What makes a leader of a digital design team successful? How do they build the best possible team? What was their journey? What is their approach to culture, process and management? What are the core factors that influence their decisions? For a long time Richard Banfield has been fascinated by Digital Design Leadership, so he made it the focus of a two-year long study. The objective of the study was to gain insights into what makes leaders of successful digital design studios and digital product companies different from the rest. He is half-way through the study and so far and has interviewed 50+ studio founders, digital product company CEOs, and product leads. The interviews have already taken him to Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Portland, Boulder, Denver, NYC, Austin, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, Jacksonville, Bristol, Boston, London and Madrid. In this talk, Richard will share what he has learned so far and will begin to reveal the patterns of how we can all mimic this success.
55. “While I don’t get to write as much
code as I used to, I’m becoming
increasingly comfortable and
proficient in my revised role.”
- Bryan Mahoney, Dynamo
56. “I didn’t need to change my
personality, I needed to
change my perspective on
what my role was.”
- Dominic Bortolussi, The Working Group
66. Culture matters, I just
don’t know how much.
79%
21%
Very important.
Culture is everything.
67. “Putting a Foosball table in a
room doesn’t create culture.
Culture is created by the people
in the room at that time.”
- Warren Wilansky, Plank
68. “I realized the culture of the team
wasn’t what I thought it should be and I
realized that maybe that was because I
wasn’t doing anything to shepherd it in
the direction I wanted it to go.”
- Alex King, Crowd Favorite
72. What stress? I live for this
More work
Hit the bar
Exercise
Vacations
Scream and shout
Play with my kids
Other
0 15 30 45 60
73. “As more of an introverted person I
thrive on down time. So I’ll ensure
that I will always have a certain
amount of time during a day or on a
weekend that I can recharge myself.”
- Warren Wilansky, Plank
82. “There’s something lost in today’s
electronic communication and that’s
the human aspect of just trying to
make sure that we understand each
other; what’s important to each other.”
- Karim Marucchi, Crowd Favorite
99. My grandmother, she had that
business for like 40 years. She just
still just shrugs it off. She’s like,
“You’re never gonna know what
the hell you’re doing.”
— Matt Bertulli, Demac Media