The adventures of Franco and Raz: The making of Inspired

Most origin stories start with a pivotal turning point, an unmistakable call to action that motivates someone to do something extraordinary right away. But mine, which is about our new video series, Inspired: Talent Marketplace stories, began with me telling a friend about the company I work for. 

To help explain what Gloat does, I often tell a story about a business that used its talent marketplace to launch a new product during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. But when I told it this year, I realized it was getting old. The pandemic was years ago. And, with 10X as many customers as we had when that story took place, I knew there was a better example that showcased how our platform benefits both the business and the people who work for it with a similar level of detail. 

I realized that most of the success stories we had came from senior stakeholders sharing details on their overall results with our platform and the impact it’s had. While these tales showcase how our platform works at the enterprise level, they’re only showing us the big-picture perspective. What would happen if we zoomed in and started investigating all of the everyday wins that come together to make those big results happen? What if we could talk to the employees and managers who had nothing to do with implementing their organization’s talent marketplace, to learn how they stumbled upon it and why they decided to try it out? What could we learn?

I decided it was time to find out so I asked our Business Analytics team to design a report that showed the kinds of projects posted across Gloat talent marketplaces. The range of projects… was astounding. From spinning up a project to accelerate the launch of a cardiovascular drug to a cross-functional team tackling claim disputes faster than ever, I uncovered some pretty cool stories.  

After digging a little deeper, I started to see trends in how these projects lined up with bigger company goals. Small teams were bringing big things to life, from surfacing cost savings, launching new products, and making critical infrastructure improvements. People were coming together to execute the projects they needed to complete to turn their most senior leaders’ visions into realities.

I knew I had to find a way to tell these stories and show how individuals at large companies were using the talent marketplace to make a difference. No businesses can accomplish their enterprise-wide goals in a day; instead, it’s projects like these performed by ambitious, resourceful employees that over time create the momentum businesses need to surpass their loftiest objectives. I wanted to learn more about these projects and get to know the people behind them, so I got a crazy idea to start interviewing them and creating videos to spotlight the amazing work they’re doing. 

I told one of our customers about my idea and within a few weeks, I was flying off to Prague to shoot a pilot with Raz, our Head of Video. We agreed that the only way to tell these stories was by letting people see it all in action. It wasn’t about bringing people onto a professional set with a crew and having them read off scripts but instead sitting down, talking about their experiences, and creating a documentary to peel back the curtain and showcase what employees can accomplish, both for their careers and for their organizations. 

I knew from the first conversation we filmed that we were onto something special. It wasn’t long after Raz finished editing our pilot video that I told him it was time to pack our bags because another one of our customers asked us to film a similar series at their London headquarters. And not long after that, we crossed the Atlantic and headed to Boston and DC to create something for Schneider Electric. 

Over the past few months, Raz and I have heard countless inspiring stories. But one of my favorites happened organically. While on-site with Schneider Electric, I actually witnessed an employee use Schneider’s talent marketplace to get connected with a mentor during his first day on the job. While we were filming, I heard one of his colleagues tell him about their platform, Open Talent Market, and within less than an hour he had a profile and was connecting face-to-face with a mentor who worked in the same office. 

Raz also has a favorite memory from Boston.  We spoke with an employee named Cyre about an opportunity posted on Open Talent Market that changed her career trajectory. A few years after completing that first project, she’s now posting on the other side as a manager looking for talent. She told us she put herself on a mission to help other Schneider employees achieve their professional ambitions because she had never believed that she could get to the role she’s in today. Hearing her story and learning about how she used Open Talent Market to overcome imposter syndrome was nothing short of magical. 

In fact, it was so inspiring that it gave us the name we were looking for for this video series: Inspired. From financial services institutions to CPG and pharmaceutical companies, each organization we visited had its own unique use cases and business priorities but employees kept telling us the same thing: “We couldn’t have done this without the talent marketplace.” Time and time again, our users leveraged their platforms to accomplish the unthinkable: they doubled their team’s efficiency, they saved millions of dollars by increasing their reporting capabilities, and they generated millions of dollars by upgrading their trading infrastructure. And perhaps most importantly, users were participating in projects that inspired them to change the trajectories of their professional lives. 

Ultimately, their success stories are about so much more than any one piece of technology. They’re about joining a movement. Each story demonstrates what’s possible when people are empowered to look beyond their jobs, step outside of their comfort zones, and expand their skill sets by joining or leading new projects.