personally really like is you've got to think about your local makers. Even if they don't have a storefront, they also contribute to, like, the long term kind of loyalty or respect for the destination.
Speaker 1:So those those without a storefront have got to be considered part of our ecosystem.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think, something I saw that was really fun last week, I think a visit play now does a. It's a lot of days and something.
Speaker 2:It's a whole learning session with their destination, social media managers, and so every so often they get the script together and they've been doing this for several years now, but they essentially bring all the destination social media managers into like a lunch or breakfast, I think it's. I think in this case it's like coffee or something like that, and they just learn from one another. And how amazing is it that you're able to sit down with other marketers within your destination and you all kind of lift together right At the same time and in the same vein, your destination. I thought that was such a cool. It's really those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really those conferences that are those conversations that happened in a conference that really bring back.
Speaker 1:I had a recent conversation with one of our clients and you know it's like how was this last blah, blah blah conference? We're not telling tales, I'm not calling names out here, but it's like you know it was okay, but it's the same sessions, the same talk, the same deck. He said that what I got out of it was having one on one conversations with some of my colleagues. So we've got to create more space for that, because that's where the real thinking comes from.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Workshopping things and just brainstorming, just getting creative. Having a little creative pods at conferences would be amazing, where you just pop in and just like take the noise away, take the distraction away, move away from the of the voices and just sit down with an intimate group of people and just chat, Just talk through things. You know that that definitely, I feel like, is what we bring back from conferences. It's the one to one, it's the learnings and the things that we hear when we're out doing, you know, cocktail hour and receptions and things like that. It's that time that really opens us up to different things happening and it gives us a different preview, you know.
Speaker 1:It really does. It does so happy Monday Happy.
Speaker 2:Monday.
Speaker 1:Middle of March, rounding out Q one, which has been an interesting I mean everything is interesting now, right, there's always something new popping up. So it's been an interesting start to 2024. And I see some amazing things on the horizon. I'm going to leave you with love on your stakeholders, love on your travelers, love on your meeting planners, but, first off, love on your team and see what they actually need, respect them as the adults and smart individuals they are, and we don't need babysitters. I'm going to leave it at that.
Speaker 2:No, no micro managing.
Speaker 1:No micro managing. And, even worse, please don't be a seagull manager. There's so many of those, and you know, you know what that is right. Fly in shit on everything and then fly back out.
Speaker 2:Never to be heard from until it's time to drop the bomb again. Yeah Right.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, we will see you guys next week. We have a few other regular podcasts coming out. They're gonna be really fun. We're talking to Josh Collins a little bit later, so you guys stay subscribed to subscribe to our daily disruptor newsletter on LinkedIn some, sometimes new, sometimes nuggets, sometimes just to kick in the pants.
Speaker 2:Yes, always actually kick in the pants, you saying.
Speaker 1:Kristen.
Speaker 2:Hi guys.
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