Uncommon Collectives

Internal groups have been renamed Uncommon Collectives! Below you will find brief breakdowns of each as the introduction of our two latest collectives: 

• The Uncommon Theory Collective

• The Fitness Collective

Join these groups to exercise your mind and body while spending time with the uncommon crew.

Uncommon Theory Collective, written and led by Brian Hashemi, Director of Marketing

Overview:

Brian Hashemi

Over the years, we’ve read many books together as a department in Marketing. They’ve usually been based around some interesting concept or theory related to our business, recommended to me by a team member or someone else in the industry.  I’ve found this to be really useful – it’s often united us in a common way of thinking, or gotten us focused on a new way of organizing our work, or enabled us to learn a new way of doing things.  (For example, reading The Lean Startup got us much more focused on agile development; reading Customers Included got us much more focused on customer listening.)

Somebody recommended that I organize a wider group to read books like this. The hope is to accomplish similar things, but across departments – so we get more alignment and more impact, as well as just more bonding by giving people across departments a chance to discuss and debate ideas. And hopefully, we all learn something new along the way.

So here’s what we’ll do. Each month, we’ll select a new book for group discussion.  For each book, we’ll schedule a set number of discussion sessions. You don’t need to commit to more than one book at a time – so, if you’re interested in this month’s book, you can sign up for it, but if you want to skip next month, that’s fine.  We’ll keep the discussion groups fairly small and tight-knit, and we’ll tailor the discussions to the makeup of each group. So don’t worry about your level of expertise on a certain subject – if we’re reading The Lean Startup and you don’t have any experience in agile development but want to learn more, or if you know a lot about agile development and want to discuss the finer details of how we implement it at UG, we’ll try to pair you with people at a similar level in the discussion group.  (And UG will be providing copies of the books, so don’t worry about that either.)

The first book we’ll read is Customers Included. This book is about shaping the customer experience through the simple act of listening to customers. The author lays out a bunch of examples of companies that have done this well, and ones that haven’t. He also lays out a methodology for what comprises good customer listening. This book has influenced a lot of the work we’ve done with user testing and customer interviews, and has gotten us to focus a lot more on making sure our project specifically address customer needs, which sounds like it should be obvious, but often isn’t.  Plus, our Creative and Marketing teams are working on setting up a live customer listening session with the book’s author in June, so I wanted to give as many people as possible a chance to read the book before that event.

Other books that we’ll read in coming months include things like: The Lean Startup, Influence, How to Measure Anything, Drive, The Paradox of Choice, and many others.  Also, I’m always on the lookout for new recommendations – so if you have something you think others in the company will benefit from reading, send it my way!

This group will focus on a new book each month and run throughout the year. You can sign-up here. Have a question? Email brian@uncommongoods.com

Fitness Collective, written and led by Michael Guillette, Maintenance Lead and Personal Trainer!

Overview:

Mike Guillette

This is a supportive focus group for all levels of fitness to accomplish our individual goals together. No judgement or shaming, just constant support and motivation. This group meets every Monday and Wednesday in the B-Side break room from 6:00- 6:30 and expects to meet year-round.

Questions? Email Michael at mguillette@uncommongoods.com or strike up a conversation when you see him around!

The team building group continues to urge you to join the following previously announced collectives:

Running Collective led by Kenneth Cooke, kcooke@uncommongoods.com. This group will meet until September.

The Book Club led by Louise Geller and Cassie Tweten Delaney, lgeller@uncommongoods.com and cassiet@uncommongoods.com. This group meets year-round.

Riding Collective led by Heather Thompson and Roman Korsunsky, heather@uncommongoods.com and roman@uncommongoods.com. This group will meet into September.