I had the opportunity to join Hill’s contingent of GCDs, Creative Technologists and Creative Managers who attended the 4A’s CreateTech 2012 conference in Los Angeles last week. 

The two-day conference was comprised of presentations and panel discussions by a diverse group of speakers from Traditional and Digital Agencies, production shops and Technology platform providers.  Discussion topics ranged from FaceBook engineer David Pio’s recommendation on how to make best use of FaceBook’s OpenGraph to former TBWA Chief Digital Officer Colleen deCourcy’s cautionary tale about her transition from Ad Exec to start-up CEO. 

What started as information sharing quickly turned into group support as attendees began to identify common roadblocks in their path to making great digital work.  Commonly experienced challenges include the need to collaborate more effectively with clients - showing work early and  often throughout the production process to make Agile a reality.  Others include the challenge associated with responding to client requests for specific traditional advertising tactics where branded digital experiences may be more appropriate.  All agreed that while change is occurring, there’s still a great deal of ground to cover.

The stand out moment for me occurred when one of our esteemed Group Creative Directors,  Rob Rich, exclaimed “Technologists really just want to make stuff too”, after watching a presentation on physical computing.  Amen Rob!

Thanks to Chick Foxgrover and the 4As for putting on an excellent conference.  We look forward to CreateTech 2013.  With luck, next year we’ll be sharing some successes as well as challenges as we iterate our way into the future of marketing.