2020 SoDA Year in Review

1. YEAR IN REVIEW

2. A global network of digital agency founders,
creative innovators and technology disruptors.
SoDA Operations Team: Lakai Newman, Jessica Ongko, Kendyll Picard, and Tom Beck
By the time you read this note, 2020 will be receding in the rear-view mirror. And once we’ve exhausted all the
four-letter variations, we can collectively mutter “Good Riddance” as we step on the gas pedal and accelerate
into the year ahead.
Regardless of how gracefully (or not) you’ve navigated the year, there’s no doubt that 2020 has tested our patience,
humility, resilience, and sense of responsibility as business leaders, parents, children, partners, teachers, citizens,
friends, co-workers, community members, and just about any other role we play in our lives.
In reflecting on the year, a number of adages come to mind. Winston Churchill’s famous quote, “Never let a good
crisis go to waste.” Or the oft-cited epigram, “Creativity loves constraints.” Or the old English proverb, “Necessity
is the mother of invention.” Take your pick. Whether we wanted it or not, 2020 has been a year for introspection,
hustle, experimentation, and growth.
Relatively speaking, SoDA member agencies have weathered the storm like seasoned captains heading into a squall.
Some found smooth sailing all the way through. Others road the swells to the brink of capsizing. Almost all experi-
enced intense levels of uncertainty (and volatility) even if they ended the year in a great spot.
As always, we stand in awe of the leaders in this community. We watched, participated, and cheered you on as
you shifted business models, launched new capabilities, re-positioned in the market, took risks, threw Hail Mary’s,
counted blessings, shrank, expanded, evolved, and everything in-between. Along the way, you continued to produce
brilliant work while prioritizing the health, safety, and well-being of your people and communities. And even with
scarcity, fear, and contraction swirling all around us, we heard many of you ask again and again, “What more can
we do to help?”
We’re humbled and inspired by the many great acts (large and small) we saw unfold this year. At SoDA, we’re bound
by the common belief that we’re stronger when we share generously with one another and, amid the chaos of it all,
we hope this community played even a small role in helping you feel more connected, more inspired, more support-
ed, and even more buoyant in a year where everything else around us seemed to have become so heavy.
Justin Lewis (Founding Partner and CEO at Instrument in Portland) served as the Guest Editor of the 2020 SoDA
Report. In his opening letter to the report, Justin shared a deep sense of purpose, responsibility, and optimism. His
words inspired me, and I returned to them many times throughout the year. I share them again here as a reminder
that the way forward is always lit with purpose, passion and love.
“I’ve always needed to believe that the best thing I’ve ever done hasn’t happened yet. I’m thankful that I picked a path where I truly
believe that and know it is possible… In this moment, we are experiencing industry challenges… (and) these factors, coupled with
tremendous global, economic, and political uncertainty, test our will to move forward.
And yet, we do move forward. We move forward out of a love for our people. We move forward out of a genuine passion for the work.
And we move forward because we believe the work we will do matters more than the work we have done.
Eyes open, heart forward, towards the future.”
On behalf of the SoDA team, we want to express our gratitude for you and this community. Thank you for giving
so generously of your time, energy, experience, and insight. We wish you, your family, and your teams a wondrous
holiday season. May 2021 (and the road ahead) be illuminated with love.
Peace.
Tom, Kendyll, Lakai and Jess
Dear SoDA Community,

3. CO
NT
EN
TS
4 The End of the Beginning:
A Letter from the 2020 SoDA
Report Guest Editor
by Justin Lewis, Instrument
6 An Adaptable Approach
to Agency Leadership
by Peter Gandy, Reason
8 Humanist Design in the Age
of the Machine
by Jameson Proctor & Zander Abranowicz, Athletics
11 SoDA Experts and Advisors 2020
12 How to Manage Expectations
& Build Better Relationships
by Katy French, Column Five
16 You Don’t Need Digital
Transformation to Treat
People with Respect
Interview with Cain Ullah, Red Badger
19 Experiential Design
for the Unknown Future
by Bluecadet
22 Reducing Friction
by David Chang, Fancy Pants Group
24 We Craft Tech Around A
Feeling - People Are
Social Creatures That
Want To Feel Connected
Interview with Haraldur Thorleifsson, Ueno
27 Design & Responsibility at
the Dawn of Interspace
by North Kingdom
30 GMM 2020 Testimonials
32 Tackling Diversity and
Inclusion at Your Agency
A Conversation with Jam3 & Stink Studios
36 The Future of Voice
by Versa
38 Your Business Model is
Not the Only Thing that
is Changing
by Jenn DePauw, The 1stMovement
40 Psychological Safety:
Humanistic Nonsense
or Business Critical?
by Ann Ystén, Perfect Fools
42 Digital Experience Systems:
Expanding Design Systems
to Serve the Full Customer
Experience
by Kristen Cromer, Ogilvy
46 Keith Johnston of Forrester
on the Changing Digital
Outlook for Marketers and
Agencies in 2020
52 Bravery, Personality and
the Digital Design Revolution
Interview with Rob Ford, FWA
56 SoDA Board of Directors
1 Opening Letter
2 SoDA Members

4. Some joke that I wasn’t born with the gene that
makes us nostalgic. I’m not one to romanticize
the past or desire to believe that the beginning
was anything but difficult. Many of us worked
unbelievable hours at the dawn of the internet,
mostly fueled by innovation, caffeine, and the
vastness of what might be possible.
Most of us worked across the table from larger ad
agencies and wondered aloud about the strategic
positioning, or lack thereof with the work we
were doing. Most of us yearned for the day when
digital underpinned strategy and we longed for a
shift in power away from the things we considered
“traditional.”
I believe we got what we asked for. Budgets and power
shifted, new business models emerged, and just about
everything became digital. I also believe that we
squandered away some of that opportunity. In our
lust for change and innovation we forgot about the
consumer, and, more importantly, we forgot
that the consumer was human (and matters
more than anything).
So if this is the end of the beginning, I say good
riddance. I’m no longer fueled by the Digital vs.
Traditional divide. I’m solely concerned with our
shared human experience and I’m motivated by
the services we provide that make digital a tactic,
not the strategy. Today we think less about things
like websites and apps and more about things like:
emerging business models, sustainable growth,
creativity, change, culture, democracy, learning, data,
access, and end-to-end experiences. Many of these
things are enabled by digital, but they don’t have to
be digital. Removing this siloed-thinking has enabled
us to consider the impact of our work and better
allows us to steer the right approaches that connect
our clients to their consumers in ways that create true
meaning and impact.
So what if the best is not behind us? What if
the truest potential of change ushered in by our
innovation was to make digital ubiquitous and
invisible, enabling us to get back to the things that
matter most… creating community, providing
opportunity and democratizing access to our world?
What if our collective accomplishments are nothing
more than a launchpad for what’s to come? What
have we learned? What are we going to do differently
with the voice we’ve gained. How are we going to use
it to benefit the world around us?
I’ve always needed to believe that the best thing I’ve
ever done hasn’t happened yet. I’m thankful that I
picked a path where I truly believe that and know it
is possible.
I’m not saying that the path ahead won’t be without
challenge. As our collective businesses have gained
notoriety and our industry has solidified its position
in the market, we now experience some of the
same business conditions that drove many of us to
the horizon in the first place. In this moment, we
are experiencing industry challenges around rate
pressure and in-sourcing. These factors, coupled
with tremendous global, economic, and political
uncertainty, test our will to move forward.
And yet, we do move forward. We move forward out
of a love for our people. We move forward out of a
genuine passion for the work. And we move forward
because we believe the work we will do matters more
than the work we have done.
Eyes open, heart forward, towards the future. •
Justin Lewis
Co-Founder & CEO of Instrument
What if the truest potential
of change ushered in by our
innovation was to make digital
ubiquitous and invisible,
enabling us to get back to
the things that matter most...
creating community, providing
opportunity and democratizing
access to our world?
5
“
”
The End of the Beginning:
A Letter from the
2020 SoDA Report Guest Editor
by Justin Lewis

5. An Adaptable Approach
to Agency Leadership
by Peter Gandyby Peter Gandy
This dynamic environment, mixed with the current
economic uncertainty and a new competitive
threat from the major consultancies, demands an
adaptable approach to agency leadership.
Agencies are often started by frustrated practitioners.
Typically, these founders are out contracting at major
businesses and have become disillusioned by the
perceived bureaucracy, introspection and slowness
that can often be experienced working inside major
brands. As entrepreneurs, they know there is a better
way, they have the drive and energy to change things,
and they start an agency—predominantly off the
back of their credibility, reputation and relationships
established during their contracting gigs.
You cannot scale out of chaos
During the early days, founders can survive on
passion, practitioner expertise and hard work, with
their talent, energy and drive dragging success into
the business. Culture and communication are easy
when the whole business fits around a lunch table,
with easy access to founders and a strong sense of
pioneering adventure. But, as success, and thus scale,
arrive, it quickly becomes apparent that you cannot
scale out of chaos. Rigor, process, and structure is
needed; the very things that are the antithesis of what
brought success in the beginning. Employees need
career development, increasing project sizes need
effective delivery management, and newly won clients
need structured account management.
Establishing the appropriate structure and key hires
to free founders up to work ‘on’ the business, and not
‘in’ it, requires an ability to ‘let go’ to a strong and
empowered structure below the leadership team.
Therefore, as an agency grows, its leaders need to
shift culture and mindset from ‘start-up’ to ‘scale-up.’
It is the introduction of rigor that enables the agency
to kick-on again to the next milestone and leadership
to maintain control of the business as they start to
‘let-go.’
Moving from push to pull
MIT’s Douglas A. Ready asserts that sustainable
value can come from Collective Ambition—where
leadership and employees collaborate to shape
direction. So as founders let go, it’s vital that
employees are empowered and have a voice to
influence the business. During the transition into
scale-up, leaders should seek to complement the
‘push’ mode (tell, direct, delegate) used during the
start-up phase, with a ‘pull’ approach (empower,
collaborate, coach). Yet as the business scales,
founders start to become more removed from the day-
to-day, and the more senior someone is, the more the
tendency to tell people, “here’s the answer,” making it
hard for employees to contribute, often resulting in the
team keeping their thoughts to themselves.
So how do agencies get to the truth and make good
decisions, when people aren’t speaking up? Sheryl
Sandberg, COO of Facebook, suggests introducing
ideas by saying “I believe this, for this reason. What
do you believe?” When leaders start by listening
rather than telling, they transition from directing
to coaching and unlock greater value from their
teams. This can be extended by leadership making
themselves more accessible to the team, via the
creation of forums for feedback such as breakfast
meetings, 1:1s, lunches, and so on.
76
Running an agency is hard. Balancing the demands of changing client
expectations, commercial viability, and developing your talent is challenging.
Growth periods are often followed by periods of consolidation, or even decline,
as the agency learns to organise and plan ahead for the unexpected.

6. Elegy for the first digital revolution
The digital revolution, like all revolutions, resulted
from conscious human activity aimed at achieving
definite outcomes: the liberation of information, the
connection of global communities, the unlocking
of latent potential. Once digital technology was
able to escape the primordial soup of the military,
manufacturing, and academia, it came to pervade
every aspect of our lives—the workplace, the home,
public spaces—transforming life on earth and creating
extraordinary wealth. Along the way, however, it
somehow lost the luster of its original promise.
That’s the funny thing about revolutions: they rarely
stop at their intended outcomes. As revolutions
accelerate, their planned trajectories become
irrelevant. From the gradual closing of the open web,
to the use of automation in mass surveillance, to the
destabilization of democracy at the hands of trolls
and digital miscreants, to the erosion of personal
and data privacy, to social media’s implication in the
rise of social anxiety and mass loneliness, we’ve paid
an immense price for the accumulation of immense
wealth, power, and prestige.
Manifesto for the second digital revolution
It’s time to refocus our collective attention on the
humanist potential of technology; and reassert
conscious control over a resource that must be of the
people, for the people, and by the people. As digital
agencies march into the second digital revolution,
what beliefs might guide our decisions? How might
we slow—or even reverse—the erosion of tech-
nology’s potential for good?
1. To affect change, you have to play the
game. For us at Athletics, the Brooklyn-based
design studio where I serve as Director of
Digital Strategy, that means working mainly in a
commercial context: offering our digital services
to clients willing to pay us in return. Design is
the union of art and commerce, and art and
commerce have always been easy bedfellows.
Behind every Renaissance artist, architect, or
sculptor were the open coffers of the Medici
or the Vatican. Where better to understand the
market pressures bearing down on our practice
9
than at their source?
2. Good design is good for people. Good
design emerges from a deep understanding of
a client’s organizational, financial, experiential,
and/or ethical objectives, a thorough analysis of
the market or field in which a client exists, and,
most importantly, a sincere empathy for their
audience. Machine learning, data lakes, artificial
intelligence, and all the other mod cons the second
digital revolution puts readily at our disposal,
should play a prominent role in our strategies, but
never at the expense of our human audience, and
the quality and authenticity of their experience.
Otherwise, we run the very real risk of putting the
machine before the human.
3. Don’t take data at face value. Data in
and of itself is neutral. Data, when taken at
face value, can quickly become bad—or at
least aid in the creation of bad experiences—
when misinterpreted or given precedence over
emotional insight or intuition. As a result, we
believe in questioning what we learn from data,
engaging the audience, ideally face to face, to
ensure the insights we glean are at the service of
human need and the creation of beauty.
4. Slow. Things. Down. The circulation of
information and ease of connection that have
characterized the first digital revolution seem to
have accelerated the passage of time, and the
speed of life. We’re not Luddites or Shakers,
but we think something is lost when we’re
distractedly racing from one feed to another, never
really absorbing the information we’re fed, or
appreciating the moments that comprise our lives.
What does this mean in practice? It means digital
doesn’t have to mean ephemeral. We believe
in creating experiences that are so compelling,
clean, and coherent that visitors take a deep
breath, soften their gaze, and allow themselves
to really engage with the content, resources, or
products being presented. It means putting our
audiences, and not machines, in the driver’s seat,
and allowing them to move through an experience
at their own pace, along their own route, on their
own terms. This is good for audiences, building
loyalty, affinity, and trust. It is therefore, by
extension, good for clients.
Mapping capability against opportunity
As the business accelerates and market
understanding increases, the agency’s propo-
sition often pivots to meet demand, for example,
introducing a strategy capability to inform
larger projects, entering new markets or creating
product IP. Yet, rarely do Founders view
themselves through that same lens. Leaders must
regularly ask themselves whether they are still
relevant to where the business is going. After
all, the skills required to start a business differ
significantly from those required to run it at
scale, which is why VC’s replace ~30% of their
start-up Founders with “professional” managers
at key stages of growth.
Ron Ashkenas, co-author of HBR Leaders
Handbook, suggests that leadership must
continually review leadership skills and capability
against the needs of where the business is. “Ask:
are we the right people, with the right skills and
doing the right jobs to take the agency to the
next level? Do our current roles align with the
most pressing business opportunities. If not,
what shifts do we need to take?”
This is difficult and is often put aside for later.
On one hand there is huge scope for founders to
learn and grow as individuals, yet on the other it
can lead to tough conversations around whether
it is time to move on. But surely, it is better to act
and be in control of that decision, rather than
have it forced on you through inaction and the
resultant detrimental impact to the business?
Agency leaders face many challenges, but with
increasing competition from the consultancies
and clients finally ready to embrace the digital
opportunity, it is clear that we must adapt our
approach to remain relevant; and ensure that
our businesses are ready to meet the huge
opportunity ahead. •
Peter has over 25 years experience in Executive roles at both
FTSE 100 and early stage businesses. He is recognised for
his achievements working with founders and business owners
to help them to break through the growth barrier. His work
spans multiple sectors and clients, including digital start-ups,
innovation businesses and consultancies. Peter is also a mentor
at the TechStars London Accelerator.
Ireceived my first computer in the early 1980s
—a kit-built Apple II+ handed down from
my grandfather. I spent more time with that
machine than perhaps I should have. Since then,
as a result of factors both within and beyond my
control, technology has taken a central place in
my life—both personally and professionally.
Over the course of the past four decades, I’ve
witnessed the accelerating dialectic of becoming
as technology in its myriad forms oscillates wildly
between the poles of being and nothingness—a
phenomenon we might summarize in the phrase
“digital revolution.”
As we continue to climb the exponential knee
of Moore’s law, science fiction becomes not just
science fact, but commodity, as technologies such
as artificial intelligence and machine learning
become tools of the trade accessible to all
practitioners. As a result, it is vital that we take
a renaissance approach to our practice—one
best described by Paola Antonelli, who refers to
design as “a renaissance attitude that combines
technology, cognitive science, human need and
beauty to produce something that the world
didn’t know it was missing.”
Humanist
Design in
the Age of
the Machine
by Jameson Proctor & Zander Abranowicz

7. Bruce Mau
Bruce Mau Studios
Jared Ficklin
argodesign
Blair Enns
Win Without Pitching
McKendree Hickory
Lifelabs Learning
Ivan Todorov
Future State
Steve Wages
Founding Member
Lucy Blair Chung
NOBL
David C. Baker
Author & Advisor
Keith Johnston
Forrester
PRICING
CREATIVITY
CULTURE, DIVERSITY
& INCLUSION
DIGITAL
OUTLOOK
& THE AGENCY
BUSINESS
POSITIONING
& STRATEGY
DEVELOPMENT
DESIGNING MASSIVE
CHANGE IN YOUR
LIFE & WORK
AGENCY
STRATEGY
CULTURE &
ORGANIZATIONAL
DESIGN
LEGAL
FINANCE
AGILE & OPERATIONS
FUTURISM
& DESIGN
MARKETING
AUTOMATION
& LEAD GEN
M&A / GROWTH
Long live the revolution
Technology needs a new renaissance
attitude. One focused on beauty, truth,
morality, and the attentiveness to human
needs both practical and transcendental.
Digital agencies have agency. They have
power. At the dawn of a new decade,
let’s reclaim technology as a force for
good. Let’s keep the revolution alive. •
Jameson is Digital Strategy Director and a partner
at Athletics. Joining Athletics as a partner in 2014,
Jameson has injected technical rigor throughout the
studio’s project lifecycle, and led many digital-first
projects including ServiceNow Workflow Quarterly,
J.P. Morgan In—Residence, Hubble, New York
Review of Books, and the Museum of the City of
New York. Jameson is also founder of Campaign
Games, a historical strategy games company founded
in 2019.
Zander Abranowicz is a Brand Writer at Athletics.
His work seeks to untangle the complexities of
business and technology into polite, well-scrubbed,
raw-denim-wearing prose. Prior to joining Athletics,
he served as a writer and editor on the business
development team at digital agency Code and Theory.
When he’s not writing in the studio, he’s likely
writing elsewhere.
Steve Wages
Eric Fowles
Ross Crooks
Tomo Murakami
Cain Ullah
Roberto González
Michael Dobell
StepIntoMy(home)Office
2020 Experts & Advisors 11

8. 13
7 Tips to Manage Client Expectations
We’ve worked with plenty of brands and created
thousands of projects over the last decade, and
each has been a unique experience. In that time,
we’ve learned a few things the good way (and the
really hard way) about building and maintaining
relationships. And when it comes down to it, the
biggest lesson we’ve learned is that it’s about proactive
communication, education, and action. Thus, we’ve
rounded up some of our best tips to help you do this
in both small and big ways throughout the course of
your engagement.
Tip #1: Share your creative philosophy.
There is a reason why you approach things the way
you do. Share this up front so that they understand
why you might question an idea down the road, or
make a certain creative recommendation. Not only is
this a great way for them to get to know you, it also
brings clarity, demonstrates transparency, and helps
you justify your decisions at every stage.
Tip #2: Brief them on the process—and the
role they play in it.
Explain not just what you’ll do but why it matters.
This can help prevent a lot of frustration down the
road (e.g., when you’re waiting for overdue edits).
Break down the process and explain the importance
of each stage, as well as the client’s role. This reminds
them that their participation is crucial to make things
go smoothly. This also helps you identify and clarify
timelines, tasks, to dos, and other roadblocks that may
arise ahead of time.
Tip #3: Encourage questions on both sides.
Nobody wants to look dumb, but not being on
the same page only causes more resentments and
frustrations. You may need them to clarify what their
business does in more detail, or you might encourage
them to ask about the little stuff (e.g., do you prefer
Word Docs or Google Docs?). These may seem
like silly questions, but 9 times out of 10 they make
everyone’s lives easier.
Tip #4: Talk about how you prefer to
communicate.
A good relationship is all about communication.
But what we often forget is that we all communicate
differently. Maybe you get annoyed with someone’s
over-questioning. Maybe they get frustrated by your
lack of explanation. Maybe you’re an email-only
person working with a caller, but they work better
with their whole team in one room.
Address these issues up top so that everyone
understands the dynamic and no one is caught
off guard. For example, if your agency doesn’t
communicate outside of standard business hours,
make sure they know that.
Side note: You might also want to learn about the 4
different types of creative thinkers to get more insight
into why some people communicate in a certain way.
(It might completely change the way you interact with
your own team, too.)
Tip #5: Dive into each other’s brands.
In some ways you know each other’s brands because
you’ve read creative briefs or mission statements.
But a brand is the composite of many things. It’s the
people behind the brand, the work they do, the way
they speak, the values they hold, etc. To get a sense of
this, invest time in getting to know the brand up close
and personal.
Learn about their culture—and share yours. This
will give you a sense of who you’re working with.
(For example, we like to let people into our world by
sharing behind-the-scenes looks at our office, as well
as our team’s best tips for bonding and creativity.)
Follow them on social. Do they share lots of tips on
Twitter? Goof off on Instagram? These are all great
places to keep up with their team and their work.
Subscribe to their newsletter or email marketing.
Keeping up with what they’re doing might help you
identify good collaborative opportunities in the future.
“
”
12
Strong relationships are the key to long-term success for both agencies and clients. While transactional work
(the one-and-done type) is pervasive, it can be restricting and limited. You can serve a client’s needs, yes, but
you can’t cultivate the collaborative creative partnerships that allow for the best big-picture work.
That’s why it’s important to focus on relationship-building from the jump. When it comes to the client-agency
dynamics, there are a myriad of ways that relationships allow for better work—no matter the client, no matter
the project.
Implementing these
tips will help you set
yourself up for success
for every project
you take on, whether
they become a years-
long partnership or
not. The more you can
approach your work with
a sense of camaraderie
and collaboration,
the better everyone’s
experience will be.
1. You have an intimate understanding of the brand, so the
work is more consistent and cohesive, and truly serves the
long-term brand strategy.
2. You can poke holes, spot gaps, and identify opportunities
that the client may not have considered.
3. You have the rapport necessary to push each other to
grow, critique, experiment, and be more ambitious.
4. You can often work quicker and more efficiently, without
having to onboard or go through the “getting to know
you” phase.
Like any relationship, the more you know someone, the more
you can understand, identify, and anticipate their needs.
And, like any healthy relationship, the more valued and
respected both sides feel, the more likely you are to stay in
the relationship.
So, while not every client may become a years-long
relationship, you can (and should) do your best to cultivate a
strong relationship from day one. The best way to do that?
Manage client expectations at every stage of the process.
How to Manage
Expectations & Build
Better Relationships
by Katy French

9. SEPTEMBER 21-24, 2021
If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s just how little is within our control
in business, life and with our best laid plans. But, one thing that is in
our control is welcoming our SoDA friends once again to the home of
Socrates, moussaka, the Parthenon and Ouzo: Athens, Greece.
Please join us on September 21-24, 2021 to
(re)continue SoDA’s annual tradition of knowledge sharing, peer
collaboration, inspiration, camaraderie and revelry.
“True wisdom comes to each of us when we
realize how little we understand about
life, ourselves, and the world around us.”
- SOCRATES
14
Tip #6: Celebrate good work.
No one likes being treated like a gun for hire. That’s why
approaching creative work as a transactional relationship, with little
acknowledgement of each other’s talents and contributions, does
nothing but weaken your relationship.
We’ve experienced this first-hand, which is why we’re adamant about
recognizing good work—no matter whose it is.
If a partner found a great piece of music for a video, we cheers to
it. If we knocked out a slick animation under a time crunch, we
appreciate a pat on the back. That doesn’t mean either side is needy;
it’s just an expression of our commitment to each other. It’s also smart
to share helpful tips and tricks, too. We all want to work smarter, not
harder. If you’ve found something useful, share it with everyone.
Tip #7: Stay in touch.
Just because your project may be done, it doesn’t mean you won’t
work together again. A good agency is always thinking about how to
help their clients succeed, so keeping open lines of communication is
always beneficial.
A client might share some inspiring piece of work with your agency.
Your agency might send over an interesting article about something
in a brand’s industry. (We still trade GIFS and inside jokes with clients
we haven’t worked with for a while. Even though we may not be
collaborating right now, it helps us maintain our camaraderie.)
This symbiotic relationship keeps the wheels turning on both sides,
and that only helps create better content in the long run.
Remember: Relationships Above All Else
Not every client will turn into a long-term relationship—and you may
not want each one to. But implementing these tips will help you set
yourself up for success for every project you take on, whether they
become a years-long partnership or not. The more you can approach
your work with a sense of camaraderie and collaboration, the better
everyone’s experience will be. •
Katy French writes about visual content, content marketing, and data visualization. She
also tells jokes on stage sometimes. Follow her on Twitter @katyifrench

10. In this conversation we (LBB) talk with Cain Ullah, founder
and CEO of Red Badger. Cain’s experience puts him at the
forefront of technology’s ever-evolving relationship with the
concept of social good. Here, he reflects on the difference between
social good and what we describe as ‘purpose,’ the importance of
joy in the workplace, and how humanity has kept him inspired
throughout lockdown.
LBB: First things first, can you explain how you
identify the clear link between technology and
social good?
Cain: Technology is an enabler to achieve a
particular outcome, and social good is a type of
outcome. The dependency on good technology
choices and approaches to achieve social good
initiatives is increasing more and more. Not every
social good initiative is dependent on good tech,
but these days, most are. So the short answer is that
technology is an enabler to achieving social good
outcomes.
LBB: And in that sense, do you see the trends of
‘digital transformation’ and ‘purpose’ as moving
hand-in-hand?
Cain: It depends what the purpose you’re looking to
achieve is. Digital transformation is ongoing in most
organisations as digital is an ever more important part
of modern business models. Naturally organisations
are trying to improve their digital capability to
support their business model going forward. This
is where the transformation is occurring. Purpose
is an organisation’s fundamental reason for being.
It is at the core of a business and may belong in a
constitution or similar. The business model hangs off
of the purpose of the business. Digital transformation
has a part to play in enabling many aspects of an
organisation’s purpose, but not all aspects. For
example: an organisation might have values that
are attached to its purpose, such as respect. You
don’t need digital transformation to treat people
with respect.
LBB: When we talk about ‘purpose’ and ‘social
good,’ are we talking about the same thing? If
not, how do you define the difference?
Cain: Purpose is a company’s fundamental reason
for being. Social good is a company’s role in positively
impacting society. Social good is increasingly
prominent in organisations’ fundamental reason for
being. But not every company cares about social good.
Some companies focus purely on increasing earnings
per share for a shareholder. The trend is that more
and more organisations are moving in the direction of
social good becoming a part of their purpose and this
will only continue to grow.
LBB: And when it comes to companies motivating
their staff (and even staff retention), what role
does purpose, or a drive towards social good,
play?
Cain: I think this is fundamental, especially with
millennial and centennial talent. There are two
things here. The first of which is a company’s
purpose and then there is an individual’s purpose
as applied to motivation. A company’s purpose
having a social good or environmental aspect to it
By Little Black Book in association with Adobe XD
Interviewing Cain Ullah, Red Badger
“You Don’t Need Digital
Transformation to Treat
People with Respect”
certainly contributes to attracting and retaining
employees. Red Badger is a digital consultancy,
so in our field our employees tend not to feel
lucky to have a job because they have lots of
choice. They can choose where they work
and they are picky. More and more of them
care about a company contributing positively
to society and the environment, so having a
drive toward social good embedded into your
purpose is definitely helpful.
Purpose as applied to an individual’s
motivation is slightly different. We could
describe purpose in this context as ‘working
in the service of something that is bigger than
ourselves.’ Employees want to know that what
they are doing each day is contributing to a
higher purpose of the company or even bigger,
to society. So having a clear articulation of
what your company’s purpose is and for an
employee to know how they can contribute to
that purpose is motivating in itself and thus,
improves retention.
LBB: How would you describe your
purpose at Red Badger?
Cain: Red Badger’s purpose is about joy. It
is how we can provide our employees with
meaning at work. How they can master their
skills, do valuable work, and where possible,
do valuable work in the service of positively
impacting society and the environment.
We feel that to combine mastery of skills,
valuable work, and impact work is a type of
self actualisation. Where as an employee, you
get to bring the whole human to work. We
often talk about our purpose being joy, quality,
and growth in that order. But if we focus on
joy first, our employees end up doing higher
quality work for our clients and the growth of
the company and the individuals in it becomes
simply a by-product of doing the right thing for
our employees.
LBB: Has the pandemic affected your work
and the demand for it? And have you been
surprised by its impact in any way?
Cain: The pandemic has been challenging,
but we also feel very lucky to be in the digital
industry. We have been able to switch to
home working seamlessly with very little
disruption, so the service to our clients hasn’t
dropped at all. We have, however, had to
adapt. Government policy was changing
daily at one point so the company policy was
having to change just as quickly. We had to
be very good with communication to keep
all employees up-to-date on a daily basis. We
have had to pay special attention to employee
engagement and wellbeing to make sure they
are adapting to the new ways of working, and
are keeping safe and healthy.

11. The demand for our work has dropped in some areas,
but new opportunities have arisen in others. All-in-
all, Red Badger hasn’t been negatively impacted
from a revenue and profit perspective but we are not
complacent. We continue to be paranoid optimists.
There’s lots of opportunities arising from the
pandemic but we have to also keep an eye on the risks
and make sure we are resilient, adaptable, and set up
to ride the potential bumps in the economy that may
or may not come in the very near future.
LBB: And, perhaps in a more abstract way,
what effect has the pandemic had on consumer
expectations?
Cain: This is an interesting question. I feel like it
hasn’t taken that long for behaviour to have changed
dramatically in people. People are less likely to travel
on public transport, to eat out in restaurants and to
feel comfortable gathering in groups, even when the
restrictions were lifted. However, their demand for
things hasn’t abated but has moved online.
As a result the companies that have accelerated
digital innovation, the quality of their e-commerce
stores, and product innovation, have thrived. Some
companies such as Lego and Dr Martens have
reported record online sales. Restaurants that have
been innovative in rolling out new delivery capabilities
once their kitchens reopened, have done very well
and continued to supply consumers with their food,
just at home. So consumer demand is driving rapid
acceleration of digital transformation as more and
more consumers move online.
LBB: From a personal perspective, at what point
did you realise that a career in digital consulting
was right for you?
Cain: I was interested in computers and the inner
workings of them from a very young age. My Uncle
gave me an old IBM compatible 286 that I used to
take apart, break all the time, and try coding on. I
then did a Computer Science degree where I learned
to code. But it was during my degree that I realised
that I was more interested in creative problem solving
on business problems rather than via programming.
So my first job out of University was in Business
Consulting on the Product Management side of
things for a software company, and then I moved into
Agile Project Management in 2005. That is where I
learned my trade which I applied to Red Badger when
I founded that in 2010. My focus since 2010 has been
as an entrepreneur and CEO where creative problem
solving has been applied to building a sustainable
business, developing a culture, empowering and
motivating employees, company strategy, and all of
that fun stuff.
LBB: Finally, we’re at something of a bleak
moment in the industry and around the world
due to the events of the year so far. But what is
currently exciting and inspiring you day-to-day?
Cain: Despite everything, there have been real
moments of delight for me in 2020 so far. I have a
one-year-old son so being at home and spending
more time with him and my wife has been a beautiful
silver lining. I have loved the community spirit of our
neighbours. When people have been self-isolating,
we have been making lunch and dinner for each
other, doing the shopping for each other, and other
wonderful things. The clap for the NHS movement on
Thursday afternoons filled me with joy. And the spirit
of all of the Red Badger employees to look after each
other has been tear-inducing at times. It has been so
wonderful to witness.
Ultimately when we look back at a pretty torrid
time in history, I think there is a real human story of
people coming together and helping each other in
times of difficulty. I am so much closer to people that
I hadn’t really met before. So the amazing actions
of humans every day have been a constant source of
inspiration for me. •
18
At Bluecadet, we’re always exploring different
methods for integrating digital products
into public space. Now, there’s a new urgency as
we’re tasked with integrating aspects of public
space into our digital products. Our ongoing
R&D projects are becoming ways for us to
support new public health and safety concerns.
Like a lot of design agencies, the crisis may
have blurred our vision of the future, but it’s
sharpened our focus on the task at hand.
We’ve concentrated on the impact of four
categories: overall digital strategy, spatial design,
input methods, and the extended experience.
These categories aren’t mutually exclusive
and, indeed, are most effective when employed
together. We believe redundancy and flexibility
will be essential moving forward. To put it
another way, don’t just design experiences,
design affordances–tools and spaces that can be
used in a multitude of ways. We can anticipate
and plan for some uses but there are many, many
others that we can’t. The following observations
emerged from recent conversations and
workshops with our teams and our clients.
Develop a Comprehensive Digital Strategy
A strong multi-channel digital content strategy—
and accompanying infrastructure—is a good
foundation for flexible and resilient design. This
is true anytime, but all the more so during a
crisis. What does that mean exactly? For starters,
it means ensuring the same core content can
accommodate multiple experiences–communal,
in-person experiences, and at-home exploration.
This isn’t something that can be achieved on an
ad-hoc basis. It requires thoughtful planning and
the ability to understand how content will work
in different contexts.
Helping clients create this kind of integrated
flexibility will become a fundamental part of
any practice. Generally, we like to think about
content in terms of platforms, rather than single
activations. For example:
• Create a complementary online experience
that builds on an in-gallery activation and
How do you design for public spaces
and shared interactions at a time
when these behaviors might not be
safe? No one quite knows yet. But
we can develop approaches that
consider the visitor experiences in
new ways.
Experiential
Design for
the Unknown
Future

12. doesn’t just reiterate it.
• Turn long-form stories about an artifact
into highlights that can be brought to life via
augmented reality (AR).
• Create a parallel audio experience for written
or visual content. Ensuring your experience is
equally available to everyone is a great way to
create some built-in affordances, including during
times of crisis.
Design Healthy Spaces
Re-opening public experiences will bring some clear,
practical concerns, like how to space out crowds
and clean surfaces. At a very basic level, we might
see a greater emphasis on cleaning routines, more
hand sanitizer or mask dispensers, and visual cues
that encourage social distancing. Interior layouts and
exhibition designs may incorporate new options for
circulation or display, while technology may help
manage occupancy and guide the visitor experience.
These could include:
• More granular and dynamic crowd management.
• Sensors that automatically restrict access to a
space when occupancy limits are reached.
• Replacing queues with notifications and SMS to
let visitors know when they can enter.
Use Alternative Inputs
Interaction isn’t going away. But we will have to
reconsider how people control digital experiences.
For more than a decade now, touchscreens have
been the default solution to bring digital experiences
to physical spaces. From doctors offices and banks
to movie theaters and museums, there’s hardly a
transaction these days that doesn’t use a touchscreen.
But interaction doesn’t mean touch, and we’ve been
growing and refining alternative inputs.
• Connect directly to a visitor’s personal device
using QR codes, SMS, and web socket
connections. There are two approaches: one path
pushes the experience to the device, like adding
a layer of content or media; the other makes the
device (or multiple-user devices) a controller or
interface to the experience.
• Gestures and body tracking. Simple, intuitive
experiences work best using these inputs because
the precision of the input can be affected by so
many factors.
• Threshold and proximity. Using sensors or
geofencing to trigger location-specific content
creates responsive environments with an ambient
awareness of the person’s presence.
• Disposable Stylus. A simple and cheap solution for
times when touchscreens are an essential element
of an exhibition, experience, or transaction.
It’s important to note that adapting these alternate
input methods will often require adjustments to
user habits. Touchscreens have habituated users to
a vocabulary of precise gestural inputs, and some
of these non-tactile alternatives will require time to
build up a similar vocabulary. But creating redundant
or overlapping controls will allow users to drive an
experience however they want—by moving their
entire body, or just their hand. Don’t prescribe new
behaviors, allow for multiple existing behaviors.
Extend the Experience
The societal response to COVID-19 has pushed many
interactions online, and may result in renewed interest
and innovation in different ways of extending a public
experience. These are a few ways to bring the physical
experience into a person’s private space.
• Create new virtual spaces. VR and AR continue
to be promising arenas for exploration, though
the same old barriers to adoption remain: access
to hardware and an intuitive user experience.
Hardware companies seem to be making
incremental progress—see Apple’s latest iPad
Pro, shipping with a Lidar scanner. In another
generation this will probably be standard on high-
end phones and tablets. And we’re excited by the
possibility of tools like Reality Composer and
SparkAR, which make it easy to create, share, and
view AR experiences.
• Meet people where they are. Minecraft is
already home to students recreating their schools
and journalism projects likeThe Uncensored
Library, which publishes censored articles within
20 21
the game’s world. In a similar vein, Animal
Crossing: New Horizons players are using the
game to celebrate weddings and birthdays.
These situations grew organically, with users
appropriating platforms for uses other than for
which they were created–uses that didn’t exist
until a month or two ago.
• AI and Online Archives. Many museums with
comprehensive digital strategies (see above)
have already publicly released portions of their
collections online. Applying machine learning
models to these collections can help visitors as well
as curators, researchers, and conservators explore
them more effectively. (As an example, here’s how
Bluecadet has started to use AI in our work.)
This crisis might spark some innovation or new public
interest in this space—many collections are already
too big to be shown or even housed on site in a public
space. The possibilities of an online or virtual venue,
however, are almost limitless.
Going Forward
What new forms and social patterns will emerge, and
how will designers and makers react to those changes?
Because we don’t know, there’s a strong temptation
to overreact, and to bet big on one of the approaches
mentioned above. Maybe, instead, bet small on a
few different options. Prototype and test them with
your users. Allow and encourage them to interact in
the way that they want; in the way they feel safest.
There’s so much we don’t know, but there’s a lot we
do know: we know the elements of good experiences
won’t change. We know our audience–their goals,
expectations, and desires. We know that creating
engaging high-quality experiences can grow that
audience and strengthen our communities. •
We believe redundancy and
flexibility will be essential
moving forward. To put it
another way, don’t just
design experiences, design
affordances–tools and
spaces that can be used
in a multitude of ways.
“
”

13. Reducing
Friction
by David Chang
building software that works in large-scale advertising,
and worked to find ways to build this solution in a
way that’s faster, cheaper, and scalable. When we took
a step back and looked at where the next generation
of advertising is going, we saw it continuing to
drive towards mobile, centered around capturing
attention in a short attention span world, and a need
for iterative, data-driven content across whichever
mediums people are spending time.
Of course, this came with many challenges,
paramount being the balancing act between
running a service business and building a product
and technology that works. The service-product
marriage requires a completely different mindset at
the foundation of the business model. Automation
and service naturally fight against each other and
create a scenario where the product swallows the
profits of the service and requires separate teams with
completely different focuses in order to make progress.
For us, it’s a marriage we’ve committed to that drives
us toward our vision of the future.
Whether or not this is the path forward, one thing
is clear: into the next decade, there will be changes
in how advertising manifests within peoples’ lives.
Mediums, content, and strategies will shift with
changing times and technology. The question for all
businesses whether product or service based, is this:
Where are the opportunities to reduce friction and
rethink how we operate? •
Since joining Fancy Pants Group in 2011, David has helped the
company transform from a production shop into a full-service creative
digital studio. He is constantly looking for ways to drive innovation
and to improve the craftsmanship of Fancy Pants’ digital executions.
David has worked with a diverse range of clients, including Microsoft,
Royal Caribbean, and Stride Gum.
In 2011, Marc Andreesen told us that software is
eating the world. As we step into a new decade,
we’re able to see this statement manifested across
all types of businesses. Amazon has changed the
way we shop. Netflix has changed the way we view
entertainment. Airbnb has changed the way we
vacation. And Uber has changed the way we travel.
Each of these companies was able to reinvent an
entire system by developing software and building
an ecosystem that enables a new way of doing
things. Collectively, these changes have succeeded
because they have inverted old models to become
more efficient and more convenient; simply put, they
reduce friction for the user.
So, what does this mean in the world of agencies,
production shops, and businesses that are built
around a service model? The nature of this model
relies on developing creative ideas, cultivating great
relationships, and executing fresh new initiatives.
Service-oriented agencies have been challenged by
a continually restrictive and commoditized digital
landscape: one measured by business churn, profits,
awards, and whatever other indicators of success are
driving these businesses.
As a digital production shop going on our 14th year,
FPG has always leaned on developing efficiency
through technology as our main differentiator.
We’ve built a service business that looks for patterns
and ways in which we can automate in order to
create production efficiency. This leads to a win-win
scenario where costs can come down for our clients
while we achieve lower marginal costs and quicker
production processes to operate.
This is what led us, in 2017, to our biggest
transformation yet. We saw the industry shifting, and
set forth on a path to develop software that takes pre-
existing marketing assets (static, layered, video) and
allows for the creation of short-form video at scale.
We were motivated and captivated by the notion of
2322

14. In this conversation we talk with Halli Thorleifsson, the founder
and CEO of Ueno. A creative director and designer, Halli
founded the agency as a one-man operation out of his Reykjavik
apartment in 2014. Just a few short years later, Ueno has
more than 60 full-time employees with offices in Reykjavik, San
Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles, collaborating with some
of the biggest global businesses such as Google, Facebook, Uber,
Visa, Apple, and Red Bull to name but a few.
LBB: Can you tell us about your first experiences
with technology and digital design and how this
fueled your fascination for the industry?
Halli: My first interaction with the internet and
technology was around 13 years old in 1990. My
uncle set up a modem connection to my PC and
when he went home he sent me a message on it and I
thought it was just magical. It got me really excited at
the possibilities of the future.
And then at university I was studying finance and
there was a class we had to take in IT. One of the
assignments was to create your own webpage and
again, I thought it was magical that I could type
anything and it would be instantly accessible to
the world.
LBB: What are the key responsibilities in your
role as CEO/CCO of Ueno?
Halli: My role as CEO and CCO is pretty
intermingled. The three core areas that I focus most
of my time on are creative output - including overseas
projects and client reviews; new business - talking
to potential clients and existing clients about new
workstreams; and communication - both internally
and externally to help get our name and brand
out there.
LBB: How would you describe company ethos
and what does Ueno pride itself on?
Halli: The core thing comes back to the quality of
our work. Everything else is in support of being able
to create the best work possible. To be able to achieve
that we have a set of five core values we use to make a
lot of our decisions:
1. We’re all in this together - we listen, ask questions,
and respect different points of view.
2. Be raw - we grow together with honesty.
3. Figure it out - we know our success relies on how
fast we can adapt.
4. Bring the chocolate - we surprise and delight,
think ahead and give people more than they knew
they wanted.
5. Life is short, enjoy it - we are here, we’re alive, and
that’s pretty damn great.
LBB: As a company doing relatively well with its
diversity and inclusion, how does this enable you
to deliver better products and experiences for
your clients?
Halli: We’re doing better than the average company
in the industry but we are still striving to be better
to get to where we need to be. Because a diverse
company understands a lot of different points of
view. They have backgrounds that allow them to see
themselves in different types of communities.
By Little Black Book in association with Adobe XD
Interviewing Haraldur Thorleifsson, Ueno
“We Craft Tech Around A Feeling
- People Are Social Creatures
That Want To Feel Connected”
Diversity creates much better work. We design
for a whole range of people and if everyone who
works here is the same, then we can’t do our job
very well. A fully inclusive team is able to utilise
that diversity and each team member feels like
they can speak up and be heard as part of the
collective decision making.
LBB: Some of your most memorable
projects include Google’s Santa Tracker
and a redesign of the Lonely Planet website?
What was it you most enjoyed about working
on these projects and what lessons did you
take forward?
Halli: Google Santa Tracker was the first piece
of work where I led a big global project and felt
that I fully owned the core experience. I took a
lot of initiative early on to help shape the project
and by doing that I was given the opportunity to
run the full project. I was able to pull together
a group that I felt could achieve what we were
looking for in a relatively short period of time.
Just seeing how we came together to create
something really special was rewarding and I
learned that you can’t always wait for someone to
give you the opportunity, you have to put yourself
forward in some way and really trust in yourself.
On the Lonely Planet project I started off working
on a very small part of it but as we gained the
trust of our client, and by really taking the
initiative and pushing forward on a clear vision,
we started to take on bigger and more strategic
roles as the project grew. It was a huge project
with fantastic teams and I got to make something
I was really proud of in the end.
Both of these projects where I was more
personally involved made me realise that I could
take on bigger and bigger roles and helped me
push for more challenging projects. I also now
love to be able to pass these opportunities to
people on our team at Ueno to help them grow
in their careers. That’s one of the most rewarding
things in my role at the moment, seeing other
people grow and get given the chances that I got.
LBB: One of your goals is to help
people feel more connected and you
launched Uenoland in New York last
year to bring interesting people from
the design world together. How are
you hoping to develop Uenoland and
what are you hoping to achieve with
this event?
Halli: The first event we put on was
an experiment as we’d never run a
conference before and we wanted to
work out the logistics and how it would
work financially. There were lots of smart
people talking about very diverse topics,
interconnected through design.

15. We learned a lot through that so future events
will be a little more focused with very clear
objectives. We’re going to focus in on smaller
areas within design and allow ourselves to go
deeper into the subject, bringing people from
the industry together.
LBB: You’ve mentioned that some aspects
of technology in the last ten years or so have
not had a good impact on society, creating
more disconnect and isolation. How do
you use design at Ueno to help battle these
issues?
Halli: The core issue is that technology has
been built as a really functional tool that allows
you to achieve or perform a certain task. But it
hasn’t really been infused with any emotion, or
feeling of being connected to the world around
you. People are social creatures that need to feel
like they are part of something and we have very
strong communal ties to where we grew up and
the people that are around us, giving us a strong
sense of belonging. Technology doesn’t really
give us any of that - it just gives us the technical
benefits of being able to reach out to anyone
at any time but you don’t feel that connected
through it.
In the last ten years or so, as tech has become
more and more ubiquitous and has taken over
pretty much everything, I don’t think everything
that has happened has been for the good or
delivered on the promise of what we thought the
internet would be - a very inclusive place where
knowledge was accessible to everyone. It’s created
a lot more division than anyone expected and it’s
created a lot of isolation where people feel less
and less connected.
We want to fuse emotion into all our work so
that when people use our products they feel
connected. When we design a product we think
about the feeling we are trying to create and what
emotional connection we want users to have
with the product or the brand itself. And then we
really try and craft the experience around that
feeling. We start from a place of understanding
our users and what it is that they are looking for
and not just what they are looking to achieve
- which is often what technology focuses on,
the function. It comes down to things like how
you write copy, what colours you use, and
what imagery you insert, where it feels fun and
interactive - like it was made by a human and
not a robot.
LBB: You take quite a holistic approach
to your work, designing a limited edition
product range for the home. Where did
the idea for this range come from and how
do you hope to be able to inspire people
through it?
Halli: The idea for the products came from
thinking about the first few items people would
buy when they move home, and how to make
them feel more special. When I moved out of
my parent’s home for the first time, most of the
products I bought were as cheap as I could get
because I didn’t have a lot of money. But there
were a few items here and there that were a bit
more special and added real value to my place.
I still have a stool and lamp I bought when I was
20 so the product line is going to start from there.
Our products will not be mass produced but
something you invest in and own for a very long
time. Nicely made things that you will hopefully
keep for a very long time and aren’t disposable
items. So that when you interact and use these
products, you can feel the care and love that was
put into their design.
LBB: What has been some of the best advice
you have learned from in your career?
Halli: Always remember to design for the
user and not for yourself. Make sure that you
really fall in love with the problem and not
the solution, understanding that whatever you
make is temporary and it can and will always be
improved upon. •
26 27
It’s a crisp February morning in 2031 and you
are awoken by the sounds of your favorite track.
Despite simulated full daylight and sleep analysis,
getting up has not become easier than it used to
be. Thanks to your new year’s resolution you have
committed to do 15 minutes of yoga every morning,
so you activate your virtual trainer through voice
command for a one-on-one coaching session. With a
quick 3D mapping of the room, the program is able
to adjust the light and add virtual objects to make it
look like your favorite yoga studio downtown.
While you brush your teeth, your smart fridge
informs you that there are vegetables available in
the communal vertical farm in your building. A
mushroom and soy sprout vegan omelette is what your
health assistant recommends based on the sensors
in your bed and toilet. “Would you like your smart
kitchen top to prepare this or would you rather do it
yourself? Cooking has been proven to reduce stress
and, well, your heart rate suggests that you could use
some stress reduction,” your health assistant says.
Are you wondering if this scene is a product of the
imagination or if it is actually going to happen? If
you feel like these kinds of scenarios belong to a Black
Mirror episode rather than real life, you are certainly
not alone. No one today knows for certain what life
in 2031 will be like, but the emerging technology of
today – AR filters, VR games, the Internet of Things,
AI, voice interaction (such as Google Assistant) and
5G are paving the way for a future in which this 2031
scenario might be a full-fledged reality.
At North Kingdom we may be a little biased,
being surrounded by the latest technology and
having worked remotely with our teammates and
clients for many years. We bet you can see some
of these signals as well. We call this future scenario
the Interspace – a digital reality that is screenless,
indexed, and searchable and with Internet connectiv-
ity that will be everywhere, in everything, and always
contextually relevant.
The Interspace is a broad framework that we use to
describe future possibilities already rooted in today’s
technology. It will likely impact all aspects of our lives
and we can imagine that it will open new ways for
humans to explore, communicate, and interact with
our world. To take a closer look without getting lost,
Design & Responsibility at
the Dawn of Interspace

16. 28
let’s examine this idea of Interspace through its two
main protagonists­– humans and products and the
interactions occurring between them.
By doing this, we will open up reflections and
consideration with an interesting potential for us as
professionals and for the world we live in.
Human to human interactivity – constant
connectivity
Starting with ourselves at North Kingdom, we’ve
long appreciated and valued the importance
of collaboration in our work and have formed
professional relationships with the support of digital
tools. Already today we cannot imagine our working
lives without the support of video calls, cloud services
and, for now, screens.
Looking outside of our professional lives, we
observe how our relations with other humans are
characterized by a state of constant connectivity. We
meet some of the humans in physical form and other
exclusively online. The Internet has put us in touch
with a lot more people and created an incredible
amount of information, so much so that digital detox
has been born. Trust has evolved and we now allow
strangers to live in our houses (AirBnB) and to drive
us places (Uber). But this is just the beginning and
already, advancements in spatial computing, brain-
computer interfaces, and anticipatory design, promise
a whole new wave of change.
How will we work once screens disappear from our
offices and what will it mean to experience some-
thing together in the era of spatial computing and
haptic suits? How will our relationships be affected if
we are able to see what the other person is thinking
or feeling? In essence, what will it mean to be human
in the age of the Interspace? This brings us to the
next point.
People to product interaction – being human
Most products we are surrounded by are born when
a human need is met by a commercial idea. In the
simplest of cases, if enough people in a certain area
are hungry, a restaurant can open and be profitable.
A delivery service bringing food from that restaurant
to a bigger pool of eaters can also be profitable, and
so on. It’s the basic economics of offer and demand.
When there is human need, but not enough profit to
entice private markets, the public sector steps in to
answer that need. What we are increasingly observing,
though, is that business needs have taken a front seat
to human needs, in the name of power and profit.
As a result, products are either screaming at us to
get our (short) span of attention or sneaking up on
us, using dark design patterns to lock us into longer
usage. People say that when done right, technology
is indistinguishable from magic. But if we regard
technology as magic, we will also be less aware of the
tactics and patterns used to stimulate in us a certain
kind of behavior.
The opportunity for companies in the future is to
focus on uniqueness, the diversity of the human
needs, and to go beyond the status quo to imagine
a desirable future that we would want to be part of.
How can we design products for the Interspace that
will help us and enhance our lives, rather than lock us
into a vicious circle? And connected to this question,
how can we start measuring values and impact other
than economic growth?
Our hope is that, by becoming invisible and even
more embedded in our everyday routines, technology
will impact our lived experience in a more positive
way. For example, by making us feel present, even
when we are located away from each other, by letting
us talk more naturally rather than hiding behind
screens and by anticipating problems, rather than
solving them.
Product to product interaction – autonomy
and trust
In recent times, the possibility of products (tools,
machines or systems) replacing humans and our work
has become a probability, if not the truth. Products
will interact with other products, without the human
presence being needed. Already today, products talk
to each other through APIs and plug-ins, but humans
are still included in the equation as creators, users
or receivers of information. We can take this even
29
further and imagine that at some point in time, likely
beyond our 2031 scenario, products themselves will
be able to invent new products, from conception to
creation and launch.
You can imagine the ethical dilemmas raised by
autonomous products with little or no human
intervention­­–for example, self-driving vehicles
programmed to choose the lesser of two evils when
a car accident is inevitable. Will we trust our products
to have our best interests in mind even when they
will be interacting among themselves? How will the
design discipline change when users will not only be
“personas,” but also other advanced products? Will
automation and AI free up time for us or make us feel
like we are losing control and lacking in purpose?
What does this all mean?
The point of this article is not to start a debate of
what will and will not be, but to open up questions
allowing each of us to start forming our own multiple
versions of different possible futures. Futures which
we still have the possibility and the responsibility
to imagine, create, design, and change. This
responsibility is not only towards ourselves as humans,
but also for entities that cannot manifest their needs,
like animals and of course our planet.
Today we are already laying the foundation of the
Interspace. We know that when it comes to the
Internet and legislation, our governments are behind
on the work, and that the world is changing at a
pace where bureaucracy and heavy processes cannot
keep up. As a result, it is up to us and the private
companies we work for to take responsibility for what
we are and will design.
The possibilities are endless and, to paraphrase
Brian David Johnson, they seem to be constricted
only by the limits of what we can imagine and
invent. What will the Interspace be? Let’s create
it responsibly together. •
Our hope is that, by becoming
invisible and even more embedded in
our everyday routines, technology
will impact our lived experience
in a more positive way.
“
”

17. Joining SoDA
has been one of
the highlights
for 2020 and the
GMM was a great
opportunity to
connect with
peers from the
best agencies
around the world.
High-value conver-
sations, insights
and learnings
really came to
life in these
sessions.
Mike Dobell, Jam3 (Toronto)
My hat's off to SoDA for continuing to prove
their value as the leading industry organiza-
tion for digital agencies. This year's GMM
content was a 10/10 with incredible speakers
to boot. They managed to turn the pandemic
on its head and again deliver content that
matters to our leadership teams.
Ezequial Applebaum, Aerolab (Buenos Aires)
Jen Lucero, WeAreRoyale (Los Angeles)
Sebastian Mueller, MING Labs (Singapore)
Sadly, I didn't manage to attend
many live sessions, but even just
the recordings were extremely
valuable. So much great
content and discussion.
Incredibly helpful. Thank
you for the great organi-
zation and moderation!
Even in its virtual format, SoDA’s GMM stands out
as an endless source of invaluable learning. The
shared experiences, tried-and-true expertise and
insight is supportive beyond words. But I also
missed the full immersion of being together in
person and I’m looking forward connecting in
Athens next year.
The program was wonderful!
A big BRAVO to the SoDA team,
what an amazing effort to
pull this off and create a
sense of community in our
current circumstances.
It's a major challenge to replace
a physical meet with a virtual one
and you've done a great job… great
content that's thought provoking
and appreciated by us all at Reason.
Matt Griffin, Deepend (Sydney)
We’ve learned loads from the experience
this year and really loved being part of
the presentations and discussions that
have been orchestrated like a symphony
across the globe.
Peter Gandy, Reason (London)
Ann Ystén, Perfect Fools (Stockholm)
George Eid, AREA 17 (Paris)
Hannah Kreiswirth, AREA 17 (Brooklyn)
Amidst it all,
discovering new
insights and connecting
with familiar faces
turned out to be a
unique joy of the
summer's close. I
loved how we could
attend live sessions
or watch separately and
then come together
organically as a team
to discuss the
following week. I can't
wait to fold some of
the virtual excellence
of this year into our
always excellent
in-person GMM.
I thought I knew
pretty much who I was
before the pandemic,
but I have learned
so much about myself
this year. I realize
more acutely how much
the SoDA community
means to me and how
much I rely on our
annual gathering.
The virtual GMM did a
great job filling the
void, but trust me, I
will be first in line
when the vaccine
comes because nothing
will stop me
from going
to Athens
in 2021.
Testimonials

18. 32
Diversity and inclusion are active topics of
discussion in the creative community, and have
been for many years. But it’s safe to say that, before
June of this year, there was much more talk than
action. Data we collected from agency leaders in Q4
of 2019 showed that just 56 percent of agencies had
a formal diversity, equity, and inclusion policy, and
only 41 percent said that they track the gender pay
gap at their company. Nearly half of the agencies we
surveyed didn’t have a DEI (Diversity, Equity, and
Inclusion) program and I think it’s safe to say the
other half would characterize their previous efforts
as lacking in terms of resources, focus, urgency, and
impact.
That, we hope, is changing as agency leaders grapple
with the lack of progress in our industry and their
role (and responsibility) in effectuating change. Within
the SoDA community, leaders have moved quickly to
launch new programs, expand existing programs, and
devote more time, money, and people resources to
making a change in their own shops.
We recently spoke with founders at Stink Studios
(New York, London, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Buenos Aires, Paris, and Shanghai) and Jam3
(Toronto, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, and Montevideo)
to understand how they are tackling diversity, equity,
and inclusion in their agencies. While both are taking
concrete action against what requires a systemic and
multi-generational unwinding of embedded patterns,
they realize these steps are just the beginning. They
readily admit that they don’t have all the answers and
they approach their responsibility as business leaders
and people of privilege with a serious sense of gravity
and humility.
“Listen. Learn. Act. Repeat.” is the journey they’re
on, and we hope some of their initial steps will help
inspire ideas for new and continued action in your
own agencies. Beyond broad statements of support
and vague, aspirational commitments, both are taking
concrete action against what needs to be a systemic
and multi-generational unwinding of embedded
patterns. They have realized these steps are just the
beginning, readily admitting that they don’t have all
the answers and need to approach their responsibility
as business leaders and people of privilege with a
serious sense of gravity and humility.
How do you define diversity, equity, and
inclusion in your organization?
Mark Pytlik, Stink Studios:
I have two answers to this. For starters, diversity,
equity, and inclusion aren’t just about taking steps to
ensure that there’s equal representation throughout
an organization, but that there’s equal representation
among people who are in positions of power. You can
only hope to change your culture if you’re willing to
change your power structure; otherwise, you’re just
reinforcing the same structural racism that already
exists. That’s why it was important for us to also
pledge that our leadership team would look different
in a year’s time. I’m under no illusion that meeting
Tackling Diversity and
Inclusion at Your Agency
A Conversation with Jam3 and Stink Studios
33
this pledge will be enough to fix the problem, but it
felt like an important step.
My second answer to this hinges on something I think
about often. I recently had a conversation with a
Black designer who shared that they had consciously
decided to stay freelance because they didn’t feel like
there were enough agencies that felt “safe” enough
to warrant a full-time commitment. They went on to
share that their Black contemporaries often ask each
other about different agencies by asking the question:
“Is it safe?”
To be clear, they didn’t mean “Is it safe, physically?”
Rather, they meant: is it safe to practice my craft,
to share ideas, to share a bit of myself… is it safe to
do my job without having to worry about constantly
being confronted, overtly and covertly, with the racist
structures of most agencies.
That insight stayed with me. No white designer thinks
that way. No white designer worries about whether
their work is going to be taken seriously, or whether
their whiteness might be an impediment in the day-
to-day. So, my long-term answer for how we define
diversity, equity, and inclusion for Stink Studios is to
make it an environment where anyone can come to
do their best work and feel safe in doing so. And that’s
much more difficult to judge because that sort of
change can’t be effectuated as policy; it needs to be
felt by everyone in the organization.
Pablo Vio, Jam3:
We believe and value different perspectives, identities,
and experiences; these differences are what cultivates
a rich culture and a commitment to an inclusive, safe
community for all. We must nurture empathy, respect,
and encourage transparency to educate and inspire
Jam3, our communities, and our world.
While we are now more diverse than ever, we have a
lot of work to do with respect to gender, race, sexual
orientation, and physical and mental ability equality.
Our DEI vision is to do the right thing: create a more
positive, safe, and equitable workplace for all of us to
freely express ourselves. By attracting and retaining
talent as diverse as the audiences we serve, we can
ensure multiple perspectives for empathy, which will
empower more innovative ideas, and access to a wider
range of clients.
Tell us about the DEI efforts at your organization.
Are there any specific organizations you’re
partnering with or supporting to help broaden
your impact?
Pablo Vio, Jam3:
Building awareness is the first step toward real
change. We plan to educate ourselves alongside our
employees as we learn how individuals are impacted
by unconscious bias, and what actions continue to
reinforce unconscious bias. We will be encouraging
everyone working at Jam3 to build awareness and
address unconscious bias by reviewing, questioning,
and analyzing their own personal potential biases
and assumptions. We have selected Crescendo as our
vendor to take our organization through this exercise
and will continue our growth and education of
diversity and inclusion through this partner. Building
awareness is the first step and it’s important that all
staff have tools and training to provide guidance on
actions for moving forward.
Another way we plan to build awareness of diversity
and foster greater inclusivity is to be aware of and
acknowledge a variety of upcoming religious and
cultural holidays. Our Diversity and Inclusion
Committee has planned out an entire cultural
calendar for the whole year where we celebrate
and educate our employees about specific cultural
moments throughout the year. We also select books,
movies, podcasts, and articles of the month to create
discussion, conversation and insight.
Our recruitment activities will include a more
deliberate focus on where we post our positions to
elicit a more diverse talent pool. Partnering with
communities, schools, groups, and associations who
can offer more diverse talent we connect with. Our
recruitment process currently involves a three step
interview where candidates are interviewed by various
different roles, genders, and titles at Jam3 ensuring
that we don’t self perpetuate a mono-culture in a
specific department.

19. 34
How do you measure and track progress?
Pablo Vio, Jam3:
We will utilize the tools offered by Crescendo to
measure our progress with diversity and inclusion
within our workplace. We’ll also be measuring our
success with the various job boards we plan to post
our jobs on. The success will not only include the
number of candidates we received but also how
many we decide to employ. Lastly, we are looking
within ourselves and measuring how diverse we are
as an organization and how much of our talent is in
leadership positions in order to practice what
we preach.
Our priorities for 2020 and the months ahead are:
inclusive language and unconscious bias training,
diversity and inclusion recruitment and hiring goals
for each department, community outreach and
direct support through the donation of time, money
and pro-bono services and a regular schedule of
multicultural events to foster a deeper understanding
and sense of belonging across our company.
We’re very early in our diversity and inclusion efforts
and there is still a lot of work to do. However, in the
past year, we’ve committed to change by organizing
a Diversity and Inclusion Committee, IWD
Commitment to gender equality, and BIPOC equality
commitments (600 & Rising Commit to Change).
Mark Pytlik, Stink Studios:
We used 600 & Rising’s open letter to the industry
as the starting point for our public pledge and then
modified it in a way that made sense for us. One of
the modifications was that, in addition to sharing our
diversity data, we pledged to share it publicly every
year from now on. That was arguably more important
for our teams internally to see than it was for anyone
outside of the company; it was a way to signal just
how serious we are about our long-term commitment
to this work.
Beyond that, we’ve committed to anti-racism
workshops, bias training, donation matching
programmes, mentorship programmes, and a host
of smaller, more grassroots initiatives, like our content
inclusion program. For our mentorship work, we’ll
be partnering with Scope of Work in the U.S. and
Create Jobs in the UK. For the anti-racism and bias
training initiatives, we’ll be working with Creative
Equals in the UK, and we’re still in conversation
with a few companies in the US. (Many of the better
companies Stateside have been slammed with requests
over the past few months, which is both exciting and
embarrassing all at once.)
With all of these conversations, we decided early on
that it’s better to be thorough and intentional rather
than fast. That means lots of research, it means lots
of exploratory conversations, some false starts, and
potentially even some dead ends. That’s OK. My bet
is that our intentionality will ultimately translate into
actions and partnerships that have a better chance of
being meaningful and foundational for our teams.
How are you managing DEI initiatives in your
companies?
Pablo Vio, Jam3:
DEI initiatives are managed by our Diversity and
Inclusion Committee. We are a team of 13 co-
workers, which includes the support of 2 partners
who also make up part of the team. We meet
once a month to discuss such topics as our current
programming and “what we’ve learned,’ plan for
upcoming events and activities, update each other
on the various priorities, and how we are tracking.
We currently utilize our Marketing team to curate the
creative and production work for any of the cultural
celebrations we intend to recognize. This allows the
DEI team to focus on more actionable work such
Pablo Vio
35
Mark Pytlik
as education through training, discussion forums,
analyzing DEI metrics, community outreach, and
creating awareness.
Mark Pytlik, Stink Studios:
We have a bi-monthly action meeting for everyone
in the leadership and people functions. It’s where
we track progress against our pledge and discuss
everything from partnership opportunities to
policy changes.
What role do you feel the creative community, at
large, has in helping to drive change relative to
DEI? What advice would you give to other agency
leaders who don’t know where to start or are
struggling with the enormity of the challenge?
Pablo Vio, Jam3:
The creative community can play a huge role in this
space. There are many talented individuals from
all walks of life who can be great additions to our
organization. We, and our communities, need to
do a better job of making an effort to find different
ways to find talent that are outside of our norm. We
support many influential brands that have an impact
on many lives around the world. Many of these
diverse groups support these brands so why not have
them represented in our workplaces? We need to hold
ourselves accountable to this continued commitment.
We should be regularly reporting on our diversity
efforts to keep each other accountable as part of this
group and continue to share ideas and best practices.
For those organizations who are unsure as to where
to start, I recommend seeking out a DEI consultant
to help direct your initial program start up. We
worked with Zanele Mutepfa-Rhone, a culture and
diversity strategist. She was an instrumental part
of our DEI development and gave us the tools and
processes to kick things off in the right direction.
Don’t underestimate the act of transparency and
authenticity where your agency has fallen short in the
past. Recognizing your gaps and setting actionable
goals will keep you and your agency accountable.
You are not alone, peers within SoDA who are on
this journey would be an excellent resource as well.
Mark Pytlik, Stink Studios:
If the creative community wants to drive change,
it needs to be willing to completely re-define its
definition of what ‘good’ looks like, because right
now a lot of what we collectively consider to be
‘good’ is as much a white construct as anything
else. As an industry, we tend to gauge success and
employability based on awards, or where someone’s
worked before, or who they know, but the reality is
that those terms exclude an entire cohort of talented
individuals right from the start. A lot of diverse
creatives get their start in agencies where budgets
aren’t as big, or where the draw to win awards isn’t
as strong, and that instantly puts them at a relative
disadvantage. We need to do better jobs as creatives
and look deeper than those superficial connections
when evaluating potential candidates.
Meaningful action now, next year and beyond
A lack of diversity and inclusion in the digital creative
industry has been an acknowledged issue for many
years, but action and investment have lagged far
behind this awareness. The events of 2020 have
galvanized real commitments and real actions from
many agency leaders around the world – this is a
promising start, but we need to be in this for the long
haul. Three months from now, one year from now,
five years from now, we need to be working for
meaningful change, not just when the headlines
are screaming at us.
As James Baldwin wrote, “Not everything that is faced
can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is
faced.” Start somewhere. Start now. And keep starting
again and again. •

20. The Future of
Voice
The world of voice is ever-changing. With new software enhancements, new devices and
Christmas looming, what does this mean for brands who are thinking about voice?
The introduction of smart voice-controlled
devices in the Australian market has just clicked
over 12 months with Google Home landing in
people’s laps in July 2017. It’s fair to say that Google
did a fantastic job of launching the first device and
leads the way in terms of household penetration here
in Australia. It’s very different in other parts of the
world with Amazon owning the lion’s share. Both
Google and Amazon are tight-lipped with device-
usage, penetration and uptake information. So, to
truly understand what Australians are doing with
voice, we took it upon ourselves to conduct the first-
ever dedicated Australian Voice Report. The results
are staggering.
Google Home is currently the most recognised brand
in the market, with 7 out of 10 Australian consumers
aware of one or more of their speakers. Consistent
with this result, Google Home is also leading in terms
of take-up, present in 12% of homes and 7% of
workplaces. In July 2018, Edison Research found that
5% of Australians had access to a smart speaker. Just
4 months later, 15% of those surveyed have a smart
speaker at home, a 200% increase and sets global
records for the same year-in-market milestone.
When we launched VERSA, consumer-oriented
voice experiences were highly ethereal and intangible
propositions for marketers to get their heads around.
Our initial conversations were hard. There were no
Google or Alexa voice-enabled products in Australia.
Amazon had not even announced plans to come to
Australia. Fast-forward 12 months and the landscape
is very, very different. In May of 2018, Analyst
firm Telsyte estimated that around half a million
Australian households owned a smart speaker, a
4900% increase from 2016 sales. Just 5 months later,
and The Voice Report 2018 by VERSA has found
that that figure has risen to 1.35 million households,
or a staggering 13,000% increase in less than 2 years.
It’s not just consumers that are leaning in. Marketers
and communications agencies are acutely aware of
the trend, we get a tap on the shoulder a lot more now
than a year ago! It’s resonating with the C-Suite and
the underlying data truly indicates voice is here
to stay.
Since inception, we’ve worked with many partners to
deliver experiences on the platform(s) and continue to
have discussions both locally and internationally for
new projects, which is tremendously exciting. When
a new venture is launched, no one can predict the
outcome, so we draw comfort knowing that we backed
a horse that was just not out of the gate as yet.
To say that voice is mainstream here in Australia
is premature. It’s absolutely in its infancy, but rest
assured there will be many more smart speakers
under Christmas trees this year wrapped with neat
little bows. Growth looks set to continue with more
than one in three Australian consumers considering
purchasing in the next 12 months, 25% for themselves
and 12% as gifts, with the propensity to buy much
higher amongst early adopters. While these statistics
are impressive, globally, adoption rates have exceeded
all forecasts, with the US market growing fifteen fold
since 2016 (voicebot.ai), suggesting that adoption
could be even greater.
With paper strewn over the floor, boggle-eyed present
openers will stare wonderingly at these objects to
understand what they can do. Questions will emerge,
such as, “I’ve plugged it in, now what do I do?” They
will hark. “The lights are blinking, what does this
mean?” will be whispered somewhat eerily.
It is clear that Australian consumers are largely
uneducated in what their devices can do, with 11%
of respondents suggesting the devices could control
lights or other home appliances — both of which
are achievable with smart home appliances. Thank
goodness for the post-millennials and millennials, as
adoption is being led by these cohorts (decreasing with
each subsequent generation), males, younger families,
city dwellers and higher income households ($100K+
per annum), so no doubt these “young at heart”
audiences will help naturally understand more
as to how to use the devices and impart this on
Christmas day!
While the top five most common uses for smart
speakers vary between Australia and the rest of the
world, music reigns supreme. 61% of all Australian
users most commonly use their device for listening
to music, and 60% for checking the weather. Other
popular genres including the news (49%), movies/TV
(39%) and smart home applications (37%).
In our time with Voice at VERSA, we have recognised
that devoid of visual stimulus, voice-enabled devices
can be quite abstract around their applicational use.
Whilst they come with an instruction manual on how
to use them, it actually doesn’t tell you what to do
with them. Discovery on the platform is one area that
is often talked about at VERSA and with our clients.
The role of marketing still has a massive role to play
for consumers to understand that particular voice-
experiences exist and what exactly the audience can
do with it. Like Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams,
“If you build it, he will come…” Yeah, Nah. This is
where the new-device line up from the front-runners
is really quite interesting indeed.
Having only announced their line-up in September
this year, Amazon announced 70 new products in the
US. 70. That is mind-boggling. We have to remind
ourselves that Amazon’s core business is not in making
products, it’s e-commerce. And now very much so,
v-commerce.
The roadmap now consists of a bunch of new fancy
Echos that are smothered with fabric and better
quality speakers. Early Echos were often considered
inferior to others in market, so Amazon has truly
pegged it up a notch here. The Echo Show provides
additional utility with a 10-inch screen compared to
the previous 7-inch model and also acts as a smart
hub should the internet go down, along with real-
time Dolby sound processing for better audio. The
list goes on with Alexa Auto, Echo Companions
such as sub-woofers, Echo Link and an Amazon
Smart Plug. Coupling this, there were a bunch of
software announcements including new SDKs, new
presentation language for screen-devices offering
greater design flexibility and unique interface creation
which is great for brands.
3736

21. At the Google Hardware event, the
announcement of the Home Hub saw
Google join the multi-modal race available
now in Australia. It looks the part with
4-colour options and a bright 7-inch screen,
smaller in format to that of the Echo Show,
but it does have voice-recognition so users
can customise their experiences along with
parental control mode. An obvious omission
is a camera, however. Other manufacturers
have utilised Google Assistant in their
product line-up including JBL and Lenovo.
The water-cooler chat is that there is much
more to come from Google and other
brands, so keep an eye out.
From The Voice Report, we concluded
that the take-up for both Google and
Amazon brands is expected to increase
significantly when Amazon and Apple’s
devices experience their first Australian
Christmas sales period this year. According
to research firm Canalys, global trends have
seen almost 50% of annual sales happen
during the Christmas period alone. Both
launching 6 months after Google in early
2018, Amazon Echo is currently recognised
by 38%, and is present in 2% of homes and
3% of workplaces, and Apple Homepod is
recognised by 35%, and is present in 2% of
homes and 1% of workplaces. To provide
greater insight into the future, VERSA was
invited to Seattle in October to sit down with
the global Amazon team to Alexa Developer
Advisory Council, an opportunity to sit
down with the smartest minds when it comes
to voice. It’s the TOP GUN academy, where
the goal is to further knowledge of best
practices and input for the future direction
of Alexa.
We’re not allowed to talk about this in detail,
but we can say that the future for voice is
looking truly remarkable with new software
updates, analytical products and very cool
tools for brands to build some awesome
experiences for consumers. •
You can’t talk about it being the End of the
Beginning without talking about the changing
state of our workplaces, our teams, and our culture.
Where we work, when we work, and how we work has
been going through a drastic transformation, and will
continue to do so as we embark on this next chapter.
In order to keep your team happy and be a desired
place to work, staying with the times is more
important than ever.
Company Culture and Core Values
In the last two decades we saw the importance of a
good Company Culture rise to the forefront in terms
of importance for current and potential employees.
Workplaces became more fun, and companies added
more and more perks to keep their teams happy, and
therefore working at peak productivity. Companies
used these perks to their advantage, free lunches,
ping pong tables, breakroom snacks. Then a lot of
these perks became so common that they no longer
served as a differentiator, were no longer a perk, but
rather an expectation.
by Jenn DePauw
Your Business
Model is Not
the Only
Thing that
is Changing
39
Good company culture also comes with a solid set
of Core Values. Carefully crafted Core Values, along
with a great set of perks, were another selling point,
a way to market themselves that made them different
than their competitors. But just like the foosball tables
and Friday beers, the Core Values started to sound the
same from agency to agency.
Now, companies are striving to live those Core
Values, to model them. They are no longer words in
a handbook or painted on a wall. They have, and will
continue to become, more of a living, breathing part
of the company, and will continue to define company
culture going forward. We will see more and more
companies moving to having a mission beyond the
values. It’s more important than ever to see companies
that serve a greater good, and allow the employees to
give back to causes that are important to them. This
allows them to attract clients that believe in that same
set of ideals.
Working Smarter, not Longer
Having a great office environment—lively open
spaces, all those perks we mentioned above, and
a sense of camaraderie that was so far removed
from the traditional, buttoned-up office of the
past—did something else to the agency culture.
We were working longer, we were hanging out and
brainstorming, we had so many reasons to just stay
at the office. But somewhere along the line we have
seen a shift. Technology made it easier than ever to
work from home or a coffee shop, and even dare I say,
your vacation. The line between work and life became
blurry—and work/life balance is now at the forefront
of a happy, thriving culture.
As technology continued to evolve, we learned to
work smarter, not just longer. We see that rates of
remote and embedded workers are rising—and will
continue to rise, 4-day work weeks are growing in
popularity. Our teams are not only craving work life
balance, they are demanding it. How companies react
to these cultural shifts will determine whether they
will rise to the top or sink under the pressure.
The Value of Mental Health in the Workplace
One of the most important shifts we see in the
business environment right now is that companies are
recognizing that the mental health of their employees
is vital to a strong company culture. Programs need
to continue to be put in place to ensure that the value
of a mentally healthy workplace is a fixture in the
cultural framework.
The state of our workplaces will be an ever-evolving
work in progress. As we head into this next phase of
internet technology, the agencies driving the progress
will need to continue to recognize the changes that
will be necessary to keep their companies competitive
and relevant.•
Jenn DePauw is the Managing Director at The1stMovement, a
digital agency with offices in Los Angeles, Denver and Hong Kong.
As a driver of Operational Excellence for companies, she believes that
looking at business operations through the lens of company culture
leads to greater efficiency, productivity, and profitability.