hugeinc.com info@hugeinc.com 6100 Wilshire Blvd. 2nd Floor - Los Angeles, CA 90048 +1 310 499 7700

April 30th, 2013 Process & Creativity

Agenda:

1. Me 2. Huge 3. Fostering

Creativity Within Your Process

Bullshit Huge PM Today’s Huge

Bullshit.

Life pre - Huge

[failed startup I can’t

find logo for]

But mostly…

“…just go work at an

agency.”

So, I turned to my smartest, most

discerning, charming, and physically

attractive friends for advice.

Designers.

Huge. What agency should I work at?

5 Craigslist postings 6

Interviews 7 Months +   +  

PM.

#2 Second PM at Huge ever.

Lather Rinse

Repeat

Day 1:

“These are your projects. For

#####, wireframes are due Friday.

We’re short UX so you’ll need to

do the first draft”.

What’s a wireframe?

7 Things I did in my first 6 months at

Huge.

1.

Learned what a wireframe was.

Wireframed an entire website. With

zero repeated templates or modules.

2.

Pissed most everyone off.

Cried about it. Then made friends.

3.

Conducted a content audit. Faked a

copy writer. Wrote a CMS user guide.

Entered a shit ton of content.

4.

Booked our CEO’s travel. Got

screamed at daily for booking our

CEO’s travel wrong.

5.

Lead meetings I had no business

leading. Pulled it off.

6.

Hired a freelance HTML developer.

Spent 5 weeks working the night shift

debugging HTML.

7.

Gave inappropriate hugs.

Lather Rinse

Repeat

Today’s Huge.

Agencies are often hired because

conformist organizations struggle to

produce innovation.

13 600

At Huge.

We almost got caught in

the process trap.

Every project was an exception.

Epiphany:

Some of early Huge was legitimately

insane. But, the extreme flexibility of

how we worked together had a big

impact on the quality of our work.

The “perfect process” for us

defined a baseline framework

but adapted to the project, and

the team’s, unique composition.

Huge process.

33.

The answer to doing great

work wasn’t actually about

perfecting our process.

Focus on building

creative teams that

have what they need

to do great work.

10 Tips:

To foster creativity within your

process, whatever it may be.

1. Be flat. Great ideas can

come from anyone.

Be relentless about preserving this tenet.

It will be painful for some people.

2. Competition is good.

Teach your teams to be tough and

brutally honest about the work.

And the best ideas will win.

3. Whenever possible, sleep

with your co-workers.

Whenver possible, sleep with

be very good friends with

your co-workers.

4. Iterate. Always push your idea and

present multiple versions.

When you think you have it.

Throw it away and start over.

5. Take the time to listen.

This is not listening.

We need personalization.

Small, medium or large?

6. Test & learn. User testing is one of

the most valuable tools we have.

Can we test this? We have to test this.

7. Embrace the pain.

Collaboration is painful. Critiques are

painful. Re-work is painful.

Design is harder than art.

8. Be fearless.

9. Embrace the QB.

No one would choose a commune as

their team in a war.

Beware the democracy trap.

10. Understand your impact

on the world.

Realize how loved you are.

Embrace your responsibility.

Ask for what you need

to do your job well.

Ignore everyone

and go for a walk.

Choose your mantra…

Make something you love.

Questions?

hugeinc.com info@hugeinc.com 6100 Wilshire Blvd. 2nd Floor - Los Angeles, CA 90048 +1 310 499 7700