Maybe I’m spoiled from working in an agency where creatives never really had a designated partner for creative assignments, or just call me naive about creative protocol, but I never really thought about creative teams in terms of an AD/CW duo. The art of creativity is not mutually exclusive to this pairing. Great ideas can come from anyone and anywhere and its become more common for agencies to realize this fact.

CPB’s Scott Prindle gave a talk on the role of creative technologists last week at Boulder Digital Works and spoke to this very topic.

The Role of the Creative Technologist

Creative brainstorming should be based on collaboration rather than partnerships. Involving other roles such as a developer, planner, or even your media team can not only help ideas come to life better, but allows for different perspectives than those that may be brought to the table by the classic agency pair.

So why is this not obviously accepted and implemented by everyone? Some blame it on tradition, others on the hesitance to change. Personally, I just think most agencies haven’t had that “Aha!” moment where it just makes sense. And in reality, agencies have been built around this structure for years. It is not an immediate change that can be put in place as simply (or as painful) as an inter-office move.

The way to actually get it done may be left in the hands of the very team I’m alluding to in this post. Copywriters and Art Directors will have to take that initiative to simply invite others such as developers and experience designers to their brainstorms, and collaborate in order to come up with ideas. Or crazy enough, ask their senior creatives to switch up the team for a project or two.

It’s not that hard in theory, but then again…neither is moving a desk.