Shane Tapp on Creativity
Out of the Box Thinking can happen anywhere
I met Shane Tapp my first day of work in San Francisco. As part of new employee onboarding, Salesforce assembles a co-hort for training and part of the day is a volunteer project. Shane and I found ourselves pulling weeds from one of the parks in the city, and we hit it off immediately.
We had some things in common. We were both in the marketing department (Marketraz in sfdc lingo), private people, hungry to make an impact and using the new shuttle buses that took employees to and from the Peninsula to the city. That's where the similarities ended. Shane amazes me with his visual talent for telling powerful emotional stories and would take on bold creative projects for leaders.
As newbies, we became fast friends and sat next to each on many occasions on the shuttle. On one of those occasions, Shane was tackling a project for our Chief Creative Officer and CEO around humanizing our logo...the now iconic "no software" circular logo. On his Mac during the 30 minute drive back to San Mateo, Shane showed me motion video of the logo doing things: rolling around, bouncing up and down, bending...you get the idea. They were amazing and yet not quite hitting the mark.
Sometime in the middle of the night, it came to me: could the SaaS logo be humanized and playful if we added arms and legs to it? Sounds crazy or maybe overly obvious in hindsight, but I shared it with him, he did a mockup, Shane had me pitch it to the CCO and CMO...and that's how SaaSy our first corporate mascot was born.
At first, some naysayers thought we were crazy, but SaaSy was a hit with our customers. Then Chatty and today plush toy mascots are part of the Salesforce brand and copied by tons of other tech companies looking to create an emotional connection with their audiences.
Shane continues to apply his creativity and breathe life into all his pursuits.
