I’m delighted to announce that Google Firestarters is coming to Austin. Firestarters has always been about combining the most compelling speakers with provocative debate around the most interesting industry issues amongst the most inquisitive and restless minds in strategy and planning. So it’s fitting that we’ll be taking that debate to the most well known interactive conference of them all.
Working with Ben Malbon and his team at Google we’ll be running an event on Saturday March 14th themed on ‘Engineering Strategy’. Firestarters is a key part of the focus that Ben’s team has to deepen relationships between Google and the planning community in North America, and for this event in Austin we’re putting the spotlight on the intersection between UX and strategy, building on the successful events we’ve already held in New York on The New Operating System for Agencies, and Creativity in a Constrained World.
As more and more products and services become digitised we are creating a new context for innovation in which exceptional user experience is increasingly critical, highly desired, yet often poorly executed or misunderstood entirely. As clients build out in-house UX capability, as banks, IT firms, and big management consultancies aqui-hire design and UX talent, and as VCs bring in influential names in experience design are we witnessing a sea change in how strategy and UX need to work together? Where is the cross-over? What can one learn from the other? How should they work together in agencies? Can they sit comfortably together or will one dominate at the expense of another?
As always we have some brilliant speakers from both UX and Strategy to give us some exceptional provocation on the theme:
Oonie Chase – Director of Experience at Wieden & Kennedy
Russell Davies – Creative Director, UK Government Digital Service
Chloe Gottlieb – SVP Exec Creative Director, R/GA
Ian Spalter – UX Lead at YouTube
Ben is hosting the event at the Google Fiber Space in Austin, and I’ll be moderating on the night. I can't wait. The event kicks off at 5.00pm on Saturday 14th March and is invite only but as usual I have some guest passes to give away to readers of this blog. So if you’ll be in town and would like one do leave a comment below or drop me a line.
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