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Learning the language of code empowers a new kind of entrepreneur to make extraordinary creative leaps with their business.
There are many examples, such as Andy Puddicombe who has used technology to bring meditation and mindfulness to the world with his business HEADSPSACE, and Lily Cole who has created IMPOSSIBLE – a way of allowing people to utilise the gift economy online.
Serious Wonder interviewed Mel Exon, the managing director of global advertising agency BBH London, to discover how this group she calls the New Revolutionaries, transforms the business landscape. She explained there are two kinds of New Revolutionary: polymaths and collaborators.
“The polymaths are an extraordinary group. The left and right hand side of their brains work in absolute harmony. They are experts in both creativity and technology. Not only can they code their way out of a problem, they can see and draw their way out of a problem too. The collaborators are another kind of New Revolutionary. They deeply appreciate the power of creativity and technology together, but they may not themselves profess to be experts in both spaces. All of them share a love of learning.” – Mel Exon, BBH London
New Revolutionary Drew Ungvarsky is the executive creative director of GROW – an agency of developers and creatives working together under the same roof in Virginia, USA. His team produces exceptional experiences, websites, apps and tools that people will want to use on the web.
Recent projects include the emotive Burberry Kisses campaign, and the creation of the Madden GIFERATOR. This smart piece of tech enables NFL fans to follow live games and as the games are happening, to create entertaining GIF highlights, using actual game footage.
Ungvarsky: “The crossover with smart technology and creativity is opening up immense and incredible opportunities. One of GROW’s core principles is never to do the same thing twice. Every project we start we almost always have to learn how to do something new.”
Meera Sharath Chandra is another New Revolutionary. Her business TIGRESS TIGRESS is located in Mumbai, India, but operates globally to provide Fortune 500 brands – from Mazda to MTV – with effective integrated communication, centred on award-winning digital creativity. She sees creativity and technology as a single force for change and innovation.
Chandra: “Creativity is the only way you can break through barriers and reach out to an audience. But when it’s supported by smart technology that’s hidden, it makes it all come alive.”
Committed to social causes, Chandra’s pro bono Put A Face On A Book campaign for the charity NANHI KALI, sponsoring the education of disadvantaged girls in India, went viral on Facebook and demonstrates the positive impact that combining creativity and technology can have in the world.
This revolution is just beginning, and understanding the language of code lies at the heart of it.
“For most people the tension is in what creativity is and what technology is. But for the New Revolutionaries, they are one and the same thing. I’m fascinated by all the new ground being broken at the intersection of where creativity and technology meet, and that’s why I co-founded BBH Labs – an R&D unit to explore the new ground.” – Mel Exon, BBH London
FUTURE IMPLICATIONS
The New Revolutionaries are removing the computer screen as a barrier to solving problems and doing business. They make it a seamless experience.
All of them are future-focused and aware of the incredible pace of technological change. Every day they are learning something new. Collaboration is the other essential ingredient to success in this new digital landscape, where the language of code is now the cornerstone of a thriving business.
Exon believes if you have a better than skin deep understanding of coding you actually have better ideas, and you also treat the partners you have inside your business, and indeed the people you work with outside your business, with a greater degree of understanding. Therefore everything works smarter, faster and better. And it’s not complicated to learn how to code.
Aware of its importance, Exon sent her entire team at BBH London to learn coding in a day at DECODED – the business co-founded by New Revolutionary Kathryn Parsons, to demystify the language of code and make it accessible.
Over the summer, Parsons and Exon organised a glittering event to highlight some of the ground-breaking work of the New Revolutionaries.
Photo Credit: BBH London; GROW; TIGRESS TIGRESS
About the author
Massimo Barbato is a writer and commentator on AI and future technologies in the British press and media. His focus is on how we can build a better world. www.artificial-intelligence.org.uk/
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