Building a Sustainable Creative Workflow

I experimented with a workflow that combines Gravity Sketch, mixed reality, and Runway's Gen-3 video-to-video AI and got some impressive results, here is what I did: 🚀 Step 1: Using Gravity Sketch in VR, I designed stasis tubes with humanoid figures inside. I placed these models throughout my hallway, integrating them into the real space, using mixed reality mode on my Meta Quest 3 headset. 🎥 Step 2: I filmed myself walking through this mixed reality set, holding a 3D object, capturing my real environment with the 3D models layered in. This gave a first-person view of the scene, as if I were navigating through an alien ship. 🧪 Step 3: Finally, I ran the footage through Runway’s Gen-3 video-to-video AI, using prompts to transform the scene into a space marine navigating an alien ship, complete with eerie stasis tubes and ambient sound effects to drive the atmosphere home. A fast, intuitive way to pre-visualize complex scenes that would otherwise take much longer to design and film traditionally. What this means for creative workflows: 🔹Advanced Storyboarding: With mixed reality, you can set up rough models and get a realistic sense of scale and positioning. You can actually walk through you scene, interacting with it and capturing raw footage directly. 🔹 Quick Pre-Visualization: Using video-to-video genAI, this rough footage can quickly be transformed into something more. It’s a great way to experiment with looks, check in with your client vision, and even lighting before diving into final production. 🔹 Future-Ready Workflows: As video-to-video AI improves, this workflow won’t just be for pre-viz. We’re looking at a future where you could create final-quality outputs straight from this setup, acting out scenes in a mixed reality environment while the AI enhances and polishes everything in real time. Moving towards final generated outputs vs rendered. This opens up a lot of possibilities. You could set up a mixed reality scene, interact with it, and create an entire short film without needing a massive crew or extensive post-production. For now, it’s a powerful way to prototype, storyboard, and explore creative concepts quickly and intuitively. ❓Curious about how mixed reality and AI could transform your creative process? Let’s connect-I’d love to share more insights and explore how these tools can push your projects to the next level.

💡 Nearly all acquisition teams cite a "creative" problem -- namely creating assets for paid ads. While this seems true on the surface — it’s rarely about creativity or a lack of media assets It's actually a *shipping* problem. Much like the saying "you ship your org chart," with creative, you ship your workflow. The reality is, most brands already have tons of creative assets—just scattered across different teams (user research, product, marketing). The problem is, there’s no streamlined process for turning those assets into ads. Here’s a fast fix to get your creative engine shipping at scale: 1️⃣ Mine your existing assets and categorize them: Product-centric: demos, people using the product, etc. Emotion-centric: testimonials, customer reactions, etc. Other: B-roll, behind-the-scenes footage. 2️⃣ Map these assets to proven creative concepts: Before/after comparisons. Testimonials or customer stories. Product use in unexpected contexts. Problem/solution scenarios. User-generated content. 3️⃣ Layer in copy and overlays that speak to one or more of these: Urgency (e.g., "Limited time only!") Scarcity (e.g., "Only 5 left in stock.") Trust (e.g., customer ratings, awards). Social proof (e.g., "Used by 100,000+ customers.") Value proposition (e.g., "Save time, save money.") 4️⃣ Leverage tools like Sovran to generate creative permutations programmatically. This enables you to test variations without draining your team’s bandwidth. (h/t: Manson Chen) 5️⃣ Use platforms like Motion (Creative Analytics) to extract valuable creative insights from real-time performance. 6️⃣ Automate over time by building a content repository and leveraging AI to tag and categorize assets—creating a searchable database that makes scaling content production seamless. 7️⃣ Lastly, “creative” doesn’t always mean visually stunning. In fact, "ugly ads" and "transactional creatives" often outperform their polished counterparts. Don't be afraid to prioritize clarity over aesthetics in performance marketing. If you're still unsure about your team's creative capacity, here's one of my favorite "ugly ads." 👇🏾

As a founder, staying in the creative trenches feels productive—until you realize you’re the bottleneck holding your brand back... I've generated over 750 million organic views in the last 12 months, by streamlining creative workflows and building scalable systems for high-converting content. Many founders struggle with stepping away from the creative process. You’ve built the vision, driven the strategy, and executed tirelessly. But at some point, the question arises: Are you leading your business—or limiting it? When you’re entrenched in every detail, you’re leaving no room to scale. You can’t develop the business or focus on growth if you approve every edit, brainstorm every campaign, or oversee every post. Worse yet, your team can’t thrive without the autonomy to confidently create and execute. Replacing yourself in the creative process isn’t about stepping back; it’s about stepping up. By building a system driven by proven strategies, scalable workflows, and the right talent, you can trust your brand’s creative machine to run without you micromanaging every piece of content. Here’s your next step: • Audit your involvement: What creative tasks are you holding onto that someone else could handle? • Build the right team: Hire or develop talent with a track record for producing content that aligns with your vision. • Set up systems: Create a workflow that scales your creative output without sacrificing quality.

Let's get straight to the point: if you want your AI or your entire workflow to deliver real, repeatable value, it's time to go beyond crafting clever prompts. To achieve scalable results, lasting creativity, and genuine peace of mind, you must build the scaffolding, not just issue instructions and hope for the best. Here's how to upgrade your approach: 1. Build frameworks, not just prompts. Think about the system you want, not just the answer you hope for. A reliable framework provides your agents (and your team) with a clear reasoning path to follow, time after time. 2. Apply heuristic principles. What are the rules, values, or questions that should guide every decision? Define them up front. This helps your work stay adaptable, responsible, and a whole lot smarter. 3. Design for consistency and growth. Set up your workflows so that improvement is built in. A simple feedback loop or a transparent review process turns one-off wins into repeatable habits. 4. Make ethics and transparency non-negotiable. Only trust systems you can explain. Build in ways to check your decisions, catch biases, and show your work as you go. Attached, you'll find a small section of Signal & Cipher's Creative Generalist framework, which defines creative patterns. These patterns govern how any AI agent responds to a request, providing consistent and predictable context every time. This is just one of over 50 frameworks our agents have access to for operating within our organizational AI OS. So, next time you're tempted to hack your way forward with another fancy prompt, hit pause. Choose one process you control and outline a fundamental framework for it. You'll be amazed by how much more predictable and robust your outcomes become.

Ever seen an ad drop from Maximum Effort (Ryan Reynolds’ agency) within days of a cultural moment? Here’s the secret: speed wasn’t the problem. The system was. Before we stepped in, their “workflow” looked like this: 1. Slack threads everywhere, no central source of truth 2. Project setup done manually (channels, job numbers, Frame.io accounts) 3. Clients couldn’t see the process, it felt like smoke and mirrors 4. Emergency turnarounds were possible… but chaotic and draining 5. The talent was world-class. The operations? Holding them back. So we rebuilt it. One centralized workflow “brain” that everything plugs into, automated setup across Slack + Frame (i.e. no more manual grunt work) and dashboards that pull clients into the process with full visibility. A roadmap to scale without slowing their creative agility. The result? - Every team member now saves ~0.5 days/week - Clients trust the process instead of questioning it - The team gets to stay in their creative zone instead of chasing files Maximum Effort kept their chaos → but now it’s the good kind. If your ops can’t keep up with your agency's creativity, drop “ops” in the comments and I'll reach out to set up a call. P.S - link to the full case study below. #Marketing #Advertising #AdAgency

Most business owners do not have a creativity problem. They have a process problem. In this conversation, Joe explains why so many leaders struggle to produce high-quality work when they try to create and finalize in the same sitting. The brain does not operate at its best when creativity and editing compete for attention. When you mix the two, ideas get watered down, clarity disappears, and the final product rarely reflects your true capability. The solution is deceptively simple: separate the stages. Create. Rest. Edit. Fifteen minutes of uninterrupted creation, followed by a 24-hour pause, allows your subconscious mind to refine the idea long before you return to it. When you come back in editing mode, you see the work with fresh perspective, better judgment, and far fewer errors. This process protects the quality of your work and dramatically improves decision making, communication, and execution. If you want more practical frameworks that help you think better and lead better, this clip is only a small piece of the conversation. 📺 Watch the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/g2YkYVyC #leadershipdevelopment #businessprocesses #productivitystrategies #creativethinking #businesscommunication #strategicexecution #professionalclarity #entrepreneurship #continuousimprovement #workflowsystems

20+ agents save me hours daily. Most people wait for AI to "get better" or for their company to provide training. Meanwhile, they're missing the obvious stuff happening right now. Here's what I learned building workflows that actually work: 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗽𝗶𝗱𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹. After coffee chats, I'd forget key insights within days. Built a simple workflow: Slack myself notes → copies to Google Sheet. Then added AI: now it creates follow-up calendar events, extracts discussion topics for next meeting, and builds my relationship "CRM". Started basic, became essential. 𝗧𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵-𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗮𝘀𝗸𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗱. Everyone knows storytelling matters for career growth. Nobody does it because sitting down to write stories feels overwhelming. So I text ideas to Slack → agent saves to Notion → runs analysis/feedback → repeat with followups. Now I bank stories during my commute instead of procrastinating for months. 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗜 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻. Skip waiting for the "universal assistant" to solve everything for you. Build for your weird, specific habits. Those patterns become product ideas when you notice what you actually use. The one-person business isn't coming – it's here. While everyone debates job displacement, smart people are becoming force multipliers. Big platforms won't solve your niche problems. You will. Stop waiting. You don't need to be an engineer or know how to code. Building for hundreds of millions of users taught me: we all started exactly where you are now. Your repetitive tasks are someone else's $100M opportunity. Start building. What would you automate first? (Happy to share my exact workflows if helpful) #AI #Automation #ProductThinking #TechLeadership #FutureOfWork

Back in 2017, it was just me, a camera, a script, and a dream. Fast forward to today: we’re running 15+ active YouTube channels, backed by a 120+ member team. This didn’t happen overnight. It didn’t happen by going viral. It happened by building systems, not silos. We realised early on creativity without clarity burns out. What helped us scale content and people? ✅ 7-10 strong team leads running independent content verticals ✅ Clear SOPs and workflows across scripting, filming, editing, thumbnails ✅ Tools like Trello, Google Docs, Adobe Suite, ChatGPT integrated into process ✅ Minimal micromanagement, maximum ownership ✅ Culture of experimentation, accountability, and trust Once the chaos is reduced, the creativity starts flowing. That’s when you stop worrying about "posting" and start thinking about "impact." I’ve now stepped away from daily uploads. I focus on the bigger picture i.e growth, partnerships, vision. That’s the power of systems: they free up your time to build the next big thing. If you're a creator, startup founder, or media entrepreneur trying to scale, remember: it’s not about more content, it’s about smarter teams. Let’s talk about building sustainable creator-led businesses. #YouTube #CreatorEconomy #ContentMarketing