Changing the game

Change is inevitable, and where it does occur, I think it’s safe to say that we’ve all found ourselves trying to catch up with it. How do you stay on your game when the game is ever changing? Our recent shift in the UX Strategy team is an exemplary showcase of how we strive every day not only to keep up with, but to Change the Game, both for our clients and for our own internal teams. 

Strategy at a glance

Strategy can be a complicated role when you work in a digital agency. What does it mean to be a strategist? In the digital world, we Strategists are considered the brains behind the operation, acting as the go-to resource for many different aspects of our clients’ projects.

 Naturally, “Digital” and “Tech” are landscapes in a modern world that are everchanging, constantly evolving and shifting with new and innovative methods, practices, and ideas. If you’ve ever worked in Tech, you know that one thing affects one thousand others. That alone makes staying on your game the most important skill you can have. But, when you’re responsible for being the experts on tons of different concepts and tools, how can you find time in the day to stay updated on best practices? Short answer: you can’t, especially not as you grow and need to scale quickly.

Over the last few years, SilverTech Strategists have taken more and more areas of expertise under their wings, making it increasingly difficult to keep up with existing best practices while also finding time to learn new ones. With each new client comes new ideas, new technologies and new concepts, all of which require an expert understanding in order to accurately deliver an effective Strategy. The need for a change in our Strategy process became more and more evident as expectations grow higher and the landscape grows wider, and as the problems we are solving for clients become exponentially larger and much more complex.

The birth of a new team

It all started with a joke I made to Bill Storace, VP of Client Services, during our annual review season earlier in the year. At the time, I had been on a 3 to 4-month hiatus of writing complex Functional Specification documents and deploying our clients’ website content into their staging environments in preparation for their UAT periods. To be clear, this isn’t a complaint… I loved it. I won’t go into detail, but as a brief portion of an answer to a question in my review, I expressed an interest in creating a little army of Brady’s that could specialize in functionality, documentation and content excellency. Fast forward a short few months, and we made the shift that would set the stage for the next level of innovation and expertise to provide to clients as we move into the new decade.

What was previously User Experience (UX) Strategy became two teams: Digital Strategy and Solutions Strategy. Finally, our strategists have the opportunity to specialize and dive deeper into critical practice areas that are key to driving future-proofed, technologically-advanced strategies for clients.

Putting the FUN in FUNCTIONALITY

Digital Strategy is now responsible for tasks and deliverables that range from Analytics & SEO, Personas & User Journeys, Content Gap Analyses & Strategies, Information Architecture (IA) & Sitemaps, User Testing, and much more. 

This team specializes in understanding our clients’ business goals, their users, and their market landscapes to inform effective web and interface-based digital business strategies. This is where Solutions Strategy now takes over, redefining and enhancing a previously under-developed portion of our process.

 In my new role as Solutions Analyst, what I do is simple: I put the FUN in FUNCTIONALITY. Leading the new team, now comprised of myself and two new Digital Content Specialists, the army of detail-oriented and passionate technical strategists has finally grown roots.

As Solutions Strategists, our primary role is to act as mediators between our clients’ website objectives, their business goals, and their end-users/customers by helping to define solutions with functionality, flexibility, and scalability. Our process starts with understanding the work completed by Digital Strategy and translating the information into visual and functional representations for our internal team and our clients. 

Looking to the future

As a Digital Marketing agency that specializes in enterprise-level Website Design & Development, we’re constantly seeking new and innovative ways to change the game for clients. The recent shift within our Strategy Team is a perfect example of that, allowing us to better establish expertise that helps us make more informed decisions for our clients.

Thinking back on the last decade, the growth and innovation in the digital landscape is overwhelming to say the least… but it’s still changing, every single day. As we move into the new year with this newly structured team, we’ll be ready to tackle the most complex digital marketing and web technology challenges that will ultimately change the game for our team and our clients.