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Panel: The Creative Process

Welcome back to the backstage, Everybody. I am Rust Andy's again to reintroduce myself, and I am excited to be here with three of my favorite people in the whole world. We have Mr Craig Swanson, co founder of Creative Live. We have Soup Rice, our 678 time returning instructor. Something like that returning champion, returning champion. And we have Mr George Byrne Akkus, who is the head of talent here at Creative Life. We wanted to sit down with these folks to talk a little bit about instructors and instructors at Creativelive. What makes a good instructor, how we find our instructors and what it is to be an instructor here at Creative lack what it means. So because George loves talking on camera, we're going to start with a question for George. So, George, as the head of talent, you are responsible for finding and bringing in the instructors, convincing them to come and be on our platform. So tell us a little bit about the process of how that works. Well, rest. I wanted to say Thank yo...

u for letting me lead off. You're welcome. I do enjoy being on camera lot. Um, I think for me, it was It was kind of a natural progression coming from WPP. I, especially on the photo channel, already knew everybody I knew soup rice before you guys did. Just so you know. Well, uh, so that really helped. Like, I knew all the instructors, I knew how they did at WPP. I had all the survey information I knew who liked him in who didn't. So that was a huge help as we got into, um, other channels. Ah, lot of it is referrals, which is great, for example, Like for a photo shop, then Wilmore. Lisa Snyder were great, and they were interred introducing us to, like all of their instructors, friends who were just amazing. I mean, you look at Dave Cross was just such a great instructor on goes over to business and graphic design and, you know, all the other ones. Crack does a lot of research. I do a lot of research. We reach out to those people, and I think once instructors here the story of what creative life is it was great what creativelive is And what is it it's all about. And the benefits of being on creative live in the platform it provides, Uh, people are really excited to be becoming instructor, and I get pitched 24 72 Excellent. Excellent. And I mean, even Craig's jacket is excited to be, oh, rid stuff. That is definitely a Red Star for Craig. But, Craig, what are you looking for in an instructor? What is it that makes someone a better fit for creativelive? I know that that not every teacher is going to be a good fit for creative life. What is it that makes people right for us? Well, I mean, so credible is a is a bit of a unique environment to teach. And so when I am looking at potential instructors, when the first thing is, do they teach and how do they teach on, what do they teach? Um, I get a lot of my leads for instructors. They're kind of off the writer from the audience from from basically people suggesting works up. They want to do 70 to 80% of the instructors that teach creativelive teach the topics they teach a creative life in other venues, so they already teach them the only teacher multi three day workshop. They already teach at, you know, other big conferences, other environments. And so what they're doing is they're not inventing brand new material for grid of live there, taking something that they have taught too many, many smaller audiences. And they're just big into the grave like platform. So it's untested form tested material. Exactly. So they're doing something that they've done before. Very few instructors can create something entirely new for creative life and preparation. Those are people that are extraordinarily strong instructors that they're used to creating the things. I think so, too, is one of those. Sue can in a month developed an entirely new course from ground zero to be able to teach, and it is something that not everyone can do. But when they condone it, it's fantastic. So I mean, the big thing is, how do I know someone's gonna do? Well, creativelive they do well elsewhere. Um, it's funny I was talking to on the way home from the party last night. I was talking to my uber driver about all of creative live and what we dio and his question was, so with business, how, you know, just because they're successful business person doesn't mean, they're a good teacher. So the question is, how do we deal with that? How do we bring in someone who is, Ah, very successful person and have them teach? Or do we? So the one thing I really work hard on is the one thing about the prevalent platform. The Kremlin platform changes and mold to the strength of the people that are teaching here. So when so, for example, some courses you'll see is teaching. You will see us out of field teaching. Something is very hands on others. You will see an environment. You'll see people talking together. So what I really try to do is I try to watch how people teach and figure out how we can give them an environment, a crate of life that is going to play to their strengths. So, I mean, the first way I will look as I will look to see someone Howard and they normally engage. And if they're not a teacher by trade of if this is safe for a for some was very strong, and business is really an expert in different in something very, very unique and special, but they've only done a very limited amount of teaching right. What I will usually do is I will try to get an opportunity to watch them during a speaking opportunity, and in particular, I'm really watching to see how they handle the Q and A because how they handle the Q and how they engage with an audience question that's unexpected teaches me a lot about how they approach their communication style. Interesting and and so from that, we can craft environment. If if they require a lot of social engagement with people, we can bring the audience close and make sure they're talking with a small group of people rather than teaching something to a big set. If they're the type person that is really Mawr. Geared for doing keynotes like they're used to doing something at Ted are things we can make the audience larger so they could be giving more of an audience. There are some people that really work one on one, so we might actually try to de emphasize the in person audience and create a one on one conversation between them and someone else. So every person's gonna have a natural teaching style in a natural way of being able to deliver their expertise, and it's our job to figure out how to create the environment that's going to pull the best out of them. That's that's great. And so that we're able to then work with different people, different personalities, different styles and create the best out of them. So let's talk to you a little bit here as a returning instructor who has been there many times. How do you prepare for creative lives? Is this when is this different from how you prepare for in person workshops? What's your what's your preparation like forwards up? I think it's really unique in the sense that it's live and free. The first thing. I think the biggest fear off most instructors is that they're giving it away for free. So they try and with holds information instead of going on that platform and just letting it all go. Um, I found that the more I let go off, the more came back in terms of audience ing an engagement anyway. But I prepare for weeks days. I want to create something that's entirely new. We always talk Onda have brainstorming decisions about what people really want to learn and what is really education on. What is interesting is you just not going up there to prepare warm. If you're not teaching, you know, you know, creating that sort of community. So just always trying to build really amazing content is what I do. So I just kind of prepares much they can, and then you just end up always delivering from your heart. And it's always a lot more organic than you think. It's gonna be a and more real and translate. So that's fantastic. Now, before now, as George mentioned, he knew you way before we did way before. So the question is, how has being uncreative live? Changed you? What has what is being uncreative live done for you? Why did you want to come to us and then what happened? As a result, it's kind of sigh, click. Every time I create content, I teach it, and when I teach what I learned something new and huge and then I I create more content and then I teach that, and then I learned something new. I've Glenmore about myself in the last year and 1/2 teaching than I have in the last 24 years being a photographer, I didn't even know that I knew a lot of the things that I could teach, and I didn't even know that it was part of my life for my knowledge base and still until I started to share it and then the connection that the audience had to what really was amazing about what I teach I didn't even know was special about me or even unique. And then I develop that further in the more it takes my learned. And now I think I've been through probably 18 months off the most rapid growth in both business photography and my personal growth that I've ever experienced in my 42 years. And that's something that I know in my personal conversation with Craig. That I know you take pride in Craig is the fact that being on Creativelive not only enabled someone to teach others, but to learn about themselves. You won't talk about that a little bit. It doesn't happen every day. So for me, yeah, creative life. When we really hit on all cylinders, everybody in the process is changed. The audience has changed. The experience changes the instructor and creative life has changed creativelive and myself and the whole team. It's as engaged in these workshops as the instructors and as the students. I mean, it is It is an amazing place to work because are you? I know this isn't what you're asking, but the first employee to leave creativelive, um, was, um, choosing to go and actually follow his dream of being. It was Monty and he was, we had we had a big go away party for him and he was choosing to follow his dream to go be a professional football coach. And he said that every day here was a creative live. People were talking about following their dreams and he was making more, more clear on what he wanted to win the risk you want to take. And so, you know, it's kind of weird example to use that example someone moving on from creative life as taking that next step. But every instructor, it is an amazing place. Toe learn, because what gets drawn out of us an instructor is mawr than you anticipated bringing and it's a mirror effect. You kind of it draws you forward and then you present it and Then all of this audience suddenly shows you back to yourself and you just see it and then you kind of like, Wow, you just experienced that And that is the most significant cause it's not like a You don't feel like a superstar. You just suddenly see what you know and what you can share In the new districts. You can keep expanding throat like it's just incredibly intense, especially since you're in a room with a very supportive production team that are like a family. So you feel very safe. There's a few cameras and maybe six people in the audience, but you talking to thousands of people and you don't necessarily know it. You get very lost, not in the audience, but you get very lost in the emotion of what you teach him and who you are. And then before you know it, you're just in the zone and you're connected. And then it's just all from there that is actually in terms of one things about the Tree of Life experience you were describing that it is being broadcast to tens of thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands of people in real time, and as instructor What you are doing is you're connecting with six people. Yeah, that air in the room with you and your teaching them engaging them. And the big thing for me, about creative life it is. It is the live part of it. It's not just the back of a broadcasting it live, but that the learning is happening live not just in theory, not just with an instructor talking to a camera lens, but with an instructor talking to real people struggling to put these things into practice in their in their own life. And people around the world get toe watch that they get to engage with it. They get to root for the people that you were teaching. And then you also get to hear their stories brought into this thing. So I mean, actually, does this feel like me? What does this feel like? Does it feel like you're leading a small group? Does it feel like you're talking at Aquino in front of thousands of people? Where what does this actually feel like? It creativelive given everything else you've done well. When you look at a camera, you probably performed to a camera, but when you look at six people who were learning from you, and they've got their IPad or the pen and paper. Their expression is fully engaged, leaning. They're listening. They're acknowledging they having lightbulb moments. And so every time the a reaction to what you're teaching them is, you can see it's hitting home. You just you focus more on those people, and then it's really can just keep running with it. And before you know what you've become oblivious to affect, the other people are watching you. There's a difference between putting on a show and teaching something. If you can teach something, you're teaching those people when they're listening to you and learning from you, they're engaged with you and you're helping them. You don't realize you're helping tens of thousands of other people at home cause you can't see them. But the thing is, if you were putting on a show and people would just watch, maybe for the show, but they wouldn't learn anything when it's not authentic. So it's the learning because Craig is always been about this is free education and I think that the free education part is the two words that just upset everybody the most. Many people are so upset by that term. And yet every single time I've said, well, you could sell that his at night way. Have this conversation a lot. You could sell things free education. And I'm like you could make papers. No, no, no. We do this. I say that every week. Amazing. So, Sue, what is it about the the creative life? Am I mean a little bit that we've heard that keeps you coming back on? Baby Craig, you can talk about this. If this is something conscious that our instructors are lifeblood without our instructors, we don't have anything to teach because you don't create that content. So do you consciously work on how to get them to want to come back? Um, well, yes. But I don't think what I do actually contribute that much. I mean, honestly. So, I mean, you could you could, because you talk to a lot of instructors to and you have experienced this in the stories I get back are about the camera operators and about the sound engineers and about Adam in the booth and all these people that are helping to make this thing. You talked about supportive environment. Some some of these classes are really, um there's a lot of emotion in play. There's a lot of emotion play from the audience, sometimes emotion play from the instructor and to create environment, the feel safe. Um, we have a crew that really, really cares what were being created. There's not a bunch of jaded cameramen behind the cameras like like sitting back waiting for their break, their coming up in there engaging and you get the feeling I would hope you get the feeling that everybody here is really pulling for you and really engage what you're doing. I've seen which shops where half the team, a creative life guarantees. I cry yours people are just It's more than it's crazy. What an amazing environment to work and you go back because it's, you know, it's like meeting friends. You'll have a lifetime of it, and that's and by the way, that's what makes my job easy because it's referrals. I mean, how many photographers have you referred to me because you had such such an amazing experience. They just line up. It's great. Thanks. So what you drink, that's actually a great point We've heard a lot in these past two days about networking, about the importance of maintaining and building your network. Now, is that something that you consciously do or is always something that just happens? And what what strategies do you use to build and maintain that network natural? Like that's his gift, You can tell me. Oh, like I think Craig and I would be more time just talking about ideas. Whereas hes has that gift of being able to connect people to other people with knowing people on contacting meeting in I thank you. I trying to get George to talk here. Not what George does that. What? George, you there, Just connect with everybody. You put you into a conversation cold. And you suddenly no. Five people related to this person, you know, and you like winter. But he always gets annoyed that people don't know anything about football. It's like they live in New York. I didn't know anything. Where is I'm not a natural that were basically I mean, the big thing that I do is we really I engage with people about the content and so, um, it will usually be this combination of talking, bringing people in, you know, game referrals. And then usually they'll be this long, one hour phone call with me. Talk about what we could do. Remember our first want long, one hour phone call? Um, and I don't think I don't think either Breast began that call. Had any idea what you're workshop could be about or what it was going to look like. And in the end, I was just completely sold on what this thing was going on when it turned out to be one of the biggest things. I was like, You know what I looked like, right? And you're like, Yeah, Oh, yeah. I've seen a picture I don't like just Tonto other care. And I think that's right. But, you know, everybody creativelive have a very specific role. Like I feel like, um, every person there specializes, really. And one major thing like if George's skills, talent and Craig's is that content producing everybody has something that is so unique and very powerful. Yet, like, there's nobody there that's just sort of ambiguous. And they were all Everybody is very strong, sort of a strongly placed. I absolutely agree. So we've talked a lot about kind of where we are now and how people are coming to us. Craig. Early on, I don't think that was the case when people didn't know what creative life Waas. So how did you start early on? How did you bring in those first few instructors who then started spreading the word Well, I mean so the 1% I was chased. Chase is an amazing networker. So the first for the first for instructors a creative life came in a point before we really had the story to sell. And if there someone that can sell a story that does not exist yet it is chased her this, um and so he lined up for really fantastic instructors for the very first kickoff of creative life. And basically, from there it just became a matter of building one step at a time. Every home and as we're moving into new into new categories were moving into businesses are moving into different areas. The most important thing for me and for for the entire executive team a creative life is that we leave. We have every instructor who leaves is a billboard for us is referring people to us because the experience is so extraordinary and so unique that they can't help it tell people about it. Um and so that's what we did. We started off with four relationships that came from, you know, from Chase with his amazing role. Dexter is amazing connections. And then we just hit it out of the park. One after the other had those people telling their friends and the other people they believed in until it got to the place where initially my calls would have to be, you know, I would be pitching people with creative life is I would have to spend all my time on the phone explaining what this opportunity wasn't gonna look like. And at some point there, there is this tipping point, maybe nine months down the road, where all of a sudden I wasn't making the outbound calls. I was just Basically, my entire life became dealing with inbound calls of people wanting to get on this platform. So it's just once you hit that tipping point exactly. Now it's the other way. So the important thing is, until we have that tipping point is just important that every single instructor that leaves is leaving with an extraordinary story, an extraordinary experience. Still there Still, that's still necessary for every every opportunity. Um, and you know what? I realized this some time ago because you know this, you know, we have we have gone from last year we had seven employees, right employees, and now we're at 75 employees, 83 80. It could have happened that way. Um, and I think that Megan mentioned this and I've heard this from other employees during our interviewing process with potential employees. The entire company is so oriented to welcoming people from the outside and making them feel comfortable, whether their instructors or guests or students, that the entire company is geared to that anyway, So we were doing it with our employee interviews without even recognizing we were doing something special. And and so when we start to get feedback about that, we were confused because we hadn't done it. We hadn't worked on. It is just something that is so ingrained with I think everybody a creative life is so used to people coming in learning growing, moving forward that we just assume that's what everybody doesn't. That's what every workplaces like, isn't it? You have to consider, too, that these guys were really selective, that they're not just putting people that are pitching and lying. Your mom, it's getting to a point was always has been, but it's especially getting to a point. Now. You have to pitch from a very authentic and content driven and very true place. You can't. It's not about just going up there and during a stage show. You can't prove to these guys that you've got something really great to bring to the world of education. You're not gonna get on the show. So I think now watching them interview people now is so interesting, even doing spotlight in Vegas, where we got instructors to do a city minute presentation to hold that space. If they can't hold that space, they're not going to get up there and there. I think George knows the industry so well, and Craig knows the audience so well that intuitively they can create something for the people out there knowing they know you like he knows his audience. He's built this, you know, from scratch. He knows the people who were watching, and they've been over a long time. It's so neat toe watch from behind the scenes. When you they pick somebody, mold them content, build them and then present them to the world. On this platform, you see, people just go from being with their photographers or to these amazing shining examples of education. I think it's so neat toe. So my favorite moments have been there. There. There aren't that many, but there aren't that many, because usually we do where we have people there really season. But there are these moments where I know how fantastic similar is going to be, and I know it to a degree that they don't know it and win that, you know. And there's probably I can count, like five and count five way when at the end, where we get to because George and I get to do the debrief after every workshop we debrief with our instructors, and I guess I can't say it on there, but we know we were looking for that for a certain response. That usually includes an expletive way. Eyes is wholly my not I did not believe it could be this big, and yeah, it we don't hit it all the time, but I'm shooting for life changing for instructors every time we book him. I mean, that's That's my That's my target and, you know, fantastic. And I think that's actually a wonderful No. Two and on. So I hope that everyone out there has enjoyed this little behind the scenes talk with Craig, Sue and George about what it is to be an instructor here and what it is we're looking for. And then how to create those experiences that will help people learn as much as they can.