Challenge
Around the time I started at Opendoor, the company had just redefined its visual identity, but there was little consensus around our voice and tone. Since we didn’t have widely adopted standards our voice was inconsistent, and we all had different ideas of what the company should sound like.
Process
I held working sessions with partners across the organization to align on a set of content principles. It was imperative that guidelines came from a core team, and were strategically grounded—not simply based on anyone’s opinion (including my own). Once we were aligned on those principles, I applied them to copy at different touchpoints as a stress-test.
Results
The output from this exercise was a content style guide that includes three core principles that define the Opendoor voice, an explanation of our tone and how it changes based on context and audience, and a detailed breakdown of our conventions.
Each section is filled with numerous examples of these principles applied to our work. The guide is also a living document that changes along with the company. We use it to onboard new team members, to ground our creative critiques, and to codify any changes we make to Opendoor’s voice.
Below you’ll find of examples of my writing that are grounded in these principles. Note that the Opendoor voice spans from door hangers and emails to internal messaging and blog posts.
Unfortunately, I can’t share the guide broadly, but reach out to me if you’re
interested in seeing it! You can also read more about my experience as the first writer at Opendoor on Medium.