Can you turn a workplace into a fanbase? Nina and her guest, former FanatiCo employee, James Ashworth tried to do this. They take a look back to discuss what they learned from that experience.
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In this episode Nina and James discuss why we fake it when we talk about changing culture at work. In 2015, with Steve Smith (chairman of Ear to the Ground) they saw the opportunity to combine their expertise and created FanatiCo. Their mission was to turn workplaces into fanbases. Despite the fact that they did some fabulous work with amazing brands, the element of turning workplaces into fanbases was more of an exciting and thought-provoking conversation rather than a strategy the corporate world wanted to deploy. This was in stark contrast to the fan intelligence work Steve was doing with Ear to the Ground which was being taken very seriously and Nina being used as a change troubleshooter to sort out change that hadn't delivered successfully.
They went back to their individual areas of expertise knowing that this concept was not dead. Turning workplaces into fanbases is a no-brainer, Nina and James consider the reasons why it didn't succeed at that time.
The FanatiCo introduction Slideshare which contains the Fan Scale discussed by Nina and James in the podcast, can be found below.
Nina refers to a podcast (found below) about Raving Fan Cultre by Tony Robbins. It's a great listen but it says you will hear from Tony on what it takes to create a raving fan culture, both internally with your employees and externally with your clients. As with many of these sources, it focuses on customer fan culture and is very light on how you create internal fans.
This topic feels more relevant than ever.
A Human Approach to Innovation and Change encourages embracing all human emotion, good and bad, to generate the heat and light that comes from that. This is the foundation of fan culture, the ability to create internal fans and move them up the fan scale is priceless.
James Ashworth
James has spent the last 15 years of his career in creative communications – building global brands in a variety of sectors from retail and FMCG to automotive. He now works closely with healthcare and pharmaceutical brands to create more helpful change. Over the years James has spent his spare time working as a Tactical Support Officer for Greater Manchester Police. He is a keen cyclist and travels around Europe and America following his passion for cycling.
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Season 1
In this first season of The Change Troubleshooter podcast, Nina is joined by a variety of people in her discussions. They are people she has worked on projects with from various organisations and people who have worked for her. In episode 2 even her parents get to tell the story of their struggle to overcome the difficulties that being in a mixed race relationship posed in the late 1960s. There are 6 episodes which will be published at 2 week intervals. Each one is related to the overall theme of A Human Approach to Innovation and Change. Nina uses topical content as the centre point of the conversations with her guests.