The Repair Manual

Jun 10

June 5, 2024

I am proud this week to share The Repair Manual with you all. This manual came out of the 10 podcast episodes Laura Novich and I made for our season entitled “Repair Across Industries”. We spoke with 10 different people and companies to learn from them and how they approach repair on all kinds of products like shoes, toys, furniture and more.

After these 10 conversations, Laura and I sat down and compared notes to see what themes had bubbled to the top. What did we hear about from more than one person, and sometimes from almost everyone? (Glue, for example, came up all the time.) It was fun and kind of amazing to realize that we had heard many of the same themes from people working in totally different industries, and it helped us feel like our initial intention with the season was for good reason- there are shared learnings across industries on the topic of repair.

sample page

I believe that great ideas can come from anywhere, and I think we are especially open to new ideas when we are learning about them through an unexpected source. If you work in fashion, you can get a fresh idea from furniture or electronics and vice verse.

I’ll leave you with this report, which is an easy read. It’s 23 story-filled pages designed to help the reader capture key insights and takeaways for their own work, and the meat starts on page 4. You can choose to read only about the themes you care about thanks to our table of contents. I’m just trying to get you to click the link and check it out- it’s not dense, it’s fun.

READ IT HERE

As always, would love to know what you think of it- what do you like and not like?

Self-Congratulatory Pause

I am so proud of myself and of Laura because we made this. We had an idea, we executed it and now we have this report to show for it. Of course we both love working with and for our clients, but it feels different to create something yourself and put your own logo on it! I am truly proud of us. (In case this feels like self-congratulatory grossness, I am practicing celebrating my wins because I don’t do it enough, and I want to be more vocally proud of myself. I usually just blow by big goals when I’ve attained them, so I’m trying to practice stopping and being excited and publicly sharing my excitement before I move on. I would LOVE to see more colleagues do the same. It kind of reminds me of how my 5 year old daughter will look in the mirror and say “I look great”- that confidence that helps us feel good every day, that’s what I’m trying to cultivate.)