The 4A’s Creative Technologies Committee is a forum where agency technology and innovation leaders, creative and strategic technologists and related professionals can explore the present and future in creative experience and communications design and execution.

COMMITTEE MISSION

• Engage the diverse digital professionals in member agencies.
• Provide a forum for knowledge sharing.
• Explore advanced technology’s potential for advancing all creative practices.
• Gather and generate knowledge and guidance for the general membership on digital issues.
• Direct the association’s attention to important agency issues concerning technology advances.
• Provide opportunities for connections to other advanced technology and creative communities.

DRIVING FORCES

1. Technology plays an increasing role in individual’s lives, society and business.
2. Digital transformation and innovation is a business imperative.
3. The technologist has now a front-line role in advertising, brand building, product and organization design.
4. Innovation management theory and practice is modeled on the technology entrepreneur.
5. Marketing is being redefined to fit new holistic models of customer relationships beyond messaging.
6. There are new tribe(s) of professionals creating careers in advertising from data science, computer science, engineering, design and more.

For more information, contact Chick Foxgrover

The 4A’s Social Media Committee exists to legitimize, standardize, and institutionalize the discipline of social media marketing within the broader advertising industry. We will do this through education of the industry, collaboration amongst our peers, and promotion of shared interests among member agencies.

Specific goals and tangible outcomes to be produced will include:

• Act as a resource for our members and thought leader for our industry.
• Define and champion best practices for social media marketing and advertising.
• Inspire, recognize and develop future talent.

For more information, contact Chick Foxgrover

The 4A’s UX and experience design council is a forum for agency user experience designers, strategists, and related professionals to inspire and champion user-centered design in the commission and delivery of all agency work. The committee seeks to accomplish this goal through: advocacy, education, collaboration, recruitment, and knowledge-sharing.

Committee mission

• Advocacy for UX and a user-centered approach within the agency environment
  • As a committee, can we provide tools for:
    • Building buy-in at the executive level
    • Finding ways to support the business case for UX to a client, so that we can get time and budget for those efforts.
    • Selling in UX as part of the pitch process

• Education of internal and external stakeholders of the value and benefit of UX
  • Can the committee help teach what UX is, why it’s valuable, in order to facilitate user research, content strategy, prototyping, testing, etc?
  • Can the committee help with overcoming clients’ as well as account folks’ resistance to primary research?

• Fostering collaboration externally with clients and internally within the agency’s departments
  • Can the committee show how to build partnerships within an agency environment to foster UX?
  • Can we create an “agency playbook” for how to partner with planners, analysts, technologists, art directors, and copywriters?
  • Increasingly, clients have their own UX staff, so how do we partner with our client’s internal UX team? What role does the agency’s UX team play?

• Recruitment efforts to attract talent for the agency world
  • How do we market the value and benefits of working at an agency?
    • We are facing higher competition for talent these days, because of consultancies like IBM, client-side positions, and large tech companies.
  • The agency world is notorious for its high turnover rate, so how do we attract and retain the best talent?
  • Do we hire generalists vs specialists?

• Knowledge-sharing within our group
  • The committee can be a venue for sharing learnings, stories, successes, and failures.
  • To gather knowledge regarding best practices and approach to user-centered client work.
  • Scrum therapy group session
  • Can we generate whitepapers about our experiences?
    • Clients increasingly want agencies to create output faster, smarter, and with less. How do we do that at the agency level?
    • Can we share our experiences with agile?

Driving Forces

1. The UX designer has now a front-line role in advertising, brand building, product and organization design
2. As design increasingly enjoys a seat at the table, it is now more important than ever that designers demonstrate leadership within their respective organizations and in their client engagements.
3. Digital transformation and innovation is a business imperative
4. As technology continues to evolve rapidly, the one common denominator is that we must continue to design with people in mind.
5. Marketing is being redefined to fit new holistic models of customer relationships beyond messaging. Technology and user experience are increasingly part of a CMO’s mandate.
6. There are new tribe(s) of professionals creating careers in advertising from data science, computer science, engineering, design and more.

Department Mission

To recruit and manage the community of digital agencies and professionals

• Ensure that their common issues are discussed and addressed by the association
• Represent their perspective on industry issues is included in association activities and communications
• Engage the digital professionals in member agencies and other industries and practices
• Provide knowledge and guidance for the general membership on digital issues
• Provide a forum for knowledge sharing
• Direct the association’s attention to important agency issues concerning technology advances
• Provide opportunities for connections and networking within the UX community

Initiatives

• Agency playbook
• Newsletters
• Resource sharing
• Quarterly in-person meetings; monthly conference calls
• Whitepapers
• Conferences
• Webinars
• Workshops

For more information, contact Chick Foxgrover