Empower creative teams to deliver great impact in the age of remote work

The world of work has changed — and creative work must change with it.

The essential brainstorming, collaboration, and coordination that used to happen organically and in person must now happen digitally. In our new (disrupted) digital age, creative interactions rely on everything from videoconferencing and remote-meeting tools to productivity tools, chat, and email, making it harder for creative teams to work creatively and respond quickly to market changes with effective campaigns, content, and experiences that connect with customers.

At CenturyLink, a remote-first creative team and a work management platform have helped the company thrive amid disruption and new normals. At the Adobe MAX conference on October 20-22, Shane LaBounty, creative operations leader at CenturyLink, will explain how the business has empowered its creative teams to work more purposefully than ever in an era of remote work.

By embracing enterprise work management technology and Adobe experience solutions, CenturyLink has not only transformed its creative team from a request-led, responsive function to a planning-led operation delivering major integrated campaigns, but it also recently executed a cross-functional, enterprise-wide relaunch and rebrand as Lumen — while working remotely in the middle of a global pandemic.

LaBounty will offer advice on how creative teams can champion remote work and use it to their advantage — enabling them to create more targeted and effective creative assets that have greater impact.

Build creative teams that are remote by design

The creative team at CenturyLink is different from many others because the company built its creative function as a remote and global team from the ground up a few years ago. Over the past two years it has enhanced its operations by using Workfront to manage and organize its work, while using the integration with Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) to connect people with the creation, delivery, and measurement of work — to maximize the performance of its creative resources.

Because the team had been working remotely for some time, the sudden uprooting of normal working practices that resulted from the COVID-19 response did not derail CenturyLink’s creative team as it did so many others. They were already remote and managing their creative work through the integration of Workfront and Adobe. Consequently, since the COVID-19 outbreak, many organizations have sought advice from CenturyLink on how to make remote creative work possible and successful.

Shift from ad-hoc and reactive to well-planned and powerful

In his Adobe MAX presentation, “3 Ways to Build a Remote Creative Team Tailored to Today’s Work,” LaBounty will explain how the digital transformation of creative work to accommodate remote work is actually a great opportunity to shift from reactive and request-driven projects to more planned, proactive, and targeted campaigns. He will offer valuable advice on how to maximize the opportunities of remote work, starting with basics such as:

• Asking for help from transformation specialists.
• Setting up cross-functional processes.
• Using technology to track and report on the status of creative work.
• Leveraging a central platform to manage collaboration and approvals.

LaBounty will also outline some of the benefits CenturyLink has experienced. Using technology to plan, prioritize, and standardize work has enabled the creative team to focus more time, talent, and resources on campaigns that really impact business success. And by having data from a centralized platform to show how much time tasks are going to take and what resources are available, the creative team has been able to set clear expectations for stakeholders and prioritize the most important work.

CenturyLink’s creative team has shifted from delivering many small, one-off tasks in an ad-hoc way to prioritizing the delivery of big projects that really move the business forward.

Organize and empower creative teams to be creative

Workfront plays a pivotal role in all of this. The solution makes remote and dispersed work possible by centralizing all work data and creative tools, so work can be accessed and updated by people working from anywhere, at any time. The integration with Adobe Creative Cloud and AEM enables creative teams to continue using their preferred creative tools, while asset management and review and approval procedures are managed centrally. Because of its seamless integration with Adobe creative tools, Workfront also eliminates the friction and inefficiency that can be caused by disconnected and incompatible technologies.

As LaBounty will explain, integration and centralized data management gives creative teams the ability to plan and prioritize accurately, so they have the tools and data they need to deliver the targeted marketing collateral required in today’s rapidly changing markets.

MAX is Adobe’s creative conference, where the world’s creative thought leaders and influencers share their expertise and insights. If you manage creative teams on any scale, don’t miss LaBounty’s thought-provoking session on how to use remote work to your advantage using Workfront and Adobe. Please register to attend “3 Ways to Build a Remote Creative Team Tailored to Today’s Work,” on Tuesday, October 20, from 3:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. EDT.