Episode 292 / Troy Wood / HTC VIVE / Executive Director, Marketing
Making Work Meaningful
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The Shiny New Object Podcast takes a philosophical turn to look at how we can make work meaningful, courtesy of our latest guest, Troy Wood, Executive Director, Marketing at HTC VIVE.
If your work matters to you, you’ll give it “your full attention and heart and effort,” says Troy. This is why he’s devised for focal points for creating this meaningful connection to work.
Tying into a bigger picture is the first pillar. It’s important to understand where you fit in and how your work contributes to the success of your organisation. But he also suggests looking at growth as a key element here, thinking “I need to be working on the stuff that I want to, in order to be better at the things that I’m either not good at now or I’m good at, but want to be great at.”
Secondly, you need freedom to be yourself, not speaking in jargon or adhering to a company mission statement that’s not connected to your own. Troy thinks marketers need to by “their full self” to be good at their jobs and find them fulfilling.
The third pillar of meaningful work is having full ownership of your function, without being micro-managed or stifled in your initiatives.
Finally, you need to have a measurable contribution, being able to clearly articulate how you contribute to your organisation in real metrics.
Tune in to the podcast to learn more about applying these four tests to your work to ensure it is meaningful, as well as to hear some top data driven marketing advice from Troy.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Troy Wood 0:00
Marketing is the work of telling a true story that spreads, and it's having a strategy where the wind's at your back because you're doing work that matters for people who care.
Speaker 0:16
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Tom Ollerton 0:49
Hello and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of the creative effectiveness ad tech platform, automated creative. And this is a weekly podcast about the future of data driven marketing. Every week or so I have the pleasure and the privilege to interview one of our industries leaders, and this week's no different. I'm on a call with Troy Wood, who is executive director marketing at HTC Vive. So Troy, for anyone who doesn't know who you are and what you do, could you give the audience a bit of background?
Troy Wood 1:20
So I've been in marketing, mostly in emerging technology, for about 20 years now. I started off interning at ad agencies, and then moved over to the digital teams on mobile ads at Fox and Microsoft and Amazon, and then came to HTC about 10 years ago. Thought it was going to be a short stint, and then I tried their VR product when it was still, you know, behind closed doors. And I've been here ever since.
Tom Ollerton 1:54
So in that career, which is a that's quite an odd journey, but in that kind of weird journey you've been on, what so what kind of new belief or behaviour, certainly, in the last five years, has made your work life better?
Troy Wood 2:09
Well, within you know, working in larger companies, I've found that marketing doesn't stop with the product. I think as marketers, we tend to focus so much on the audience, and how are we going to position the right message at the right time in the right way? And then when we're, you know, working across teams internally, or we're showcasing our amazing programme metrics, the sizzle is lost, and I think we could do a better job of simplifying the concepts, telling leaders and other colleagues and executives what the takeaways are and why they should care. And then when you present it in a way that is fun and interesting and demonstrates your value. Then they start to think about, okay, well, how can we work together to achieve mutual goals? So we have to make it matter internally, just as much as we make it matter for the audience.
Tom Ollerton 3:12
And what's your advice to do that? So I love that idea that you've got to kind of sell in in two directions, but like, what? What does work? What doesn't work when you're trying to do that?
Troy Wood 3:21
Well, I'm just thinking about like we have endless spreadsheets with endless metrics, and so when we're copying, pasting those into a table, into a PowerPoint presentation, we expect that, because we look at these same sheets all the time, that our audience is going to be able to have those same kind of insights and takeaways. It's it's it requires, like, even just in a PowerPoint presentation, a couple bullets, small chart calling out, like, what those metrics are, not too much information on a slide and speak plainly. You know, I think that we try to translate stuff into business speak, and it gets lost in that translation. So, like, even something as simple as PowerPoints, like I will write out in, you know, as plainly as we're speaking to each other now, exactly what I want the takeaway to be. And then if it needs a little bit of, you know, tailoring to be, you know, work appropriate, or, you know, executive comms appropriate, then I'll go back and change it and, you know, make it a little more official, but I think we can simplify what we put in front of people. I think we also, I mean, I don't know, you know, for every organisation is different, but mine is focused on revenue. And so if I can, the more stuff that I can turn, you know, percentage wise, like clicks and engagements and impressions, the more that I can convert that into actual dollars, I found the more people care and the more they tune into it.
Tom Ollerton 4:47
Yeah, I've started doing something recently with Miro. The platform doesn't really matter. But before you go into a presentation, have this like, have a box at the top that says, What do you want the audience to do as a result of this presentation? And then have a bit underneath saying, What do you want them to remember? And then you go into your structure, right? And you plan it all out. And I think unless you have both of those things, then you're, you're just trying to sort of make it all up on the spot with slides. And to your point, you you cease to communicate in a way that the organisation wants to know.
Troy Wood 5:15
Yeah. And even, you know, the type of kind of headline bullet writing like Axios does. You can they have, like, a wrapper for tweets and like you can push out stuff through social and puts all these emoticons and stuff in it. But I found that even taking that kind of format, you know, maybe less the emoticons, and using that as, like the headline bullets for the PowerPoint slides that I'm presenting, or even like internal emails, like if I have kind of a weekly recap or quarterly business review, kind of recap what we're what we're up to, I find that that can make things a little more concise. So you're not going to get anybody to read an email if they're having to use their little scroll function on their mouse. So I try to think that the audience, you know internally, is just as important as the one externally a lot of times.
Tom Ollerton 6:09
Yeah, yeah. I always make the assumption that people are in a hurry, bored, tired or hungover, and if you can still make sense to them, then you've got a chance. So moving on. So what is your best bit of advice for a data driven marketer. What is that bit of data driven marketing advice do you find yourself sharing most often with people?
Troy Wood 6:27
I think the biggest, biggest thing is building a sandbox. You should have a side thing that allows you to become a customer of your own company, like the company whose products you're actively selling, you should try to have a have a space where you can, you know, purchase and get updates and do troubleshooting in the same way that your customers are, and you should be able to check out your competitors products in that same way. What that means, like, you know, on the ground for me is like, I have friends that have startups that then I can purchase the products of the company that I'm working for and the in our competitors. And see, you know what sort of marketing information is being sent over before purchase, after the purchase, what sort of tactics, are they and we doing like over the lifetime of the customer, to tell them about new products and services. It's a way to kind of separate yourself and really get into the customer's shoes in a way that, you know, gives you some real insights that you wouldn't have if you were just, you know, pushing your your one product, and also having your own product to market, something low capital, like an app or a digital good, maybe even helping out a friend's project or a nonprofit where you're having to market hardware or software as a service, consumer, enterprise, like just trying to get a mix of the different types of audiences that are out there, and the different channels to try to reach those audiences. So you'll find a lot of learnings that you drive through that stuff is directly applicable to your day job. There was a friend of mine who worked at an ag tech company, and they were pouring a tonne of money into events all the time, and they were getting good leads and good traction, but they just weren't seeing, you know, as much growth as they wanted from it. And so I started looking into it, and, you know, before I know it, oh, you should also have different social accounts for the different kind of industries or consumer personas that you're trying to embody. Before I knew it, I was only getting ag tech influencers like on my my social feeds, and it actually helped, because I was like, Hey, there's this person who has a pretty big following, and they're not doing any sponsored content, and so they were able to sign that person up, and it, it really skyrocketed for their business. And then we actually, at HTC, now are doing something similar there, where we're, you know, we've identified the subject matter experts into the different verticals that we sell into, and now we're bringing them on to kind of preach to their constituents about our XR product. So it's, it's been really helpful for that stuff that I never would have like found just by doing my my daily job, things like TikTok shop as like a cool, you know, commerce channel, yeah, all sorts of stuff that that you really find from working on different products and projects and having your own thing going.
Tom Ollerton 10:00
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Yeah, yeah, that's nice. That advice crops up every sort of 50 episodes or so. Yeah, have a product where you've you've built the website, you've done the paid ads, you've set up the email response or whatever it is, you touch all of those parts that you need to touch, and then you least have a working understanding of those, even at a basic level. I think that's, that's great advice. So we're now at the point where we're going to discuss your shiny new object, which is a really unusual one, and not one we've had before. So thank you for that, and your shiny new object is making work meaningful. So yeah, that sounds great. Why is it your shiny new object? And what do you mean? Because
Troy Wood 11:12
it has to matter in order to get your full attention and heart and effort. And there's a guy I heard recently, Seth Godin, he said that marketing is the work of telling a true story that spreads, and it's having a strategy where the wind's at your back because you're doing work that matters for people who care. And so, you know, I'm starting the second half of my career, and I have kids, and I want to optimise the time that that I'm away from them. So I know that, you know, we all we have a finite amount of time, and we want to enjoy ourselves and have fun and have it be interesting and meaningful. So I've been thinking about that a lot recently, is, how do I make this fun and interesting and meaningful really matter to the to the people around me. So I think of it in kind of four buckets, and I'll just lay out those first, and then we can go into each of them, but it's meaningful work. Is number one, like tying into a bigger, bigger picture, freedom to be yourself, having full ownership of your function and then having measurable contribution. So I can just kind of start talking through those, yeah, please question up front, cool. So, meaningful work, so tying into a bigger picture. It's not always easy, but there is some manner of abstraction that every human does. Once our basic needs are met, like we make things important by by choice, you know, sometimes by necessity, because you have to care about it. But how do i Where do I connect, you know, with like, who I am to what I'm doing, at the company level, at the industry level, at the product level that I'm working on, at the projects that I'm that I'm choosing to do. And then it has to be, you know, it has to be meaningful from a from that personal perspective, but also from a growth perspective, I need to be working on the stuff that I want to in order to be better at the things that I'm either not good at now or I'm good at, but want to be great. And so it's for the people you know in an organisation who report to you. It's, it's finding out about them, and especially with the you know younger workers that are coming in, work really needs to be meaningful, and they need something to kind of, I guess, like latch onto or identify with. For me personally, in the role that I have now, the products that we make, and especially on the enterprise side, are helping people do what they do better, whether it's someone designing an aircraft or a surgeon prepping for surgery, like I work on these XR platforms, that it's basically all of the training that they would normally do. These are now things that make it easier for them to do it. They get higher throughput, and then they have higher efficacy and results. And so I showcase those results to other people in those industries that may not know about it, you know, that could benefit from it. And so that's kind of where my little place is in, that freedom to be yourself. So I think a lot is lost when people have to speak business-ese, you know, or have to, you know, swear by some mission statement that is like 12 levels of abstraction away from them like they need to be themselves. There's no right way to be other than your true, full self, and if you're doing anything else, then you're not giving your full true self to the your craft. People don't need to feel safe to do that. So providing like a judge. Free environment, and recognising that, you know, we're not just cogs, like we're individuals who need true like motivators and outcomes, is is key to that. And then under the ownership tab, like I found personally when I've when I've had failures in my career, it's been because I'm working for someone else, like, Oh, this is what my boss will want to see. You know it's, it's kind of like, if you're in this, excuse my American football analogy, but it's like, you're a quarterback, and you know that the coach is watching you to see if you should be cut down to second string or not. You're not going to ball out like if you can feel eyes over your shoulder, you're not going to be just focused on, on, on the project or the task, or...
Tom Ollerton 15:55
Yeah, you're gonna have to anglicise that analogy. I've got a vague understanding of American football, but lately, lost me there. So are you saying that if you're conscious of someone observing you, you can't focus entirely on the thing you're supposed to do? Yes, okay, cool. All right, thanks for clarifying. Anyway. Carry on.
Troy Wood 16:17
No, not at all. What's the what's the equivalent in in football, like?
Tom Ollerton 16:24
I don't think there's that, yeah, I don't think there's any. I don't think in all sports, you know, yeah, you've got a manager or a coach or Yeah, and if you, if you don't, if you don't have the belief and support of your, of your coach and someone and you're waiting, or someone's waiting for you to make a mistake, then, yeah, was it quantum entanglement as well? You know, the universe operates differently when it's being observed. Yeah.
Troy Wood 16:52
Yeah. So the ownership then comes from you need to give people the latitude to define their own success metrics and build their strategy to achieve those and define the resource requirements. And when people say they need some manner of, you know, some some platform you know, or some head count like, you need to be able to provide them. It shouldn't just be like a shot in the dark. You need to be able to provide them the structure that they can justify those requests with. They should feel free to, you know, explore alternatives and make pivots. There's no, I mean, I love when people come and say, like, hey, we don't need to do this just because it's what we've been doing, you know, we don't need to go to these huge events where we get lost. You know, amongst all of the sponsors, we can do these niche events and use our subject matter experts to get our word out. You know, we can turn one thing we did recently is we turned all of our percentages in case studies into actual, like real dollar amounts. That's been an interesting exercise. So there's, there's no right way to do things, and it's great to challenge the way that, you know, people have been doing them, and people can only do that if they're feeling full ownership. And then the last item is measurable contribution. So how am I contributing in real metrics, and what does that equate to in real dollars? I I've been in, you know, marketing, like I said, ad agencies, since, like, 20 years ago, and having attribution has been like through digital marketing has been the best aspect of the entire kind of transition, it felt so wishy washy, you know, back in the day when it was just ads on TV and print ads and magazines and billboards and stuff. So that's been a wonderful thing. It's, you know, harder now than it than it had been recently. But having that level of how am I doing, you know, how am I performing? Is a really big key of making work meaningful and then recognition as well, internal, external, compensatory, like all of these things, kind of to me, come together to create an environment where the work is meaningful for myself and for the people around me.
Tom Ollerton 19:26
So I like how you've got this model for making work meaningful, something that might always be self ownership and having a measurable contribution. So what I want to get to is the pain that got you to that, like, what were those moments where maybe you could just touch on one or two, where you like, like, right? That was a mistake that was horrible. Moving forward, me and my team, I'm going to make sure that everyone could be their source. Like, you've given me a very glossy, idealised picture. But what was the, tell me some of the war stories that got you to that realisation.
Troy Wood 19:53
You know, the on the on the ownership front, like, personally. Like I said, The only hard times were when I felt like I was working for someone else and not owning my thing, you know, as, like, the true owner of it. There... Let's see here, a lot of times I would go upstream and try to, like, learn everything about the thing I was working on, and not do the work itself, right over strategize and under execute, like I was always trying to get in front of the work that we were doing so I could inform the strategy, and then we'd be under resourced to, like, build out on the, you know, crazy intricate strategy that I was doing, I can think of one situation. So I was working at Microsoft on their developer ecosystem. There basically had all these indie developers on the Windows Store who could grab the APK and serve ads into their games or their their apps. And so I came out with this amazing tiered system of, okay, here's how we're going to manage the accuweathers and the New York Times, and, you know, because those they have apps, you know, in the window store. And then here's how we'll measure or manage everyone in tier two. And then tier three will be the scale ecosystem. So I put this whole thing together, and then turns out, like, well, that app store wasn't super successful, and the only revenue that was actually coming in was from those tier one folks. So you spent all this time building this amazing programme, and it's like, how about you just do a minimum viable product and identify how you're going to service these major publishers first. And so that was a huge learning for me, because I wasted a bunch of time, you know, building out this crazy framework when really I should have just been focusing on the key revenue drivers, you know, for that product. So that's, that's, yeah, one example.
Tom Ollerton 22:00
So someone listening to this might be thinking, Yeah, you know, I'd love to make work meaningful. Wouldn't that be great, but I'm kind of sort of stuck in my job. So what if someone's working on a brand that they find uninteresting or boring, and they don't believe in the mission, and they can't be themselves because they're in a, I don't know, like a spirit Christian corporate, for example, and they don't have any ownership because they're part of a big machine, and their measurable contribution is like a pipe dream. So it'd be easy to say, get another job, but is there like sometimes that's, you know, for whatever financial reasons, geographic reasons, that's not possible. So how can you, how can you reframe a bad egg to deliver meaningful work?
Troy Wood 22:42
Sometimes I suggest to the people who report to me to be selfish. And it sounds, you know, counterintuitive, because you want them to be, you know, everybody coming together to make a great thing. But sometimes I think when people like get out of it, what you can get out of it and apply it to something else that you want to do. So if there's an aspect of what you are doing that could be applied to your side gig, do that, build out a portfolio around it, and yeah, gonna get another job. It also helps to, I mean, nobody's ever going to turn someone down who's saying, Hey, I am at a soul crushing job and I'm working on a product that I dislike there. If you come to your manager with that, if they're any good, they're going to say, Okay, well, let's get you on one that does matter to you. There's always aspects that you can like within whatever you're doing that, you can apply it to other stuff. And I think if you're honest about those things, and you're selfish on what you want to get out of it, knowing that it's going to benefit what you want to do longer term, I think you can swing it. I mean, there is a lot of people you know, they're working a job because they want a job, and they want to have their life outside of their work, and there's 00, wrong with that. Like, so if that's what it takes for you to be like, Yeah, I don't like my job, but I like what it gives me in terms of my overall life. Like, there's some solace to take in that, but it's also, I mean, that's not very fulfilling, you know, and I've been in that exact same situation, you do have to do something to, whether it's, you know, some manner of mental gymnastics to make it matter to you. But there's always aspects of ownership, working on different projects that are outside of your remit, volunteering for that, you know, finding new tools that can help you measure your contribution. So you can say, even though I'm not liking what I'm doing, like, I'm getting better, like, at something, you know, one month after the other. And here's the metrics to prove it. I think that if you have that, the upward mobility in the company that you're in should be available to you, and if not, then. Look externally.
Tom Ollerton 25:01
Well, Troy, that time has flown by, and unfortunately, we're at an end. And thanks for a very philosophical version of this podcast. Isn't that a lovely change? So if someone wants to get in touch with you about make your work meaningful, or anything else that we've discussed today, where is a good place to do that and what makes a message that you'll reply to?
Troy Wood 25:19
Subject: shiny new object podcast. LinkedIn.
Tom Ollerton 25:23
Nice. That is a good, good brief, all right, Troy, look, I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
Troy Wood 25:31
Thank you, Tom.
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