Uplight’s core values shape who we are as a company and how we interact with each other, our customers, and our partners. Our core values are: Do the Right Thing, Impactful Progress, Grow, and One Team.

Each month we highlight a story about how an Uplight team member(s) has shown us what it means to live one of our values. It’s also a great way to learn more about how we work together at Uplight.

What was the project or the problem you were trying to solve? 

Our project was to do a significant update of the homepage of our corporate website (where you’re reading this blog!). 

We hadn’t made any major updates to the homepage since the initial Uplight company launch in July 2019, so there was a huge opportunity to refresh the content and design so that it was aligned with our current company brand, messaging and mission. We’ve grown together as a company and wanted to show our evolution.

Our goal was to update the story and messaging around who we are to utilities, our partners, and prospective employees through updated visuals, videos, and written content. 

We had recently conducted research to understand current energy trends and challenges, and where Uplight fit in, so we had a lot of great updates to include. The challenging part was to summarize all of this into a homepage so that is compelling (read: short and sweet paragraphs and eye-catching visuals) for utilities, partners, press, and potential employees. 

A successful homepage serves as the gateway to the rest of the pages on our website, and helps navigate visitors to what they are looking for. Another challenge we faced was to redesign the homepage while ensuring it flows smoothly between the other pages on the site––all coming together to form a holistic story.

Lastly, creating and updating a website involves many steps and people, and a careful collaboration amongst them all. The third challenge we faced was effectively flowing through the different stages of the project in a tight timeline, including but not limited to content creation and reviews, design exploration, creation and reviews, videos, animations, and coding it all into the homepage. 

Who were the Team Members involved and what do they work on?

This project included many folks from the marketing team including Indy Ratnathicam (CMO), Crystal Leaver (copywriter), Joel Mitchell (copywriter), Eric Leach (designer), Tom Marquis (art director), and Brandon Jewell (web developer). We also collaborated with Lindsay Morgan for brand consistency across all marketing materials, Elaine Reddy for content accuracy, Lindsey Meehan for alignment with marketing initiatives, and contractors to help with video editing and animations.

What value(s) did these team members demonstrate, and how did they do so? 

Throughout the project, I saw both our Impactful Progress and One Team values come in play. 

• Impactful progress: We work to meaningful outcomes, mindful of each step it takes to achieve them.
• One Team: We operate as a unified team, made stronger by the uniqueness of each team member.

The team demonstrated Impactful Progress early on in the project. The project required the team members to collaborate closely together on an ambitious deadline—often working in parallel for maximum efficiency and ensuring that each headline, sentence, video and graphics accurately communicates our story in an easily understandable way.

For example, the designer and copywriter both depend on each other’s ideas and work to outline the website page flow, content for each section, and inspiration. This calls for an extremely tightly-knit working environment with constant communication, feedback and collaboration in an agile project environment. As a result, we laid out each word and each design element on our homepage with intention and purpose. 

The team also demonstrated One Team. While the marketing team is primarily responsible for the website, this project had a larger-than-usual scope and included additional teammates from different parts of the business. We had not all worked together before, but were on the team because each of us represented a quality that helped us progress towards a successful outcome.

What was the impact on the team and/or customer? 

The clearer, updated story about Uplight allows any visitors to easily understand what we do as a company, what our impacts are on decarbonization, and how we can work together to meet goals. As Uplight continues to grow and become a larger company, we wanted to ensure that the core story and the “whys” don’t get lost to our customers, partners, prospective customers, prospective employees, and press—and the simple and clear messaging and design updates does just that.