Editorial Team

Customer Experience and the Future of Design

August 18, 2018 by Editorial Team

Design’s role is changing with the times, and I’m seeing it first-hand as AT&T re-energizes its focus on Customer Experience.

Confession: After years as part of creative teams inside the entertainment industry, I know too much about how the sausage gets made. I know, for instance, that creativity can happen in a “design bubble” where ideas may get lightly vetted for whether the message is as clear, or effective as it should be.

I also know that creative teams are often aligned based on skillset — do you do video? social media? print? web? — and operate like independent kingdoms even at the Creative Director level. And if these teams don’t play well together, the work can splinter as the teams lose sight of the customer experience from a marketing perspective. Then, the cracks start to appear.

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Here’s How I Fixed a Broken Digital Pipeline at AT&T

January 8, 2018 by Editorial Team

Summary: After jumping in to salvage a crash-and-burn 80-hour production job, I spent six months reinventing a complex digital pipeline that spanned multiple creative and business units. With new processes, organizational change, and automation, the results were off-the-charts amazing.

Sometimes the Pipes Will Just Burst. Without Warning.

Last March I found myself halfway across the country buffing my brain at the Adobe Summit in Las Vegas. The conference was pretty much over for the day, and just as I was getting into happy hour… a panicked call came from the home office in New York.

My team had just received the Mother of all Job Requests — at the end of a grueling week producing digital marketing and web pages for a new iPad on att.com. Then, WHAM! Out of the blue, another device manufacturer decided to make a major product launch of its own — and my team was called back into action.

The upshot was that we had six working days to produce about 2,750 product image assets for our e-commerce catalog. One of our in-house client/partners had placed the order, with a hard deadline. They would not give us more time to do the work, even though I begged.

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Me, talking about Digital Asset Management

October 22, 2017 by Editorial Team

I recently had a chance to share my thoughts on digital asset management, digital workflows, and creative operations technology with the great folks at Widen.

Digital Asset Management is where it all began for me. I implemented my first DAM system more than 10 years ago, in my early days at Comedy Central. That experience sowed the seeds of my interest in technology that enables creative teams to thrive — especially tools that help production and creative workflows.

I’ve seen a steady proliferation of systems designed to meet a growing range of use cases. You don’t have to look any further than DAM and Creative Operations conferences — which are experiencing record-breaking attendance, combined with a sponsor boom across many areas of specialization.

But even as these systems grow their capabilities and expand their reach, the glue that holds it all together is the foundational need to manage those digital assets in the first place.

You can read the full interview on the Digital Asset Management blog — check it out.

Thanks to Melanie Olsen and Nora Gehin!

Conference Talks: Quick Wins in Creative Ops

October 15, 2017 by Editorial Team

It’s right around the corner — the Henry Stewart Creative Operations conference in LA. I’m coming back as a speaker, and I’ll be talking about “How to Succeed Fast”.

It’s a very personal topic for me.

I can vividly remember when I was brand new to my current role… and the pressure was on to start making a difference. I started with an initial assessment of goals I could focus on — fast ways to make my mark, while studying and understanding the bigger picture. A roadmap emerged, and I was on my way.

This is what I want to share: Quick wins for the new or seasoned Creative Operations professional. My presentation will be packed with actionable tactics to simplify processes, discover roadblocks, boost morale, or solve gnarly Creative Ops problems.

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Conference Talks: Tech Tools in Creative Ops

August 26, 2017 by Editorial Team

In just a few weeks the Creative Operations Exchange East conference comes to the Big Apple (Sept. 25-16, 2017).

I’ll be participating in a couple of ways. First, I’m on their Executive Roundtable on Day 1, talking about the state of the industry. I love the diversity on this panel — I’ll be sitting with Dickson Bueno from HH Global, and Carrie Roberts from The Body Shop, with moderator Gary Clinger from Workfront. Each of us is on the front lines, representing a wide range of experience and differing points-of-view.

Then, I’ll be sharing my point of view on digital tool selection, on Day 2. For anyone shopping for a digital tool or solution partner, it’s just overwhelming how many vendors and systems are out there offering a wide range of possible solutions. But the journey of a thousand vendors begins with a single… chart. I’ve got some fresh ideas for that first step — which I think will make for an entertaining and informative session.

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Creative Ops and the Tech Stack

August 5, 2017 by Editorial Team

About the Killer Ops series:

How can creative teams increase their Value Proposition? How can they become better strategic partners in the organization? Following the entrepreneurial model of Product Development, creative teams – and organizations – can learn to think and act like a startup, to develop a framework for continuous innovation, improved operations, and greater success.

What This is About: Analyze your creative Tech Stack by studying your current needs and existing tools, and mapping your toolkit ecosystem.

Why it Matters: A Tech Stack Canvas is a powerful way to analyze your core needs and evaluate your digital toolkit, using four quadrants. This visualization will structure your thinking about the Tech Stack you need to thrive — helping with your decision-making and your business case when the time comes to fight for better tools.

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