Everyday Innovation
Content hub + community empowering creator-led innovation
Sharing my build in public experience to test a concept while also radically committing to learning about my own process:
I took a leap and decided to refine my creator-led innovation framework (utilized to facilitate strategy design through indie/individual lens) by building/validating in public using a "challenge" format. The intention was to use a launch sprint, which mirrors/works with the framework, to guide the journey of idea through impact and provide experiential opportunities to explore and design our own unique and malleable individual/creator innovation process.
I wanted to outline the content for the 21-day stretch at a higher level --- leaving some room for shifts, edits, experimentation, and full-on pivots--- and commit to fully embracing using the framework and honoring my insights/process, even if meant making uncomfortable decisions on the fly.
I created a few small low-key announcements for social media, but I was fine with having a smaller group participating or even a consistent group just watching, as my primary goal was to build/validate/get feedback ASAP and honor the magic that comes from building in public.
I used lu.ma for the event page, which was an unexpected joy both from the creator side and from those who opted in who thought it was an excellent service, I created a space group on Circle community for content and discussions, and, instead of streaming live only to attendees, I multi-streamed to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and (primary stream on) Twitch. This was to explore Twitch's particular creator community and experiment on a platform that could allow for metaverse-inspired engagement ideas ( this was pre-Facebook announcement lol). Multistreaming was new to me, as well, so that was a fun learning journey, too!
Videos would be posted with some supporting information into the content space group by day for review and to watch later. I did leave up a few of the livestream recordings on social platforms, but the point was to preserve recordings within the community and have questions/exercises/other media with same information to help integrate.
I ended up going live 6 times for an average of a little over an hour with slides prepared, as well. I had intended on going live 9 times, but integrated one of the sessions into the one before and after and the other 2 times were from a mix of burn out/not having time to prepare, but I just shifted content and used a different content type for the last/retrospective prompts.
I did not get to create as much supporting content as I would have liked, but the process itself brought in so many insights that I was busy applying as I went along, as well as documenting full out use cases in general and finding interesting opportunities to turn this challenge into a unique strategy facilitation tool bundled into an experiential digital product.
It ended up becoming less about a launch and more about a facilitated design/strategy-esque sprint. Feedback was quite positive and I was pleased to hear that while people loved supporting resources, the actual perspective shifts and intentional reflections on their unique process and its impact on our larger systems was enough to offer up testimonials, referrals, and helpful feedback without much of a prompt.
There is a lot upon which to improve, but I look forward to running a more developed live run of this program as the official beta test before offering the content solely within a paid container with a self-led 21-day workshop and community space to connect with 21MPACT innovators who've participated and/or are currently using it for a particular project. Anyone from the first two runs will have free access indefinitely and will get to experience any updates to videos/other content and any fun live sprints/supplemental sessions when offered in that space.
I look forward to reporting back after this next run, but if you're interested, sign up using this (higher access, time limited) link: (https://galaxy.everydayinnovation.io/join?invitation_token=9d489246705ba382f5986709bb226e48987f837c-fed13205-411d-48c2-b911-3831776c211b) to join the Everyday Innovation community before the challenge is announced!
Soft launched the Everyday Innovation hub (content, resources, and community) and newsletter (with IG Live companion) this past weekend!
The website (https://everydayinnovation.io) will feature written/visual posts, podcast episodes, videos, digital products, and other mixed media content to support creator-led innovation and empower designing one's own idea ->impact process.
There will be public, subscriber, and (soon) paid-only content and resources both on the website and within the invite-only community (https://galaxy.everydayinnovation.io - on Circle!) as gated or one-off $ content.
The newsletter is released on Sundays as a source of inspiration and to set intentions for the coming week . The weekly live stream (currently on IG) is meant to share a more communal/personal take on the newsletter content.
The newsletter includes a weekly content focus preview and intention, quote and wallpaper, playlist(s), featured tools/practices, a suggested book/publication, info on upcoming podcast (if a release week), IGLive extended resources (about guest or featured information ), community updates, and any other relevant announcements ahead of the upcoming week. All newsletters (past and future) are available to ANY subscriber/member logged into https://www.EverydayInnovation.io and in the community, and new newsletters will be delivered to your inbox weekly.
I'm so thrilled to continue to build out this platform through content and community, and I am passionate about including and featuring fellow Indie Hackers on Everyday Innovation. Feel free to reach out about potential collaborations and, if you join the (free) community, make sure to let me know about your upcoming launches so that I can share them!
I will update the first 21 subscribers to the VIP(paid) tier for life, which will grant access to both the subscriber and VIP community and VIP-only gated content areas. :) There are a few spots left!
My first 3 interviews for the podcast were recorded while simultaneously having the conversation in Clubhouse (taking questions at the end), and I'd wished that they would have been hosted under a club dedicated to the practice of everyday innovation and the action of that versus just panels about cool startup/corporate progress.
Because I consider Everyday Innovation a "container" for experimentation that results in content/resources/convos etc. , having the club function the same way and give permission to others to get creative in their rooms/hosting formats was incredibly interesting as a way to start moving into community aspects without taking on a major responsibility to feed content to a group.
I'm posting this here because at the heart of this idea is a reflection of my own personal and recent jump into innovating everyday as an indie hacker, challenging the structures of "success," and taking time to study and be inspired by the personal growth that is required to align with staying in that space of innovation.
Links below if you are interested! I'd love for you all to host rooms and/or reach out to collaboratively plan a convo, fun event, or opportunity to support other indie hackers in this container. Follow me and the club on Clubhouse and I'll add you, or feel free to DM me.
https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/everyday-innovation
https://gethostnotes.com/club/everyday-innovation
On the same day as the social post about my first guest's episode (recorded March 1, released March 19), I also released a new, more "on-brand" look for the podcast show and episode covers. I designed these myself and wrote/produced the podcast intro song -- the project is definitely a work in progress that truly captures my experimentation and expression. It seems to be getting positive feedback!
On March 1st, I did my first Clubhouse Room moderation with a podcast recording simultaneously with my first guest. We recorded audio externally (pod mics) but wore headphones so that we could interact with each other and others in the room. It was a fantastic conversation with my brilliant friend Laura DiFrancesco-- a majorly accomplished attorney, multi-project entrepreneur, writer, and content creator. We covered cultivating and protecting IP as a founder and/or creator and dug into our own methods of innovating and love of designing our own systems. I got a bunch of compliments on my moderating and the flow of the conversation that day which was fantastic. I followed up with this format 2 more times in March (second 2 of 3 will be released in April).
I was hosting some audio from a recording that I created intended for IGTV on a podcast platform just to see if it could manage the tracks better than hosting it elsewhere. I figured I could utilize the tools for embedded players (not distribute on platforms) or ones that would allow me to more easily pull pieces to share on social media. I did peek around to see how distribution would work and authorized access to a couple of these platforms, but I didn't intend to launch the audio publicly. Lo and behold, I published the audio to use in a player and didn't realize it would auto distribute to the authenticated services (Spotify, namely). While I wasn't in love with the first episode, the accidental release got me excited about following up and digging into making this something I could cultivate!
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