The goal of the project was to scale the growth of the community Creative Academy, improving the quality of the educational content, creating a standardized workflow and supporting the team with external events and workshops. This project was started in the early 2022 and completed in the late 2023
Client: Creative Academy: community of videographers, photographers, and content creators.
Role: Project Manager & Operations Consultant
Industry: Creative Education, Community Management
Services: Process Optimization, Course Structuring, Brand Partnership Coordination, Community Growth
The Community and Growth Challenge
Creative Academy was scaling fast thanks to the Social media endorsement of the founder Nick Pescetto. With a growing user base and increasing brand collaborations (Nikon, GoPro, X Masters), the internal team couldn’t keep up with the new structure: they needed to scout more content creator to teach new topics, they needed to create a workflow for onboarding them and a one-document where to link categorize all the lessons and the links. The team was facing:
- Disorganized teacher onboarding
- No standard for course quality or delivery and community management
- No easy-to-read document with all the lessons
- Pressure to maintain community engagement while expanding
- No assistant for in-person events
They needed someone to bring clarity, structure, and process without slowing down momentum.
The Mission for the Community
As an external consultant, with little experience in community management but extensive project management and organizational and interpersonal skills, I stepped in to support Creative Academy on a long term basis. The mission was:
- Creating a structure workflow to scout, onboard and “convert” content creators into teachers in the platform
- Propose topics or help to develop them with the teachers and standardize the structure of the education content
- Create a all-in document shareable and embeddable on the homepage, containing links in to the platform and categorized easily of all the 250+ educational content
- Support the planning and coordination of in-person workshops, meetings and event together with the internal team and the sponsor teams
The Work
- Create a streamlined, replicable system for onboarding new instructors (scouting, invitation, call, PDF guidelines, lesson calendar, live streaming, follow-up)
- Standardize the structure and quality of educational content (PDS guidelines, intro and outro, duration, tone of voice, content)
- Create the document with Airtable with more than 250 video lessons categorized (visible on the homepage)
- Successfully supported various sportive and creative events with the internal team and the external stakeholder: GoPro, Xmasters, Nikon School workshop, Morocco Reunion, CREŌ Challenge launch.
The Results
- +15 new courses launched using the new standardized framework
- +10% increase in community engagement and event participation
- Successful execution of an international creative trip to Morocco, deepening community connection
- More autonomy for teachers and smoother onboarding for new talents
Why It Matters
At Phàros Lab, I do not only execute a service but I connect deeply with the project and the community within, I become part of the team and I take responsibilities despite my expertise. This project was about designing a system that respects the freedom of creators while elevating the standards of the Creative Academy.