One thing is for sure, this industry is brimming with talent. And we need talent in the industry. The pace of change is relentless.
Digital media innovations seem to flow at the speed of imagination, no longer constrained by the shackles technological invention, today’s true creative thinkers are free to focus on the user, their needs, hopes and desires.
The challenge we all face today, is less about how to convince the user to use that new digital ‘thing’, more how to keep up with the user’s insatiable appetite for using new digital ‘things’. This has led to a desperate need for creation of the new. But, I believe, new has to be new with a purpose, not just new for new’s sake, not just new because the old is old, but new because the new beats the old, the new brings real benefit.
In this respect we must never stop learning. Learning from the user and their experiences, learning form the projects we deliver and their effectiveness and learning from the talent we have in this industry and their progressive thinking.
Fortunately some of the talent out there are free with their thinking. Vassilios Alexiou of Less Rain for example.
Maybe 11 or 12 years ago I was fortunate enough to meet up with the Less Rain guys in Berlin. It was a little random I have to say, I’d been charged with finding ‘creative talent’ by the agency I was working for at the time, and bringing back inspiration for the rest of the team. So a trip was planned to Berlin, and with the help of an online translation service (Oh dear!) I emailed a couple of the agencies I respected. A little to my surprise, but perhaps more due to their intrigue as to the purpose (that online translation service again!!) most said – yeah pop in, say hi.
Even back then, and this was around 2000 – there just wasn’t the same kind of creative digital community there is today, the guys were brilliantly inspiring. Obviously talented (that’s a no brainer) but open, willing to chat, happy to impart nuggets of wisdom earned from experience. They welcomed us into their studio. They showed us their work and talked about their thinking. They even took us for lunch and told us the best places to go in Berlin. I reckon that’s pretty nice.
And yes, I’m a Less Rain fan. Always have been and continue to be to this day. So it was great to see Vassilios openly chatting about his view of the future direction of digital on Getty Images Digital Talent. There’s some interesting thinking in his world, some great insight, and certainly a wealth of learning material for us all.
“…Technology is helping us do more, it should also help us do less if, it can…” a great sentiment and a point very well made. Helping people to achieve more with less effort – that’s the point of what we do isn’t it?! There’s a lesson in everything.
