A search on Amazon shows 62,000+ books on leadership but almost nothing to help creative team leaders build and sustain a creative environment. Creativity and innovation can be delicate and emotionally fraught processes. Leadership theories are helpful, but what do you do when your star designer suddenly starts mailing it in? Or a project team is frozen in infighting? Or one of your designers just can't find their footing in a new project? When you got your big promotion for being an amazing designer, no one told you that you needed an entirely new skill set. Sink or swim, baby. For this session, Sarah B. Nelson gets practical on the topic of creative leadership. From vision development to team alignment, from bottom-up empowerment to top-down intervention, Sarah will inspire you with practical ideas to motivate your team and rouse them to greatness. She will draw on her extensive experience leading creative teams at Adaptive Path and Hot Studio -- and inform the discussion with research and interviews from organizational psychologists, experienced managers, and successful creative leaders.
Sarah has nearly 15 years of experience in interactive media, designing kiosks, mobile, and online experiences for clients in a variety of industries. She has a particular passion for practice development, conducting research into methods for improving collaboration, supporting creativity, and encouraging innovation. Sarah brings a unique blend of creative vision and technical expertise to her work. Her research-focused approach to interaction design has produced successful results for her clients.
Prior to joining Hot, Sarah was a Design Strategist at Adaptive Path. She developed experience strategies for clients like Flickr, PayCycle, Vanguard Financial, and Skype. Before joining Adaptive Path, Sarah managed the creative team and developed the user experience practice at POP, an interactive design firm in Seattle, Washington.
Her past clients and employers include Federal Home Loan Bank, Home Street Bank, AOL Mobile, MyRide.com, The Metropolitan Opera, The Seattle Symphony, The Royal Victoria and Albert Museum, and Vanguard Financial.
A classically trained violinist, Sarah graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy and received a Bachelors of Art from Oberlin College in visual arts and electronic music. While completing her Masters at the Institute of Design in Chicago, Sarah focused her studies on the definition and design of complex multi-modal systems supporting collaboration and communication.
