Joy is a Journey
Let’s face it, the world has been lacking joy lately. It’s been rough for all of us. For me, experiencing joy daily is essential to helping me focus on what truly matters. It gives me perspective and allows me to let off a little steam in the most fun ways. It’s difficult to imagine finding joy in every day in everything you do, yet when you build a company, your own values filter into your 9-5 world. It’s inevitable, and I want to embrace it.
We’ve been making joy a part of our daily lives at WOTW since the beginning — mostly because it’s just in our DNA. Kelsey and I lead with joy in our everyday lives for the simple reason that it brings happiness to everyone and everything around us. Happiness helps things move with ease. As they say, happy cows are from California, and honestly, have you seen the land they graze on? I have. We should all be happy cows.
Translating joy in an environment where there are a lot of opinions — which can be any field of design, really — is difficult. Maybe it’s the perception of how designing websites should unfold. Still, when Kelsey and I started thinking about how to build websites in one week, we knew it was also an opportunity to make it a joyful experience. A happy journey from the moment you sign your contract.
When we think about how we want the experience of working with WOTW to be, the word that comes to mind is joyful. Sure, it’s not the word that most people use to describe building a website. But we work with a team of developers who like to say, “I don’t know, CANNNN I do that?” when asked for an out-of-the-box feature. They create something badass from it and learn in the process. Kelsey and I had both experienced what it was like to be on the client end of the process, so we knew how inherently unsettling and frustrating it had the potential to be.
Joy is both the beginning and end of everything we do; it stands out as the value that drives us most.
Our other values — caring, collaboration, openness and trustworthiness — all make that joy a possibility in the client experience. Joy is the result of working together to create an environment that lessens the stakes, lends a listening ear, and offers the validation we need to be our best selves.
We brought our personalities to the table, always reminding ourselves that anything can be enjoyable with the right perspective and attitude. We build our systems and processes around this idea, implementing fun where it makes sense. Taking our work seriously, but not ourselves.
Letting the pressure subside a little and using optimism, teamwork, and joy to drive the experience instead of letting fear cloud judgment and stifle creativity.
We inflect optimism and dad jokes into our website and our onboarding materials. We greet our clients with fresh, wide eyes and a desire to make the week or so of time we work together progress seamlessly. The way we communicate with each other internally —always cheering each other on and offering advice and feedback when requested, helps us all gain experience and the clarity that comes from an oh-so-important second set of eyes. It’s what helps our work be even stronger with every project we complete.