Hey ,

Hosting office hours can be a great way to connect with your audience, and it can also offer so much more.

You're able to use it to collect product feedback or bring people together. Let's explore a couple different ways office hours have been used to engage audiences.

At the bottom of this edition, I want to share with you the ability to work alongside and connect with me. Invite below 👇🏼

Using Office Hours for Product Feedback

In 2009, Jason Fried of 37Signals made a point to introduce Office Hours for his company Basecamp. The goal was to collect feedback and be available.

"You can call and ask product questions, pre-sales questions, suggest feature requests, lodge complaints, offer praise, share ideas, discuss recent blog posts, or talk about good or bad experiences using our products. Anything that’s on your mind is fair game. I’m here to listen, share, and be available to help in any way I can."

Since then, both large and small companies have followed and introduced their own form of Office Hours as a way to get product feedback, connect with customers, or provide continued education for their students.

Testing a New Version of Office Hours

Two college professors wanted to create a different learning environment than the traditional Office Hours provided. They wanted to have a space where students could feel welcome getting together with other students for a study session, and not feel the pressure of preparing a set of questions to ask the instructor.

So, they created “course centers.” To set this up, they scheduled one- or two- hour time blocks in unoccupied classrooms, where students were invited individually and/or in groups. Students could work on whatever fascinated them during that session. The instructor would go around the room checking up on each group to make sure everyone had what they needed for their project, and also to provide advice when asked.

After trialing this idea for three semesters, the instructors surveyed the participants: When asked if they had to choose between the instructor’s office hours and the course centers for getting help, 54 percent said the course centers versus 46 percent who said office hours.

“Did having a course center in the class make you more likely to get help?” 79% said yes.

As you can see Office Hours, or the idea of an interactive & free-form Course Center, has a place in your business for you and your audience to learn and connect.

⭐️ Introducing: Studio Hours

I'm hosting my own version of office hours and course centers, called Studio Hours — this Thursday, 21 July at 9am-10am CDT / 3pm-4pm UK. Join me >

Bring your personal project or business project to work on. I'll be working too. While you're there, seek advice from me, or use the space to work alongside others. Anyone is welcome, so bring a friend.

Reply or signup for free to let me know you're coming >

And, if you can't make this week's Studio Hour, please let me if you would come to one in the future (with a short reply).

"I have no idea how this is going to work out, so it’s deemed more of an experiment than a permanent fixture, but let’s see what happens." - Jason Fried.

Enjoy,

Matt

P.S. Access our previous 45+ trainings here. Then come to Studio Hours w/ A Creative.