3 Questions with Jeff

Audio Transcript

(Background music plays)

Hey, It’s Jeff. Whoever’s listening, I hope you’ll drop me a line…but until then I’ve asked some colleagues to send me the kinds of questions they might like me to answer, and I’ve picked three. So let’s get started…

First Question:

What Kind of work are you interested in? 

This one could spiral into a coffee-fueled, hour-long, existential journey…but that’s not gonna help you, and I've only got three minutes here. 

I’ll keep it simple. Interactivity, multimedia, and words are my thing. Experience-based products that help people to do better, live well, and be happier. I’m here for that.

I am both a content creator, and a capable director of content and design work or teams. There’s plenty of other things I’m interested in, but that’s a start.

Next Question:

So you’re creative. What kinds of things do you create?

Well, I can create a lot of different things based on the need.

Illustration, graphic design, web design, a little animation…in the beginning, this was my bread and butter. Along with weekend gigs playing original music and the occasional Van Halen cover.

Strategic Experience Design has a nice ring to it. It implies a little bit of everything, right? And a lot of days I feel like a little bit of everything is exactly what I do. Within that there are very few mediums that I’m unable to work with to build a business case, test a hypothesis, serve an audience, or simply entertain people.

If I’m the only creative pro in the room, just put me in touch with the data and insights and I will write the narrative, conceptualize the features, illustrate the touchpoints, diagram the end-to-end experience, wireframe the components, add a pleasing visual design, tweak the copy until it purrs, write feature articles, storyboard videos…hey, I’ll even write the soundtrack and produce the VO.

I’d rather not be the only creative in the room, and certainly not the only pro. What makes me worth my weight in guitar picks is that I’m a collaborative, cross-functional design leader. 

That means that, whatever your discipline, I’ll help kickstart your Empathy Engine so that your work and mine connect to a human need. 

Some people call that vision, but I think that makes my work sound too nebulous…because I will absolutely create artifacts that help clear the fog of ambiguity. 

I’ll also ask the kinds of questions that drive meaningful insight, and I’ll create a framework for research that helps us find the truth. 

It’s all creative work, to me.

Last Question:

How do you lead? What’s your style?

Well, it’s less of a fixed style and more of an adaptable approach based on who I’m working with, and what we’re trying to do. 

From a biz perspective, most creative leadership is trying to right-size the effort to the team you’ve got, along with the short, mid, and long-term business goals. To Create a roadmap that can actually work. 

From a people point of view, I come from a bandleader background. That means I lead by example; I can play all the instruments of the rhythm section. Guitar, bass, drums, a little piano. I can sing well enough. Similarly, I’ve developed myself as a writer, a visual designer, a storyboarder, and end-to-end systems thinker. I was even an animator for awhile. I have some video editing chops…and in the way, way back, I even did some coding and scripting…enough to appreciate the art of it.

Because of this, I have a deep respect for people who are specialized in their craft, and I have a good sense of how to help people work together cross-functionally. 

I didn’t learn all of those things so I could Do everything, I did all of those things so I could learn.

Okay that’s it, I hope you’ll look around, see some things you like. And you can always drop me a line in the contact form. 

Thanks for stopping by.