Into the distance by Steve-h, on Flickr
As a part of the #140cuse conference, I interviewed Chick Foxgrover SVP, Chief Information Officer at American Association of Advertising Agencies (twitter, LinkedIn) about creative technologies. Chick is the CIO at American Association of Advertising Agencies, interested in social business practice, collaboration, cyborg evolution, semantic web, art, and is a creative technologies evangelist. Our conversation focused squarely on creative technologies, their evolution and what we can expect to see from creative technologies in the future.
We did the interview over, get this, twitter! I wanted to capture the spirit of the conference and thought there was no better way to do it than via everyone’s favorite information network. I have done a number of interviews before but never over twitter. I found this method to be very effective as it forced me to be very precise with language and questions. Not having someone’s body language or verbal ques to guide the subtleties of an interview made the twitter more challenging than I had initially expected. We had a great conversation and I hope you enjoy it!
joshkitlas Today I am interviewing @chickfoxgrover-CIO at @4As & creative technologies (C/T #creativetech) evangelist for the #140cuse conf.
joshkitlas How are you doing today Chick?
chickfoxgrover #140cuseintrvw Good thanks! Happy to be here.
joshkitlas Great! So…logical first question-What are creative technologies (C/T #creativetech) ?
chickfoxgrover Ha! trick question.;) technologists that work with/in creative teams in creative industries like advertising.
chickfoxgrover but the hard part is what is a technologist, and what is creative
joshkitlas OK. so, to clarify, it is more of a (employee) position than a concept?
chickfoxgrover it’s a position that has emerged with life becoming more mediated thru tech. now becoming more of a standard role
joshkitlas OK so we are dealing with a new position that has evolved out of technological progress.
joshkitlas How did you get interested in C/T originally?
chickfoxgrover As an artist/multimedia producer I got a Mac as soon as they were available and helped design studios…
chickfoxgrover …get started with computers doing design work. Also did interaction design and programming in the CD Rom “era”
chickfoxgrover There was a lot to learn and we had to cast a wide net to find inspiration and information about this
joshkitlas Whats a CD Rom? Lol – Are C/T strictly for media/advertising or are there other applications?
chickfoxgrover glad you asked! Any “creative” industry from film making to book publishing to business viz…
chickfoxgrover …to ubiquitous computing in city planning the applications now are found in many many areas
joshkitlas ok so could we say it is akin to the #bigdata ‘phenomenon’?
Porter_Anderson *ChickFoxgrover of 4A’s Creative http://t.co/XHSkKKVa currently is being interviewed on hash #140cuseintrvw on creative tech. (#140cuse… -
chickfoxgrover bigdata is an important driver for the need for creative tech. Getting complex info into human actionable forms.
joshkitlas Gotcha. I bet you guys are seeing a huge surge in #dataviz
chickfoxgrover Yes its a new area agencies are getting into for their clients. moving out of academia, finance, news rooms…
chickfoxgrover …into experience design of campaigns, in-store shopper marketing and other interactive brand activities
joshkitlas A really dynamic time indeed. What has been your greatest challenge in evangelizing #creativetech?
chickfoxgrover the “two cultures” problem. tech as engineering vs. creative as intuitive expression…
chickfoxgrover …ideas vs production, thinking vs making, strategy vs execution etc…
chickfoxgrover @chickfoxgrover …and the management/team structures still in place that support these false dualisms.
joshkitlas What about your greatest triumph?
chickfoxgrover The @4As CreateTech conference for agency tech folks, business and other creative technologist thought leaders.
chickfoxgrover I didn’t do it alone! It’s the community that’s great. All of you! that’s the inspiration for evangelizing CT.
joshkitlas What is one aspect of #creativetech that you thought would be popular but never took off?
chickfoxgrover Portable combinable document modules with their own functionality, universally readable. (geeky enuf?) &…
chickfoxgrover … better more approachable visual programming tools like HyperCard with expressive natural programming language
joshkitlas HyperCard RIP 
On the flip-side, which one surprised you?
chickfoxgrover how fast mobile developed. or maybe how fast certain modes won over all the possibilities in social media…
chickfoxgrover but it’s not baked yet. Still more to do and explore.
joshkitlas I have to ask you to look into your crystal ball…What is the future of #creativetech ?
chickfoxgrover further developments of “calm technology” all the sensors pulling the info flow into the background…
chickfoxgrover and knowing when we need to attend and when we’re ready to attend to communication, transaction, entertainment
chickfoxgrover creative tech will be about designing these systems
joshkitlas Given our setting @iSchoolSU, I’d be remiss to not as how do #creativetech fit into academia? Thoughts?
chickfoxgrover #creativetech will also be about extensive expansion of expression of delight and sense making…how bout that?
joshkitlas I like that…a LOT! What can someone expect to see at this year’s CreateTech conference? http://t.co/Ohxuhs80
chickfoxgrover academia? managing #creativetech today means interdisciplinary collaboration and exploration! Now!
joshkitlas I think we need to get you up here to teach a course on #creativetech!
joshkitlas Thats about all I have for now. I’m really grateful you were able to carve out some time for us. Any closing thoughts?
chickfoxgrover #CreateTech this year is called “Making=Thinking“- some inspiration for the creative technologist of the future.
chickfoxgrover Thanks for the opportunity Josh!
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