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Lessons learnt at SXSW 08
Published on: March 17, 2008 by Paul Boag
Marcus shares his impressions of SXSW and the lessons we can all learn.
Looking back at my notes, I didn't realise how much I actually took! So, I have decided to focus things a bit and look at talks given by people from three big interactive agencies. These presentations were fascinating to me as they gave me an insight into how these companies run their businesses, their projects and make decisions about their futures.
Respect!
This was a great start to the conference, really got me in the mood. What I expected was a Zeldman criticism of the corporate world's misunderstanding /undervaluing/general disdain of all things 'web'. I think this was what he was trying to do but what we got was a run down of how Happy Cog works or more particularly how it runs it projects - great for me!
It was quite reassuring in that they do pretty much exactly what Headscape does:
- Stakeholder interviews - though there was a wonderful description of when you really know that you're about to get to the bottom of an issue with a client - that 'close the door' moment
- User testing/requirements
- IA
- Design - they still do multiple concepts (which we very rarely do now) though try to avoid 'Frankensteining' the design
- Build
The big thing, for them, missing from this list is content and copywriting. They employ a specialist copywriter who has a wide-ranging remit from kicking off the content process to completely writing a site's content. However, usually they concentrate on editing 'raw' content into one styled voice.
Zeldman says that the content is the most important aspect of any site. He has a point - we don't go to websites to enjoy the design or appreciate the usability of the navigation.
This is, I expect, the next big thing for Headscape.
Ten things we've learned at 37 Signals
Jason Fried telling everyone 10 things they've learned at 37 Signals. I found his delivery a little grating, which is why I probably don't have too detailed notes on this talk. But, again, this was interesting stuff from my point of view, learning about how a small company operates particularly because we are about to go down the product road.
The general theme of his biggest messages were:
- Keep it simple - otherwise you won't ever release your product.
- Don't plan - plans tend to have a habit of becoming 'sacred'. That is, people tend to stick to a particular goal religiously, rather than adapting to what is the best way.
- Don't expect your next thing to be way better than the last. If you've had a hit it doesn't necessarily mean that you're next offering is going to be as well.
- Don't talk to each other! I really wasn't sure about this, but JF basically felt interrupting people through talking was the key productivity killer. Methods of communication that can be ignored - IM, email, Basecamp etc - are fine.
10 Tips to Managing a Creative Environment
This was the best talk of the lot for me. With most of the 'famous' agencies, I feel that what we do is not too far away from what they offer. However, these guys felt like they were in a higher league.
The talk was given by Bryan Mason (CEO) and Sarah B. Nelson (Design Strategist) of Adaptive Path.
They had looked at (and interviewed) a number of other organisations that they felt there was some similarity with a design agency. These included:
- Theatres
- Restaurants
- Orchestras
They are all highly creative places (probably more so than the design agency), they have absolute deadlines (again, probably more so than the design agency) that mean highly regimented processes are required while keeping creative staff focused.
These are the tips that they have learned:
- Cross-train the entire team - not easy, but it does build understanding and therefore empathy towards other people's jobs and the effort required to deliver them.
- Rotate creative leadership - makes people value others' decisions because they know that they will get their turn.
- Actively turn the corner - meaning make a specific decision to go from 'thinking' to 'doing' and make sure that everyone knows which phase they're in. The thinking phase being the point where there are no bad ideas or questions with people moving into their specific roles (see point 4) for the doing phase. They described this process as divergence to convergence.
- Know your roles - once the corner is turned everyone needs to know what is expected of them and when.
- Practice, practice, practice - they mean 'practice as a group' i.e. keep familiarising (and improving) processes. This ensures quality under pressure. Look to bring new people in at quiet times or on internal work.
- Make you mission explicit - to the entire team so everyone knows where the team is supposed to be going and what they stand for (i.e. what it means to be a 'Headscaper' instead of just a 'designer' or 'developer'). Cut out stuff that isn't part of the mission - be ruthless.
- Kill your darlings - but do it respectfully e.g. for the young chef - "we won't use that recipe, it's not for us. You put it on your menu when you get your first restaurant!" AP hiring decisions are made without discussion - thumbs up, they're in, thumbs down, they're out. They only discuss if it's neither.
- Leadership is a service - leaders should talk to everyone about their involvement. For example, a creative director should provide space not enforce their vision.
- Generate projects around the groups' interest - in other words, only take on work that you want! Easy said. However, maybe a watered down version would be to dish work out based on personal preferences rather than just who's available. BM said "any time that AP has taken on work for the money or the kudos of a particular client, it has bombed. If there's no interest internally in a pitch - drop it".
- Remember your audience - what you're doing isn't for you, don't forget that and don't forget who your specific audience is. They used the kitchen analogy where the restaurant manager's audience is their existing customers. He needs to make sure that the guy who loves liver and onions gets the same every time. The chef doesn't care about this. His audience is the new customer.
- Celebrate failure - creativity doesn't always work. Carry out project post mortems but call them 'after parties'! Discuss what worked, what didn't and what was learned. Don't apportion blame. You want your creative team to take risks and to feel that they can take risks. If you have a blame culture then safe and boring (and eventually stagnation) is where you'll end up.
Comments
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Post by Rory Fitzpatrick on March 20, 2008 9:24 AM