In just a few weeks, the 2016 Henry Stewart DAM NY Conference will feature an all-new Creative Operations track. I’m thrilled to return as a speaker.
Save the Date: May 5-6, 2016
For the past two years at the conference, I’ve talked about Comedy Central’s digital content hub at — first as a case study focusing on the benefits our system offered to our creative team. Last fall, at the Los Angeles conference, I dove a little deeper into our strategy and development process, and the business benefits of the in-house product development of our solution to address several core creative operations needs.
What interests me most right now, and what I’ll be talking about, is a strategic approach for improving creative operations. A lot of organizations haven’t yet reached the point where creative ops are regarded as a distinct and essential business role requiring leadership and focused attention.
As insiders we recognize this need, and we’re asking, “How do we reach that point?”
Is there a roadmap? Well, yes! What inspires me is the methodology of Product Management — drawn from the world of product and software development.
Real-life examples are on display right at the Henry Stewart Conference. Take a look at the great sponsors and vendors — each of which is showing off products they’ve developed to meet a range of needs in the industry.
How did these products get here?
Behind the front lines of each solution are teams of people researching and studying new ways to expand their business and improve their applications. They do this by talking to their users, identifying new needs, searching for new market opportunities, and doing the hard work of improving existing applications or creating completely new solutions.
At the center of all this work you’ll find a Product Manager — the person who orchestrates and manages the arc of development progress between release cycles. The Product Manager’s work is guided by established methodology that has direct relevance to many other real-world disciplines and situations — including Creative Operations.
In my presentation I’ll be sharing the step-by-step process of Product Management. This is an incredibly powerful framework, starting with ways to gain insight into your creative operations. It will find areas that need process improvement, discover ways to improve the value your team provides your organization and build a business case to communicate it, and plan strategies for a better future. It’s a lot to pack into 30 minutes.
Join me to learn how to engineer processes that support and drive the creative work forward, so that you can build a 3.0 version of your creative ops ninja team.
Remember: The Killer App… is Killer Ops!