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How to Use This Book

To ensure the experience of delving into our thoughts is as easy as possible, we have implemented a simple system to get you reading exactly what you want to be reading. Just because thoughts are fleeting and sporadic, it doesn’t mean your reading has to be.

Here’s how it works: Each chapter has been created with searchable hashtags, which have been hyperlinked in the table of contents below for your convenience.

Our diary also offers two unique experiences. For those of you who like to read, simply follow #DiaryEntry, and for those of you who would like to see a more visual overview of our thoughts, simply use #Imagery to be redirected to our image archive.

Table of contents:

#StageOne: Understanding Our Experiences

#StageTwo: Choosing a Subject

#StageThree: Defining the Idea

#StageFour: Implementing a Work Structure

#StageFive: Constructing a Research Plan

#StageSix: Our Guiding Principles

#StageSeven: Creating an Identity

#StageEight: Realizing the Idea

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Stage One: Understanding Our Experiences

One of the very first decisions any group must make, is choosing who, and who not to work with.

The Universität der Künste’s communication project, or “Kommunikationsprojekt,” is known to be intense and time consuming. Serving as the practical summary of five full semesters, any decision related to it must be taken with a great deal of care. Ultimately asking, what constitutes a dynamic team of individuals, who can endure long enough to complete the project’s long-term goals.

“Deciding to work with people that I have not yet worked with.” -- Luisa Hemmerling

It was a challenging decision having to dive into a group whose work structures were not immediately clear to me. Having once worked with Tal on a presentation, I found the vibe to be always good, and with Ney -- who I recently moved in with -- I knew that we could work through difficult and trying times in a loving manner. With Adam however, I had never worked before; his point of view interested me, especially given the fact that we both worked in journalism, albeit in two very different kinds of journalism. One of the main things I had to decide for myself was whether I wanted to take a risk, or play it safe in a group made up of friends? I decided to take the risk.

“Taking the decision to work on an independent and techy project.” -- Tal Golan

From my point of view, employer-based projects have far less freedom and flexibility, as most of these companies already have a defined identity and agenda. We knew that going for our own project might be more difficult and complicated, but we nevertheless decided that keeping our full independency was more important. Moreover, I kept asking myself whether diving into the world of technology, a field in which none of the group had experience, was a good idea. What I could see was that we were definitely up for the challenge. I also believe that GWK projects should have a more entrepreneurial approach, and I hope our project will become an example of that.

“Choosing the challenge myself and understanding the apparent problem.” -- Ney Tran

As I am not familiar with online journalism, I wasn't sure if I could contribute as much as other members could. As I listened to Adam describe the problem he had at work, and mention that the suggested solution could not only improve a big part of the editorial work process, but also have a more substantial impact, it became clear that I had to work on this. This was despite not being from the world of online journalism myself. Solving this problem might be one of the biggest challenges I will ever have to make.

“Understanding that there is nothing you can’t learn.” -- Adam Barnard

After pitching our idea to the group, it became apparent that I was not looking to join Tal, Luisa and Ney based on their skills related to the idea itself. Rather, I was seeking out a group of enthusiastic, like-minded individuals, who shared a similar passion for evoking real change. I didn’t waste a second worrying about whether our competencies could solve the problem, because I knew from experience that everything, within reason, is learnable. And even when that fails, we have the digital world to thank for the possibilities of outsourcing.

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Having a rough idea is mostly enough, be it of the person you’d like to join in a group, or a project you are pursuing. With time, clarity is achieved, and allowing yourself to be hindered by the unknown at first can be detrimental at best.

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Creating a group from scratch was never going to be easy. But we knew it had to be like this illustration: agile, flexible, fun, and something totally ours.

“We knew that going for our own project might be more difficult and complicated, but we nevertheless decided that keeping our full independency was more important.” 

-- Tal Golan

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We really had no idea what, or who we were going to get.

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Stage Two: Choosing a Subject

Next to knowing who you want to work with, the project’s subject is just as important to being confident in your position as a next generation solution provider. We needed to understand the problem and the aspects of our project we wanted to engage with and to which extent. This chapter offers a brief insight into how we discovered the problem.

Choosing between a project related to revolutionizing demonstrations and an SEO-related project using data from Highsnobiety. In the beginning, we found ourselves doubting the meaningfulness of the project; was it something that was truly relevant? Among other things, we played around with the idea of bringing people together for the purposes of demonstration. Based on the idea of bringing the cause to protestors, rather than having them find a cause unaided. Essentially aiming to justify the efforts of protestors through actions more relevant to their specific cause.

We however decided against this idea from two reasons:

It was too far away from us, and we had no experience with protests at all.

Highsnobiety had already presented itself as a case study option for the SEO-related project

“Start With Why”: Formulating our own understanding of Simon Sinek’s theory for success During a trip to Sauen, our idea was pitched in a mockup, after which it became apparent that our fellow students were having a hard time understanding what it was we were trying to achieve.

So we took a step back to asses what exactly made the problem and our idea understandable? Narrowing the complexity of our content down to a few keywords proved difficult. We then stumbled across the ideas of Simon Sinek, whose “Golden Circle” outlined the benefits of starting with, “why?” before tackling the less-important topics of “how,” and “what?” Once we implemented this thought process, fellow students began to listen. Establishing a clear foundation on which to base parts of our concept, the path to execution became much clearer.

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In ‘Discovery and Creation: Alternative Theories of Entrepreneurial Action’ by Sharon Alvarez and Jay Barney, the main focus is on opportunities.

“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds”

-- Francis Bacon.

This sentence could not be more relevant today’s competitive market. Technology and social networks create a smaller world but widen the opportunity horizon. Alvarez and Barney deal with the important question of whether entrepreneurial opportunities exist, independent of the perceptions of entrepreneurs, just waiting to be discovered, or these opportunities are created by the actions of entrepreneurs. There are situations where opportunities tend to be “discovered,” whereas others are more “created” by their respective authors. But one thing is certain, and that is that recognizing opportunity, irrespective of its magnitude, is an extremely valuable ability.

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Very few people or companies can clearly articulate why they do what they do. By why I mean your purpose, cause or belief - why does your company exist? Why do you get out of bed every morning? And why should anyone care? People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

-- Simon Sinek

Simon Sinek’s formula for creating a resounding impact in the hearts of your target audience has been a topic of major discussion ever since the earliest stages of our group.

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Jenny Holzer is, “A Conceptual and installation artist who became known in New York City in 1977 for inexpensively printed and anonymously posted sheets of text known as Truisms [...]. Her signature style is marked by the extreme brevity and concision of statements she appropriates from diverse sources or makes up, as well as by the immediacy of her bold, "no-nonsense" fonts.”

This image above inspired us to observe Facebook’s abuse of power a little more closely. Although it comes as no surprise that it chose to tighten the tap on the world’s editorial community for the reward of higher profit, its devastating effects were surprising. It was at this point that many started formulating ways to live without it, or at least, live with it while maintaining personal independence.

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The image that says it all. The judgement day of Mark Zuckerberg, and the resulting plummet in traffic for anyone dependent on Facebook as an audience reservoir. With this, we decided to make a change. Working with what we had to hopefully side-step the destruction left in the wake of Facebook’s sudden U-turn.

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Should we have chosen to pursue the idea of not only making protests more accessible, but more fitting to the beliefs of participants, it would have surely taken on the same feverish charm as that of Greta Thunberg’s stance on climate change.

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Stage Three: Defining the Idea

As we began to understand the problem and its complexities, the next step was to define our idea. From now it was up to us putting the problem into a concrete “something” that others would understand. 

Working with the assets provided to us by Highsnobiety The initial problem began with us querying how much the authority of big name companies could be trusted. For some time we were not sure about how much we wanted to include Highsnobiety into our thoughts and the app’s progress. The Idea that Adam brought to us was precious. We needed do our best to protect it, and keep it away from thieves with enough money to put us out of business.

However, the more we began sharing our thoughts with others, the more we began to see that sharing an idea does not spell immediate insolvency, but grants one the opportunity to gather valuable insights.

“Do not covet your ideas. Give away everything you know and more will come back to you.” -- Paul Arden

By setting up a friendly dialogue with the employees who were confronted with the problem on a day-to-day basis helped us uncover an array of hidden facets that we might have otherwise been blind to.

Deciding how far we wanted to take our project, and with it, our understanding of complexity Was complexity something necessary, or could it be avoided for a more effective outcome? Despite knowing this decision is often best made once the process is underway, we decided to define this clearly from the offset. Less is more was not only to be the approach, it was to be the mindset. We knew our project had the potential to become great, and with this, unnecessary sugarcoating was not an option.

Going out on a limb Learning the value of “working with what you got.” Maneuvering between the structures of pre-defined objects and operations; specifically related to hard-wired business processes. We learned as much as it is necessary to dodge and weave between that which might hinder you, one must also observe such objects critically. 

“Question everything generally thought to be obvious.” -- Dieter Rams

The decision was then made as to whether or not our product would be best served as living within the realms of an existing framework, or going out on a limb. We decided a considered balance of the two was necessary. Discovering through intuitive collaboration.

Challenging the status quo We didn’t want to become another app to simply keep the media machine moving forward. And with this, we sought to understand the topics of taboo associated with our chosen topic. Essentially decoding the status quo. Discovering through thorough understanding and learning.

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Once we began defining our idea, we encouraged one another to see it for its potential. Pushing one another to think and go further with every thought and action. Defining the idea helped us believe in the impact we were aiming to achieve, without needing to sugarcoat the outcome. We wanted to become the world’s favorite, without any of the fluff.

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A rare look inside one of Google’s many server rooms. Rooms like this exist in alarming quantities, and contain most of today’s intelligence and knowledge. Apart from these physical servers, the data itself is purely digital, and is as a result, easily corruptible and lost. The dangers of so-called digital frailty have never been more apparent. With this, we wanted to understand how we could begin making content go further, with less.

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Turning complexity into clarity. We were faced with an issue that far outweighed our competencies, but taking a step back from time to time proved useful. Choosing to see the bigger picture was oftentimes our saving grace.

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Stage Four: Implementing a Work Structure

In this stage we discuss how we built an efficient work plan to maximize on productivity and efficiency.

Upholding a jour fixe From the very beginning we settled for two days a week on which we would work. We promised one another that these days were to be kept “sacred” and not changed for anything. Such a strict approach to scheduling really helped the earliest developments of the project.

Building a plan and actionable timeline We estimated the approximate time period needed for each phase of our project, and implemented checkpoints along the way to keep us on track. Deciding to stick to our plan and timeline, almost religiously, lead us to refine the idea in a far more efficient way.

Creating a spreadsheet for tasks We labelled our spreadsheet “Lifelines” instead of “Deadlines.” The name alone was enough to ensure us of its immediate purpose: keep the project alive. Structure is key to the success of any major project, and allowing access to the relevant parties encourages a degree of self-motivation. To begin with, we worked with a weekly to-do list which was then distributed via WhatsApp. This proved difficult, as the platform’s interface did not allow for simple tracking. So in order to sidestep this issue and improve work distribution, we created our “Lifelines” document.

“If you invest the time earlier to create structure and process around communication, planning, and goal-setting, you can prevent missteps before they occur.” -- Christine Tsai

Dividing responsibilities among group members To begin with, we were reluctant to delegate specific tasks to one another. Our overly democratic approach proved ineffective as a result. Not only were tasks left undefined, but no-one ever felt wholly responsible for his or her tasks.

in order to overcome this, we introduced a hard split in activities, using our weekly meetings for the internal teams to inform one another of progress. An approach of “divide and conquer.” Rather than members juggling to fulfill an unmanageable palette of tasks, we introduced the chance to specialize and focus on a few key activities.

Establishing communication channels As touched on previously, communication channels have been an ever-present force throughout the project. Given the number of tools out there, we refined our list to cover the following tasks:

GoogleMail: To be used for long-form submissions, and professional communication.

WhatsApp: For private, instantaneous decision making and appointment planning.

Google Docs: For documenting all processes and sharing throughout the team for a truly collaborative dynamic.

To this date we have not moved away from the aforementioned players, and do not intend to in the coming months.

Introducing weekly threads In order to keep focused, and ensure our meetings were as valuable as possible, we implemented weekly tasks that would then go on to inform each meeting’s agenda. “Lifelines” housed the weekly tasks, as well as an overall timeline for bigger, less time-sensitive tasks. We wasted nearly two weeks in December focusing almost solely on big tasks. So the introduction of a more digestible weekly plan greatly helped with time management.

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