We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Naomi Osborn a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Naomi, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

Yes, I’m grateful and happy to do so. I have always had a knack for observation and a passion for possibility that drive my actions. Growing up on the ground floor of social media means I have been sharpening my skills at distilling very complicated subjects down to simple, digestible forms in digital spaces for over 20 years. Getting at the heart of something. Around the age of 30 I got my first agency job as an intern for the best strategist in Minnesota, Jen Boyles from the agency Jen Boyles Digital. She was taking on a new challenge herself being a first time agency owner so my crash course in strategy came at a good time as we were both open to possibilities and willing to take risks. Jen mentored me and taught me many skills and outlooks that I draw upon every time I sit down to work. Fast forward to today and we still work closely.

Good strategists wears many hats. We are part anthropologist (we are keen students of culture), part psychologist (we seek to understand why the human mind makes us behave the way we do), part analyst (reading and interpreting data to both support decisions and uncover hidden truths), and part creative (we are skilled storytellers that can see something from start to finish).

The most essential skill for a strategist is an innate curiosity about the world around them — why people behave the way that they do. Next (related to curiosity), is empathetic observation. It’s important to include empathy in your observations because without being able to put yourself in someone’s shoes, you will not be able to anticipate or understand their wants and needs. Another skill I have developed is open-minded optimism which is key to uncovering possibility. Possibility is at the very heart of what we do. Lastly, a good strategist needs excellent communication skills. I don’t mean just being a good writer (although that is important too), but the ability to effectively communicate insights and ideas to all kinds of people in differing ways.

Naomi, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I grew up in Cheyenne, Wyoming and moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota in the mid 2000’s to attend The Minneapolis College of Art and Design. I’m a passionate cinephile and originally intended to study film but ended up with a BFA (this degree was more interdisciplinary than film and allowed me to take all kinds of creative classes while fulfilling my requirements to graduate). At MCAD I found that I was more interested in creative problem solving and collaboration over refining my studio practices and I began to see myself as a real participant in complex community and global problems.

After college I worked as an organic farmer which was gratifying to me on many levels but ultimately unsustainable due to the physical demand required. After my farming days I started working towards becoming a strategist and applied for every internship I could. By this time, I was at least 10 years older than most interns and didn’t have much luck until I was introduced to Jen from JBD. I saw this as my breakthrough moment and set out to make myself indispensable to the agency. I worked really hard and eventually had so much work with JBD, I quit my day job and started my own LLC so that I could take on as much strategy work as possible. This decision was stressful but necessary — to this day I still am so grateful that my risk to quit paid off with a career I truly love and am challenged by.

While I think of myself now as a communications strategist, my range of skills and experience would have me feeling at home on most creative teams in multiple rolls. Most freelancers can relate — the more you can do well the more you can earn at the end of the day. I work particularly well in creative leadership rolls where I can work alongside and inspire creatives to produce their best work while still keeping everything on the rails from a client and strategy perspective. I am happiest professionally when I can work on multiple clients (combats boredom and burnout) while collaborating alongside talented people with good ideas and good attitudes.

I am proud of how my differing life experiences bring a unique and varied perspective to all my projects and client engagements. I am a former farmer and artist, a Latina, and a film buff. I am an introvert who loves to make people laugh. We are all so complex! Being an effective and successful strategist means being good at connecting dots and finding relationships between seemingly unrelated things that others overlook. This is the essence of creativity and my life’s work and my professional ambition summed up. Nobody can do it like me because nobody is me. Our differences are our strengths and that wisdom can only come with experience and the courage to be yourself.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

I believe contributing positively to the morale of a group is vital and something everyone should work towards regardless of position or experience.

A team’s morale boils down to the conscious effort of being that kind of person around that speaks and demonstrates appreciation for the efforts and contributions of others. Searching for moments big and small to communicate your appreciation will have an overall lift on productivity, morale, and the quality of work produced.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Building an audience on social media requires authenticity and intentionality. The most successful brands and individuals who wish to grow their audiences on social media understand that their pages are a meeting place for people before they are a storefront or anything else. When we get back to focusing on building community around a shared subject or interest by adding value to others through our content, it is an invigorating space to be in and contribute to.

Social media is still a fun and enlightening space for those who are intentional about their timelines, and believe me, people are getting more and more intentional. Selective. How can you or your product stand out in all the noise? Authenticity. Nobody in this world is like you and has your eye, your voice, and experiences driving your perspective and that should come through authentically on social. Bring value to peoples timelines with your content and your audience will grow. Publish content worthy of someone’s follow by being authentic and it will resonate with others.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Naomi___Osborn@
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/naomi-osborn