Radical Collaboration
Gareth Kay at Boulder Digital Works
I just came back from Boulder Digital Works and two intense days of teaching, learning, exploring and sharing with peers (some of whom are often rivals) as part of a workshop titled “Making Digital Work.” Or what Executive Director David Slayden calls an experiment in Radical Collaboration.
BDW seems to have struck a nerve and identified a true need: digital talent. We need more young people trained in the skills that our industry now depends on. Technologists, designers, UX professionals, information architects and digital producers remain in short supply and high demand. Just as importantly, those of us well into our careers need to learn new skills and ways of thinking. BDW’s mission is to help on both fronts.
This week’s session, like all the sessions BDW runs, was inspiring, invigorating and exhausting all at once. In fact between the flight out and back, the time change, long days of presentations, discussion and debate (not to mention a few too many glasses of wine at raucous late night dinners) I’m only now recovering.
Still, I wanted to share some of the content. You can check out many of the presentations in slide form and in video form via UStream. Though the quality and camera positions aren’t ideal you can get the gist of the presentations. Personally I think you’d be better off just attending one of the sessions but if that’s not a possibility, perhaps the videos will be of some use.
This time out I also took the opportunity to get up close and personal with a number of instructors and attendees, among them Gareth Kay of Goodby Silverstein; Matt Howell of Modernista; Brian Morrissey of AdWeek (he was actually covering the event); David Slayden; Kat Egan, founder of Exopolis; Michael Tabtabai of Saatchi and Saatchi; Alistair Green of Team One; and finally Kim Laama of AKQA.
Matt Howell at Boulder Digital Works
David Slayden at Boulder Digital Works
I wish I’d had a chance to interview Dave Schiff and Alex Burnard of Crispin who masterfully presented their very cool Brammo case study, but I somehow missed them.
Anyway, ambitions for a full blown documentary gave way to the new mindset that 80 percent and now is better than 100 percent and three weeks from now. So instead here are a few less ambitious video interviews on Vimeo.
The three seen here — Gareth Kay, Matt Howell and David Slayden — are the first of six or so. Eventually I’ll get the others posted and will share links when I do. In the meantime they give you a sense of the excitement and conviction of the people involved. Let me know what you think.
