Crafting a Vision for Media
BACKGROUND
In the spring of 2020, the Hudl Media Business Unit decided to invest in a product team as part of the strategy to hit the team’s revenue goals for the coming years. The Media Business had not had the help of a product team for about 3 years when our team joined. Our small team consisted of an Engineering Manager, three software developers, and a QA. We didn’t have a Product Manager when we moved over to the Media team, which meant the Engineering Manager, Brandon Bone, and I had to split our attention from our day-to-day roles to fill the role of a PM. During this transition, it became clear to us that in order to begin creating a roadmap, we needed to align on our business strategy and craft a product vision to paint a clearer picture of what we were hoping to accomplish for our immediate team and the rest of the company.
Through each iteration, I worked with other leaders within the Media Business to ensure the vision lined up with their expectations and the format was easy to comprehend. I worked to get feedback from other product leaders within the company, specifically Directors on the Competitive and Elite Business Units, to understand how I could integrate the experiences their teams were working on with the experiences we wanted to create on Media. After discussions with those teams, it felt best to create an aspirational narrative around an athlete and their circle of family, coaches, and recruiters. Below is the narrative we used to rally multiple teams around and allow them to have a better understanding of how our various products would integrate with each other. This was used in addition to drafting mission and value statements that the Media team used as a “north star” in creating a roadmap.
ROLE | DURATION | TEAM
Sr. Design Manager
2020
I collaborated with the VP of Media, Engineering Lead, as well as other product leaders on different business units.
Friday September 18 | Pre-Game 4:45pm
Chase Smith is in the locker room listening to Coach Roberts pep talk. He's happy he's able to just focus on his performance on the field because he knows that Hudl will be automatically capturing and saving his best moments so that he can easily create and share his highlight after the game. Coach Roberts has a similar peace of mind when he gets a reminder from Hudl that his Focus™ camera is set to automatically record when the game starts. He's glad he doesn't have to deal with coordinating filming anymore so that he can concentrate on prep for the game and spend that extra time motivating his team in the locker room.
Kathy Smith receives a reminder that her son's game will be livestreamed and available for her to watch at 5pm. She's so grateful that Hudl offers that service because she has to work late tonight and won't be able to make it in person.
Sean Gateman is notified that the game is about to start and that one of his potential recruits is going to be playing. He loves that Hudl sends him the important moments from the athletes he's interested in because he can establish and build relationships with them that would have been much more difficult to do without specific context from the game. The moments Hudl sends Sean allow him to start meaningful conversations with his prospects that make athletes feel noticed at a deeper level, and in turn makes his job a lot easier.
Friday September 18 | 3rd Quarter 6pm
Chase had some big plays in the first two quarters (one being a 36-yard touchdown pass 🔥) which Hudl automatically filmed and then generated a highlight of those moments. Kathy receives a push notification letting her know that the highlight is available for her to watch. She is pleasantly surprised because she wasn't able to watch the entire livestream and the snapshot of Chase's best moments makes her feel like she didn't miss anything despite not being at the game in person. Sean Gateman is also notified as he is interested in Chase as a potential recruit.
The quick turnaround is made possible with the help of the Assist team being able to live tag data. Grandpa Bob Turner is able to cheer Chase on virtually with the livestream feature and also receives notifications when an exciting moment might occur (e.g., red zone opportunity, or last two minutes of the game). Overall he does not feel excluded despite needing to stay home for his health.
Chase's teammates see that he published a highlight while on the bus and they all watch it together. After seeing how great Chase's highlight turned out and how easy the process was, they are motivated to create their own. Chase even creates a highlight for his teammate, Jimmy McCann, an unsung team hero who works tirelessly on the offensive line. Chase shares the highlight of Jimmy with the team and the team's followers.
Enrique Morales, defensive tackle for Northeast High, plays Southwest High next week will be going head to head with Chase Smith. Enrique's coach has asked him to know as much about Chase's tendencies as he can. Enrique is notified when Chase or Southwest's Football team has a highlight for Enrique to review to make sure he's prepared for the upcoming game.
Sean Gateman also gets an overview of the game with stats specific to Chase since Sean had him listed as a player to watch. He watches his highlight and is immediately impressed with the moments that were documented and starts a message between him and Coach Roberts.
Saturday September 19 | At Home 2pm
After Chase returns home from their team film review he gets notified by Hudl that there are training resources available that are tailored to his most recent performance. He opens the app and sees the recommended training videos at the top of his Feed. He changes into his workout clothes and plays the first video to start his weekend workout. He's pretty intrigued to see some Nike workouts available as well since they are well tailored to his sport and position. Nike is partnering with Hudl this year and as a brand they are equally as excited to serve athletes in this demographic with inspiring content. Nike's ability to share professional athletes from their roster to inspire with training content/messaging definitely connects with Chase.
Chase records his workout and adds it to a highlight reel so that recruiters can get a sense of how he trains and is motivated to improve outside of normal practice. He also makes sure to add his recent workout performance metrics to his profile page where his highlight and training reels live.
Chase gets a notification that Sean Gateman has viewed his profile. He's really excited to know he's on UNL's radar since it's one of his top picks.
