Why We’re Hiring Creative Technologists

Posted: November 9th, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Advertising, Code | 5 Comments »

This weekend I was invited to the AppNation conference in Atlanta to speak a 4A’s panel titled ‘THE NEW CREATIVE DIRECTOR: MEET THE CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIST’. It was a great panel moderated by Chick Foxgrover and I was humbled to speak with Raghu Kakarala and Paul Hernacki about our (different) thoughts on what all this creative technologist fuss is about.

The debate moved onto a recent blog post written by Igor Clark from Wieden + Kennedy (an agency I am very familiar with as I used to work at their London office) titled ‘Why we are not hiring creative technologists’. This post has gone down a storm. A pretty large response in the comments and on other blogs on the post was congratulating Igor for being so candid and saying what needed to be said – The broad strokes being – The title ‘Creative Technologist’ has become so watered down it is now useless, so Wieden + Kennedy is hiring real coders only.’

I’ve read Igor’s post a LOT of times. So I really, really, really understand his points. Because on MANY levels I agree, and most of this post I am agreeing…but I still think he is still missing a subtle nuance.

He says in big letters. Stop hiring creative technologists – hire coders. Well I would never hire a creative technologist who couldn’t code and make prototypes of their ideas. I don’t think any of my peers would either, and I’ve spoken to a lot of them about this. So I’m really interested why Igor thinks people with no coding skills are getting hired in these roles. Name some names Igor. Point those people out and we can all call them charlatans to their faces. Maybe even burn them at the stake.

Seriously. Who really gives a damn why people get hired and what they are called. Does it effect who you hire? No not at all. You’ll hire people who are skilled to do the job you want them to, not what BS is on their CV. From looking through linkedin as I’ve been trying to hire, I’ve seen loads of people with too much tech on their portfolio and not enough evidence of abstract creative thinking. So I have the same problem – Just from a different perspective.

Also rather than pointing out the failure of “creative technology” courses, why not point out some courses, identify the curriculum and find out more from the course tutors on why you think the students coming out of those courses don’t fit your bill. The type of place I would look to see young talent would be from the RCA Design Interactions, ITP, Eyebeam, Umea Insitute of Design, MIT Media Lab, Parsons etc etc Places excelling in teaching students how art, design, practical experience of technology and user experience can all meld together. I wouldn’t go cruising the alumni of Imperial College for engineers and computer scientists even though they produce some of the best in the world.

Igor talks about “people who engineer excellent software” but who can also “come up with amazing ideas”. Well here is the thing. There are a handful of people in the world who fit this bill and less so who want to work in advertising. There is a massive shortage of engineering talent in this world and silicon valley has a hard enough time hiring in. Why would I pay the vastly inflated salary to get a brilliant engineer in. I don’t need brilliant engineers who can deploy a Hadoop Stack or chew my ear off about how they despise SOAP.

I need brilliant people who can solve communication problems with creative approaches and be able to build fast prototypes to help demonstrate those ideas.

Most “proper” developers would vomit at my code. I learnt to be a developer like most people I know. Did an an engineering / computer science degree and fell into making things for the internet during the late 90′s boom. I then fell into advertising when I started to realise I could work on projects with brilliant brands and great budgets. Where I could put forward useful ideas and not just the usual campaign fluff.

The people I want to hire go to dorkbots to make new friends or hackspaces to play with that new toy they have there. They buy a Kinect and start making a game concept they’ve been kicking around for a while. They make things that get featured on MAKE magazine. They are inventive. They are curious. They can explain their ideas. They are open to collaboration and can understand the nuance of a brand, for example how an idea for Nike should ‘feel’ like.

This I think is the nuance that isn’t expressed in Igor’s post. I’m of the perspective that the best creative techs are probably not the best engineers out there. Most electronic engineers totally piss on the Arduino for ‘dumbing down’ electronics. But look. It liberates people. It lets anyone with a modicum of know how, make their idea possible. That is what a creative technologist is to me.

If I’m sort of implying engineers and hardcore coders can’t be creative then you have to understand there are differing scales of creativity. There are people that can take 1k filesize and make an amazing demo out of it with incredibly creative coding and there are there are people that can come up with and make Baker Tweet. Both examples of creative technology and both at widely different ends of the tech spectrum.

Igor is bang on the money about creating an environment for coders to come and play. But I think he has swung the needle too far into the coding camp and he has downplayed the ‘creative’ aspect.

My take is that the challenge is how to bring non-traditional people inside an advertising agency without the bullshit job titles.

Oh and for the record. I hate the job title ‘Creative Technologist’. I’ve said it all along. In a perfect world you would ban all job titles. You certainly don’t have ‘creative art director’ so why do we need ‘creative’ slapped on there. But then it starts to cause more problems if you get rid of the title. I’m not just a ‘developer’ and I’m not a tech director. I would be loathe to start writing technical scopes, functional specs and architectures. This is the stuff I left behind years ago. I’m interested in coming up with concepts and not being too bogged down with all the implementation nuts and bolts.

Yes divorcing the concept from the execution is a complete brainmelt. But I really truly believe that if you have people in your agency who are armed with the ability to create prototypes of ideas, then a model of outsourcing can work. Look at Hollywood. The film studios are run by producers who pull in the best talent when they need it. They outsource all of their creativity. Yes, yes I know this is a simplistic approach, but if you design your agency to work in a certain way by having the key people in the right places then I think you can crack most things.

To bring it back to the point.

Work with educational establishments to make sure they are teaching in the ways you might need and hire who is right for you.

P.S. Igor if you are ever in NYC then let’s go have a steak, a beer and chew the fat. On me.

P.P.S Any junior Creative Techs who might want to work in advertising. Drop me a line. @sermad

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  • http://www.noahbrier.com Noah Brier

    All good and fair points here, and I think a large part of the conversation is semantic.

    With that said, I’ve seen a few things recently, like some awards judging, where a panel of creative technologists was made up of mostly people who had never written a line of code. I interpreted Igor’s post to be speaking to that mindset before it gets worse … Just my interpretation.

    • http://twitter.com/timogeo Tim Geoghegan

      When I mention great Creative Technologists to my more ‘traditional’ peers, they automatically shut off – confusing the titles with ‘Innovation Directors’, ‘Technology/ Social Ninjas’ etc…you know – the people who sit around and retweet each other and blog all day and consider themselves idea starters/ thought leaders/ conversation facilitators…and all that bullshit.

      Basically the only thing they have ever created are those titles.

      I also think some very smart people are unfortunately stuck with those titles and so those titles need to go. Your title should reflect pretty much what you actually deliver.

      I’ve worked with some great Creative Technologists. Simply, they’re coders/techs who can build stuff, and who can concept. It makes them ‘creatives.’ Not unlike designers who can concept (makes them art directors) and writers who can concept (makes them copywriters.). Point is – they all have a real, actionable production skill coupled with strategic and conceptual abilities.

      I agree with Noah. The problem is indeed semantics, and I think it’s especially confusing to people who come from that more ‘traditional’ background, including clients. For awhile there were indeed an influx of these ‘charlatans’ floating around it seems. Some of which must’ve somehow made their way to Noah’s jury panel.

      Maybe they retweeted themselves there.

  • http://twitter.com/mrjonandrews Jon Andrews

    Hey Buddy, nice post. Finally somebody talking some sense on this topic :)

    Have fun across the pond!

  • http://twitter.com/canofpopcom Andrew Newman

    Completely agree with the points raised and with Noah’s comments.

    In my short time in Advertising i’ve been a “Flash Developer”, “Designer”, “Digital Creative”, “Creative Developer” & “Technical Manager” all of which have intersected at multiple points.

    I agree with Sermad does have a point the job title – “Creative Technologist” does seem to be one that clients & management seem to be at least attempting to understand.

    I personally feel that this ambiguous title will soon disappear as learning become's more accessible and part of the modern advertising curriculum.

    I'm of the mindset that the "Creative Technologist" of today is simply the model Advertising Creative of Tomorrow.

    A vision of the future where building a prototype will be a kin to doing a scamp / demo reel / or mood board.

    For now i'm planning to keep my self assigned - "Creative Misfit" title for a little while longer.

    • http://twitter.com/sermad sermad

      Hi Guys,

      Thanks for taking the time to read the article.

      I do agree it is all semantics but I’ve seen way too many flash developers change their job titles to creative technologist who haven’t shown any tangible creative outputs. I’ve seen less non-coders who are creative techs so I thought Igor just pushed his concept of what a creative tech too far into this ‘must be an amazing coder’ camp. I really don’t buy this.

      I look at those schools like the RCA and the concepts coming out and they are mindblowing. Great ideas coupled with people who’ve made those ideas. That’s my own take on what a creative tech is. More of a fusion of art and technology.

      But anyway. We could debate this forever.

      I’m off to make something. :)