In our summer poll, we asked members about creative leadership and where your team falls within the organizational structure of your firm. While 35% of respondents said they have one person calling the creative shots, much like a Chief Creative Officer, only 4% said their top creative carried a Chief title. And the majority, at 52%, said that no creative leader at their firm sat at the executive level.
How much is design thinking and creativity a part of your in-house agency offering and culture? Take InSource’s one-minute poll on issues creative leaders care about. We’ll report the results from your peers next month on the InSource website and in our newsletter....
To better meet the needs of in-house creative leaders, let us know what you value most as an InSource member. Leave a comment about what you’d like to see more or less of, and how we can provide a better experience.
In last month’s poll, the majority of respondents said the bulk of their 2015 budgets would be spent hiring external agencies or service providers. Whether offloading work due to capacity constraints or augmenting the skill sets of your internal team, partnering with an agency can be an excellent approach. What do you hire agencies for?
Happy 2015! With a new year comes a reset or a reiteration of company and department goals. As a manager, many of you are likely putting together your six- and 12-month plans for the year. A big part of this planning involves a new budget. How do you plan to allocate the bulk of your department budget this year?
In last month’s poll on managing change in your organization, 62% of responders cited “resources” as their biggest challenge to taking their team to the next level. Being understaffed is one challenge. Having the wrong people on the team can be even tougher to correct. Your weakest links can disrupt an otherwise well-functioning team and sap the spirit of your top performers. How do you course correct underperformers?
In our recent roundtable events in Phoenix and New York City, participants discussed how embracing change in order to grow the department, is often difficult for in-house creative teams. What are your key challenges to taking your team to the next level?
Creatives are a delicate lot. With creativity can also come stubbornness, moodiness, and easily bruised egos. Pushing your team to produce their best work takes patience, experience, and most importantly, time. How much time do you spend developing your team to help them reach their potential?
Remember the days of hard-bound stock photography books? And printed design annuals? And stacks of design magazines to rifle through for creative inspiration? Now that your focus expands beyond the hottest new typeface or trend, what resources do you find most valuable? Aside from industry staples GD USA and HOW, what publications do you read?
While curtailing the volume of email that hits your inbox each day is largely out of your control, employing best practices when communicating via email is essential to a productive day. Keeping emails brief, specific, actionable, and timely invites responses from your clients that do the same. Which email offenses do you find hardest to break at your firm?
Last month’s poll highlighted handling “meeting overload.” A second drain on a productive day for me can be reading and responding to emails. I could easily spend each day glued to my computer fielding the flaming darts hitting my inbox. If you extract time spent attending meetings and responding to email, there is often not much time left to direct the work and manage the staff, let alone think. How does your team communicate?
Running an in-house creative team means directing the creative, managing the staff, balancing the budget, providing client service, and attending meetings. Endless meetings. I’m not sure when it happened, but lately my days are spent running frantically from one meeting to another. Take this month’s poll and leave a comment about how you handle meeting overload at your firm.
More and more design publications and organizations are tailoring their messaging and programming to in-house teams. While once a niche audience, now HOW, GD USA and AIGA all sponsor annual design competitions, exclusively for the in-house crowd. Do industry awards add value or does this type of recognition fall flat in your organization?
I remember when I first graduated with my design degree and set out to find a job. Many companies wouldn’t even see me, saying I didn’t have enough experience. This is, of course, a classic Catch-22 – how do you get experience, if no one will hire you? Now that you are on the other side of the hiring equation, what do you do when resumes from recent graduates come across your desk?
In last month’s poll, the majority of responders said they follow a formal objective setting process set by their HR department at the beginning of each year. While most company’s performance management systems leave something to be desired, the process of reflecting on where you’ve been and where you want yourself and your team to go is necessary for growth and success. How effective is your current process?
With 2013 behind us and the promise of a shiny new year ahead of us, how are you gearing up your team to move forward in 2014? While it’s easy to simply pick back up on day-to-day tasks, now is a good time to reflect on the team’s accomplishments, reset objectives and align the team around a common vision for the new year.
With the end of the year fast approaching, how will your team spend the next few weeks? Are you scrambling to meet end-of-year deadlines or winding down the workload to get into the holiday spirit?
In last month’s poll, 62% of responders said they augment their in-house creative team with specialty skills from agencies. Whereas in the past, sending work to agencies was viewed as defeat for an in-house team, nowadays, leveraging agencies is seen as essential. What does your team do to ensure a successful in-house/agency partnership?
More and more companies are building their own in-house teams. The cost savings and brand expertise an in-house team provides are undeniable. Yet, going in-house doesn’t mean replacing agencies altogether. A mix of the two can yield great creative results. What’s the mix of in-house to agency work at your firm?
In last month’s poll, 67% of responders cited “finding candidates with the right skill set” as the main obstacle to hiring creative talent. With more and more companies building in-house creative teams, you know experienced people are out there – you’ve just got to find them. Take this month’s poll and let us know how you found your most successful hires.
There is no truer maxim than, “A team is only as good as its members.” If you don’t have the right people on board, little else can fall into place. What do you do to attract top creatives to your in-house team? Take this month’s poll and leave a comment with any advice on recruiting.
Attracting top talent to work in-house can be a challenge — often due to misperceptions that in-house environments are less creative or too rigid. Another obstacle can be job titles. Corporate titles are often at odds with industry-standard creative titles, resulting in “made up” titles and muddy role clarity. What titles do the creative leaders on your team hold?
In last month’s poll on workflow efficiency, the majority of responders cited a project management tool as essential to their process. With many digital tools on the market, choosing the right one for the size and needs of your team can be difficult. What workflow/project management tool does your team use?
In last month’s poll, 69% of responders said improving process and workflow efficiencies was a top priority this year. Whether you employ a manual process or utilize a digital workflow tool, getting everyone working in lockstep is often the first step toward running a successful team. What components in your process do you consider essential to running your in-house department?
Running a creative services department takes a lot of energy focusing on short-term goals – namely, getting the work out the door. But it also takes long-term planning, for both individual staff members and the department as a whole. As many of you wrap up goal setting exercises with HR, take this month’s poll and let us know what your team is focusing on this year.
With year-end reviews well behind us, how did you reward your staff in 2012? Do you feel an in-house environment still provides creative professionals with a competitive salary or does it depend on the industry? Let us know how your firm/industry is holding up.
No matter how large, talented or versatile your in-house creative team is, at some point, the need arises to hire an outside agency. How collaborative is your relationship with agencies and how much influence does your in-house team have in the process?
As the summer winds down, preparations for the last half of the year usually include designing the firm holiday card. In our increasingly digital landscape, is a printed greeting card still the norm, or is an e-card more acceptable?
In today’s sluggish economy, support services are often the first areas within the firm tasked with trimming expenses. Yet if your in-house design operation is anything like mine, cutting heads is not a practical solution if the same amount of work is expected to flow through your department, with the same quick turnarounds.
Setting yourself and the people who report to you on a solid career path can be challenging in the creative industry, particularly for in-house creatives. Do you know what steps will get you to the next level and how far you can go? As a manager, you are often at the end of the line.
A successful corporate brand evolves with the company to reflect changing leadership and market conditions. Every three-to-five years, a firm’s messaging and communications systems need a refresh to stay current. How involved in the brand development process is your in-house team?
In last month’s poll, voters cited “responsiveness and timeliness” as the biggest value your in-house creative team adds to your firm. This month we want to learn what poses the biggest challenge or obstacle to the success of your in-house team?
Creating, promoting and earning value is essential to an in-house creative team’s success. As an in-house leader, you need to ensure your department is aligned with what the company values most. What do your internal clients see as the biggest value your in-house team adds to the company?
No matter how buttoned up your in-house creative team is, certain client behaviors have a tendency to spring up and derail your process. In a service industry where the client is always right, the creative team is left to adapt and make it work. What ways has your team managed to deal with unorganized or unruly clients?
In response to last month’s poll regarding how centralized design and brand governance is in your firm, many of you commented that controlling outliers depends on upper management support. Is there strong brand advocacy from the top down in your firm? How well does your firm communicate the importance of your brand to the organization?
The complexities of managing in-house design services often grow with the size of the company. Pockets within the firm are known for buying their own Macs and creating rogue designs. How centralized are design services and brand governance in your firm? How integrated are related functions such as Web design, Multimedia or Presentations?
In an in-house creative environment, my days are often shaped by what fires hit my inbox. Yet to be effective, the team needs to stay out of a reactive mode of operating. What have you found are the most effective tools to proactively manage your studio and meet client demands?
When working with an outside agency, I am always struck by how forgiving the schedules are. Seeing concepts a month or two after the initial meeting is not uncommon. For our in-house team, however, expectations are more akin to the dry cleaners.
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