Recently I was told by an acquaintance that they were surprised to hear me talk about my team as “family”. He thought that the use of the term was diminished because it didn’t, in his mind, relate to a place of business. “It’s not a family, so why do you keep talking about it in those terms“. That’s okay, each to their own. But I wholeheartedly and passionately disagree.

As the Director of a business, my team is as important to me as my family. They should be. After all, I ask them to spend more time together than I do with my own family, each and every week. And in return, they graciously spend more time with me nagging them, then with their respective partners. We greet each other every morning, we discuss the latest news, we laugh together, sometimes cry together, eat together. (Thankfully we don’t sleep together). Like most small companies we are embroiled in each others social lives as well as our business lives.

It’s a family.

What perplexes me is why anyone would want to invest their time working in an environment that was anything but relative? Been there, done that, I didn’t even get a tee-shirt. I spent many wasted years working in pseudo-eighties agencies where the only thing that mattered was how much blood you were willing to spill before you ran dry, and inevitably ran away. A faceless business, I can assure you, is not a sustainable one.

Being in a creative industry, the work directly reflects the wellbeing and happiness of the people who drive the ideas, that hand-craft the designs, that painstakingly build the products. A happy family can breed interesting, engaging work filled with passion. Yet the absence of that deep-set connection within the family can equally deliver work which is stillborn and mute. After all, it only takes one asshole at a wedding to ruin the album, right? As the great philosopher Tyler Durden once said, “We are all part of the same compost heap“.

When you make the choice to join a company, you make a choice to become an integral part of its DNA. And likewise, when you leave, your parting should be sweet sorrow. We’ve had members of our clan that have had no choice but to leave and their absence is felt every single day, (you know who you are). But we are better off for the time that they spent helping us nurture and raise the culture of our company. That’s how it should be.

It’s a family.

As the owner of a business, if someone is willing to invest a large chunk of their life under your wing, have the heart to build a nest for them.

But for some, as with any marriage, sometimes it is better to recognise that the ring doesn’t quite fit the finger and divorce early.

A small business that works like a family is there to support each other in tough times, and reap rewards in the good. It is not rocket science. It’s everything your mother and father taught you when you were old enough to dream of either running your own business one day or working in one that respected your talents.

Still for some, a place to work is no place for family. But it sounds like a pretty lonely place to me.

Foreword: Since Steve Jobs ‘retirement of sorts’ pretty much every Mac-Head has had the desire to write about the great man. I thought I would add to that with a recent article which was published ‘pre-announcement’ which highlighted just how his innovation has directly affected myself as a creative, and my company as a whole.

**

Galvin Scott Davis discusses how advances in Digital Media Platforms and Steve Jobs saved his Story:
(From ‘Storyline’ Magazine 2011)

I can vividly remember the phone conversation as I waited for the delay to kick in from Los Angeles. “I’m sorry – the deal fell through… your script is dead”. The words that every writer dreads, words designed to destroy your ambition, your will. It took a few seconds to register what my agent was telling me.

Forget the three years of drafting, the twelve months of polishing on the final submission. Come again? – “What do you mean, it’s dead? How can a story be dead?”, I heard myself mumbling back down the line.

“We’re sorry. That’s just the way it is. You should just forget about it”.

As all writers can attest, forgetting about your labour of love is an implausibility. It doesn’t work like that – you don’t incubate, give birth and nurture a script only to be told that it should be farmed off to the nearest orphanage.

To put some context around the phone-call that I had received – 12 months earlier I had the good grace and fortune to have had my short film ‘Brother’ (NSWFTO YFF Funded) win two US film festivals (Beverly Hills Film Festival and The Los Angeles Silver Lake Film Festival) back-to-back. Call it lucky timing, kismet or plain jam buggery – but they both landed in the same week, and I’d spent my hard-earned to be in attendance.

Within hours of the award ceremony I had secured a Hollywood agent and began the rickety climb to the top of the first peak in a very bumpy roller coaster ride. Within months I had returned to Los Angeles on a whirlwind trip of spec meetings for my feature film screenplay – “Stricken”. A supernatural gumshoe detective thriller – a modernised Raymond Chandler fable with horror undertones (or “Lethal Weapon meets Constantine” as my unyielding agent liked to pitch it).

To cut a long story – the pitches went really well, a deal was set up and a mini-major came onboard the project. I was flabbergasted that this, my dream, could actually happen so damn fast. But then two weeks is a lifetime in Hollywood phone-calls. Ironically, as with all Hollywood stories – they rarely have a Hollywood ending. And so we need only skip forward a mere two weeks and we return to that fateful phone-call that changed the way I looked at producing content forever.

The deal had fallen through – one key person had left the studio and that had put in place a chain of events that would result in the script being shelved. The script was hot; Now, it was not. It seemed to me to be as callous and as simple as that. I took a moment to consider the lead character that I’d developed for ‘Stricken’ – Connor Mew, a pugilist anti-hero that never quits, refuses to stay down. What would he do? Would he let his story die? Or would he dust himself off and go back for more punishment?

CONNOR V/O: “The heavy head of the vintage phone handle rattled on its cradle like a deathwatch beetle foraging for food. Let it ring… ignore the call. It’s bad news. It’s always bad news…”

Okay – so Connor lives in movie-land and talks like he has a mouthful of quarters but I like his sentiment. As writers, we have to deal with rejection at many stages. This was the first time that I had actually found rejection to be the catalyst with which to keep moving forward.

Case in point – The rejection was obviously an oxymoron: how can a story be ‘dead’? A story doesn’t die, does not wither – it simply isn’t read. A story is ‘alive’ the second it meets the page, and lives on from the moment one person absorbs it and commits it to memory.

The defining moment from that phone-call actually came when I hung up the phone and placed it on the table in front of me. As I sat and stared down at my iPhone for the next ten minutes – I realised that the key to taking control of my Story had been in the palm of my hand all along.

Everything about the iPhone screamed “Let it Live”. This was a device that refused to work within the boundaries of normal thinking. It wasn’t a phone, it was determined to be so much more than that. I’d already had some experience with iPhone’s (I am also Director of Protein, a Sydney Digital Agency), having developed some successful Apps, and was accustomed to the thrill of releasing digital products.

So why not “Stricken”?

I stared at the heavy, uneven stack of scripts that wobbled on my shelves which were destined to a life of dust and wanton glances. And I began to look at them in a different light. Were these simply cursory diversions on the way to selling ‘the one’. Or were they actually just waiting for someone to resuscitate them in a different format? The dormant tower of unloved manuscripts on my shelf suddenly began to look like products on a purveyors window display.

CONNOR V/O: “Pick yourself up. Better shift gears, work the angles before I drag you kicking and screaming into the new century”.

It was time to start thinking about my writing in the same way that I approached my business – move with the times, keep ahead of the trends. What the iPhone (and iPad to come) has presented to us as Creators, Authors, Illustrators et al, is a window of opportunity. A digital platform with which to bring our stories to life, to our audiences as we intended them. And more importantly, without prejudice. I’m not stating for one moment that every Tom, Dick and Harry should start releasing digital Apps with their back catalogue – more-so, that at least now, there is the option to invest in ones own work should you feel that passionate about it.

There is a significant investment to be had, I won’t kid you. Partnerships, resources, late nights and cold hard cash. Yet with every fleeting pang of regret along the process I simply reminded myself that I had already invested more than three years of my time in something that would mean nothing to anybody unless it saw the light of day. I would never get that time back, but then that was never the point in the first place, was it? We write for others, not for ourselves. And if there is no channel for others to read our work then we are simply hobbyists with ‘one more great idea’. Lost in a sea of ambitious scribes.

CONNOR V/O: Wake up. Time is running out for you my friend – shadows weigh heavy in your midst tonight. Listless cloaks of nothingness that cling to your limbs

One tweet I received from @LoopForward went a little like this: “#omt @omtconf question for the protein guys, what do you do as the inventor role exactly and how do your colleagues see your role?”

The question was a direct response to a (somewhat gut-driven) referral to myself as a “one-time designer, one-time developer but now resigned to being an inventor in my role at Protein.”

Unfortunately the question was not asked on stage, but I had the fortune of chatting with LoopForward after the event and it was a welcome opportunity to really sit back and assess my role as a Director of a creative business.

There is nothing more fulfilling in this world than being challenged, and nothing more challenging than having to answer the question “who do you think you are?”. It forces you to take stock, pull up stumps and look at what you are contributing to your role in the day-to-day company that you keep.

On challenging the misconception that I was an ‘inventor’ I immediately identified that it was actually a poor choice of words on my part. To some degree – yes, as the director of a business I see my role as being an inventor. As with anyone that takes the reins of a small business and steers it toward the inevitable Grand Canyon of failure or success, at certain junctures you simply have to become an inventor. That is the only rational way that you can succeed… by re-inventing the business.

The more appropriate choice would have been to describe my role as “an author or director”.

It is my opinion that every creative business, at its core, requires an author. Someone who conceives then writes the very ideas (and ideals) with which the business stands upon. And becomes the story-teller to adequately translate that to the team around you.

The day that I accepted that role was the day that I admitted to myself that I was not necessarily the best designer, or developer for my business (or for that matter within my business).

Realising and accepting that you are not as good as others is an extremely important value in creating success with your company. [This is adequately stated in 'The E-myth' by Michael E. Gerber', only addressed in a different way.]

What I found imperative, was to accept that my role was not the same as I had given myself when ‘creating’ my business. But that the newfound role was actually more creative and required more development skills that I had initially employed.

The trick is to utilise this strength and surround yourself with the very best talent to replace you. Yes – I said it… you need to replace yourself in your business in order to excel in your role. It was difficult, but at some point in my business I actually sacked myself as the designer and developer and hired people that were better.

To elaborate, I’d always considered myself a ‘good’ designer and a ‘capable’ developer. I’ve dabbled. And given a wealth of time and a wonderland of slack – I could produce pretty decent results. But that’s not good enough to build the business, the brand, or the stories which I’d like us to tell.

In order to bring my ideas and stories to life, I had to employ the best resources and admit that I could not do it all myself.

At the One More Thing Conference it was suggested by many of the speakers that ideas are worth nothing, unless they are actually created, unless they live.

And that’s the key – get shit done. Create. Invent. Bring your ideas to life rather than let them languish in a well of ‘what-ifs, buts and maybes’.

There is a skill to pulling an idea together, to dragging it out of your brain into the ether, and then seeing it through to the bitter end and watching it form its limbs and walk on its own two feet.

I love coming up with ideas, concepts, stories… but I revel in watching them grow. And I live to see them live.

And that can only happen in a reasonable time when you accept the help of others.

So next time you feel you can do it all. Take a second and look at the team around you – I guarantee that you employed them for a reason… because they are better than you. Not in your role, but in theirs which is no doubt where you started yourself.

Every business needs a director, an author – someone to invent and someone that will guide the team around them to bring those ideas kicking and screaming into the arms of its parents.

Trust me, it’s a beautiful thing.

So… Who do you think you are?

** Footnote: I’m currently sitting on the esplanade in Venice, Italy – where I’m reminded that the most beautiful buildings in the world came from the minds of creative authors. However, they were built by better masons than the inventors would ever dare to be.

I use the ‘E-word’ because there was no doubt that each of the speakers were not simply Devs or Creatives.

Each of them had a story to tell which went beyond keyboard punching and pixel-pushing. Each had taken risks, whether in business, leaving existing jobs, chasing an idea or simply ‘having a go’. Every speaker had in some way shape or form been the instigation and inspiration for a singular goal. To create Apps which we were proud of.

I was a little shocked at the company I was keeping. (It was no surprise that I was the last of the bunch to be asked to speak. Though happy to be a hole-filler when the line-up was this lucrative).

Amongst the speakers were such luminaries as Matt Comi (@mattcomi), the visionary behind the runaway game ‘The Incident’, Russell Ivanovic from Shifty Jelly (@rustyshelf) who was smoother than a peanut butter puree on stage, Alex Johnston from Apps Perhaps (@alexjston) whose OzTV App is the most beautifully crafted guide I’ve seen and Jason Morrissey from Alien Blue fame(@jasemorrissey) who gave a passionate and Codral-fuelled talk which left most in the audience with man-masked sniffles.

* I’ve put a link at the end of this article (and here) to the full Speakers list on the One More Thing website. If I had the energy I’d praise them all individually but best you take the time to look into their work – it says way more than I ever could.

I had decided early on that the subject of my talk was going to be “Discovering the Geek in the Designer and the Artist in the Developer” – something which I have been passionate about for many years whilst building Protein from the split milk that it was in its early days, to the full-bodied milkshake that it is now.

My notes were extensively outlined to give the audience a ‘shake-up’ of how the gulf between Developer and Designer is a pointless one. A gulf which we need to bridge in order to create digital content that is born through symbiotic relationships and not a divorce-settlements.

At the event, early in the day, it dawned on me that I might be a little late to the party… could it be that the very subject I was about to talk on had already been addressed by all and sundry in the room? It seems that the mobile crowd may have already learnt a valuable lesson from the online community. I’ve struggled for many years to address the issue in the online space that Design and Development should not be exclusive. They are cognitive to each other, they work together – but not apart.

My theory has always been this – A designer, by osmosis, should absorb as much about code as possible without becoming a fully-fledged developer. If, as creatives we study the code, we will see the tapestry which creates clean engineering and in turn see the developer as a fellow artist. Likewise as Developers, we should absorb as much about good design as possible and see the ‘formula’ in the design – in turn understanding that a designer is also an engineer.

The best results (in my humble opinion) always arise through both sides working as one. For sure the best work we have produced at Protein and previously at Blind Mice have been when the company as a whole have enjoyed the experience. You can see it in the work, it bubbles to the surface like a spring that has to flourish. Bad experiences, teams in turmoil, caustic clients always result in work which is turgid, stale and broken. It’s as if software inherits the DNA of its parents.

I was preparing myself to address this at the OMT conference. Pacing the location in Kensington where One More Thing was starting to buzz. (Incidentally the venue itself, Revolt Melbourne, was a treat. A lonesome art gallery in the back end of town, like walking into a Ghost Train Ride which led to a smoky jazz hideaway. A perfect atmospheric setting so much more enticing for the audience than a coiffed auditorium).

As each Speaker took the podium, it was evident that the company with which I was keeping had all, without fail, produced works without the issue I was about to address. Each company and App which was presented was perfectly balanced… Every UI on-screen was polished within a pixel of its life. Each App engineered with more thought and care than a Botticelli.

Each App was a success in its own right and each had a story to tell. A story that the creators labours of love were born through a respect for both art and code.

By the time I took the stage I had reworked my dialogue. Could it be that the mobile community were already aware of this issue? Was I preaching to the converted?

Once on stage and past the first five minutes of ‘cotton-mouth’ I found some sort of rhythm (albeit modern jazz), and took some time to let my eyes adjust to the audience beyond the glaring lights.

The more I spoke, the more I could see that the room already knew what I was talking about: Lots of nodding heads, I can only presume that they weren’t dozing off or listening to the Chemical Brothers on their iBuds.

At the twenty minute mark as I rounded up my plea for iOS designers and developers to rally together in a holy war against the plethora of dysfunctional Apps that are available on the App Store, I felt a sense of elation. The room at One More Thing did not need me to repeat myself – Rather, they were one step ahead of me the whole time.

I came away from Melbourne with a spring in my step, we live in exciting times. The iOS scene in Australia is brimming with a talented community that want to collaborate and create innovative and engaging Apps. I only had to look around at the faces in attendance to see that there were any number of people in the audience that could just as capably given a speech as I did (and I am sure more eloquently).

The rest of the night was spent conversing with my fellow speakers and the audience. There was no competition, no sway, no power play on show such as I’ve experienced at other digital forums. Just a genuine excitement about what the future holds. A community that aspires to build new teams and content through advocacy and collaboration.

Exciting times indeed.

One More Thing had the following inspirational pixel preachers – do yourself a favour and become a devoted Follower to all!

http://onemorething.com.au/speakers.html

Mark Tanner (Protein’s lead designer) took his debut shot at Dribbble with the