The Future of Communication Technology: Hanee Kim Of Active Theory On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up How We Connect and Communicate With Each Other
An Interview With David Liu
Don’t compare yourself to others. Whether it’s the number of years of experience or skill set, it’s easy to compare yourself to others and feel insecure, but everyone has a different pace, as well as varying strengths and weaknesses. Focusing more on the strengths of my skill sets helped me overcome self-doubt as a designer working amongst superstar designers.
The telephone totally revolutionized the way we could communicate with people all over the world. But then came email and took it to the next level. And then came text messaging. And then came video calls. And so on…What’s next? What’s just around the corner?
In this interview series, called ‘The Future Of Communication Technology’ we are interviewing leaders of tech or telecom companies who are helping to develop emerging communication technologies and the next generation of how we communicate and connect with each other.
As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Hanee Kim.
Hanee Kim is a Senior UX/UI Designer at creative digital experiences agency Active Theory. In her 7+ years of experience in the graphic design field, Hanee has worked for companies like Belkin International, Herman-Scheer, and Honey. At Active Theory, Hanee is a visual problem solver. She ensures that the UX/UI process integrates seamlessly with technology and actively works to streamline the process for all involved. Hanee is ultimately responsible for creating a beautiful digital ecosystem for brands such as Google, HubSpot, Spotify, Audemars Piguet, and Sundance, to name a few.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I’ve always been around art, ever since I was a little. My mom went to college for visual communication in Korea, she taught me and my older sister painting and drawing. I participated in art classes all throughout my teen years. During my freshman year of high school, I bought a skateboard magazine; I was really into graphic t-shirts and the graphics on the skateboard decks. From there, I discovered Computer Arts magazine, which had step-by-step tutorials for using Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. That’s when I knew what I really wanted to do for my career and I started looking into colleges for Graphic Design.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I’m not kidding when I say that Active Theory is my dream company. And I don’t say that just because I work there! I’ve been following Active Theory’s work for a long time because being at a top agency has always been a dream of mine. One of my old coworkers started working there, and one day, he let me know they were hiring. The opportunity came out of the blue and I didn’t think I would get the job, but a few days after sending in my portfolio I was called in for an interview and the rest is history!
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“No experience is wasted.” I was worried switching jobs from a multidisciplinary designer to a product designer would be a setback in the next stage of my career. Instead, I realized I’m able to offer a unique set of skills that I’ve learned at both a small agency and a tech company to my current workplace.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My family and husband all contributed to my success. If I had to choose one person though, it would be my older sister. My parents were struggling financially for a long period of time because of the 2008 financial crisis. I didn’t want to be a burden on them with continuing my education out of town. But thankfully, my sister offered to help with the living costs so I could finish my degree. She also lent me her car and got me my first MacBook!
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I believe in sharing my experiences with others. While I’ve never been super active in sharing my stories and knowledge with a large group of people, I try to share my experience and offer advice to design students and designers who are curious about the work that I create. I also enjoy sharing my knowledge and process with new designers at Active Theory, helping create efficient workflow for both designers and front-end developers, and documenting processes for future hires.
Ok wonderful. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about the cutting edge communication tech that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?
I’ve been contributing to the development of an immersive virtual event platform called Dreamwave that Active Theory started in early 2020. This platform facilitates virtual events, festivals, and online gatherings through the web and even in VR. Anyone can easily access events and festivals through their computers anywhere in the world and meet other attendees from different countries. This way, there are no barriers to people coming together, despite even COVID. So far, we’ve had the opportunity to put on some cool events, like EDM producer and performer Porter Robinson’s most recent festivals. Second Sky and Secret Sky were both incredibly successful, with over 210,000 attendees across festivals. We also built a museum for Xbox’s 20th anniversary, which attracted millions to look back at Xbox’s last 20 years and their own player history. Our microverse for the Cardano Summit 2021 attracted more than 140,000 users from 180+ countries to explore, connect, and learn about the latest in Cardano’s blockchain technology. These events are ‘microverses,’ digital spaces in the metaverse that communities can continue to come back to, whether they want to connect, celebrate, learn, and/or explore!
How do you think this might change the world?
We don’t know how long the pandemic will last or when it will end, but as the world is beginning to open up, hybrid events — virtual and in person — are on the rise. Dreamwave enables audiences to enjoy events through the web without having to physically attend the event. It’s amazing to think that this technology removes barriers and makes events and connections accessible to so many people around the world. We see introverts come to life, time zones lose importance, and connections made meaningful in these virtual worlds.
Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?
The metaverse, just like the internet, is a place where people can find communities connected over shared interests. The upsides are as tremendous as the possibilities. But with any sort of technology, it’s important to note that there are inherent risks. Whether you’re meeting someone in the real world or online, it’s important to be vigilant.
Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?
Back in late 2019, we had a small virtual classroom project that got us started thinking about expanding the technology to be used as a virtual events platform and the pandemic pretty much accelerated the production.
What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?
It’s currently set for social gatherings like events and festivals. Creating a virtual space for social media like Instagram could potentially lead to widespread adoption. There is an increasing focus on virtual events, but the concept of “virtual” still evades a broader audience (who participate in social media daily). By taking a daily activity like social media engagement into the space, there is huge potential for adoption and expansion just waiting to be taken advantage of.
The pandemic has changed so many things about the way we behave. One of them of course, is how we work and how we communicate in our work. How do you think your innovation might be able to address the new needs that have arisen as a result of the pandemic?
I think our innovation could be utilized to address the change in office culture for remote working environments. I’m not sure how a lot of the companies address this issue of keeping up the office culture without meeting in person, but I’ve been hearing and also been experiencing myself how difficult it is to create an office culture when the whole company goes fully remote. People only send DMs for important work-related questions, and no one really goes on a Zoom call just to chit chat for 3–5 minutes or wants to join “Zoom happy hour” after sitting in front of the computer for 8 hours. A remote office culture can seem somewhat “forced.” I think Dreamwave can offer a virtual environment where employees (in their avatars) can run around their “office” and chit chat with one another without feeling forced to join a Zoom call, and then culture develops authentically as you run into people that you don’t normally get to chat with during the company morning check-in, work through a problem together on a virtual whiteboard, or even play ping pong and other games.
Fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
- Be open-minded and be flexible. Designers should expect the work that you’ve worked really hard on will most likely be revised with client and peer feedback. As hard as it is, you need to remove your feelings from the equation and know feedback is there to make your work stronger, it’s not a personal attack, so try to go in with no feelings attached.
- Experience over school. You don’t need all A’s on your report card. Having a strong portfolio and resume is better than a perfect report card. Having a wide range of experience could help you navigate your career path a little more easily (i.e. size of the company, work pace, creative studio or product design).
- Work smart, not hard. It’s easy to get sucked into the details when designing and I can easily spend 4–6 hours on something very small. You might think you worked hard (which you did!) because of those 4–6 hours you spent on one little detail that most people won’t even notice but those hours might not have been as efficient as they needed to be. Step back and attack the bigger chunks of the tasks first. Get into the details later to ensure you’re meeting the deadlines; be efficient in utilizing your time!
- Don’t be afraid to speak up. Ideas grow out of people’s conversations. Even if you think your idea isn’t amazing, it could lead to a bigger idea by other people adding on, so it’s always worth it to share.
- Don’t compare yourself to others. Whether it’s the number of years of experience or skill set, it’s easy to compare yourself to others and feel insecure, but everyone has a different pace, as well as varying strengths and weaknesses. Focusing more on the strengths of my skill sets helped me overcome self-doubt as a designer working amongst superstar designers.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
Look in the mirror and tell yourself that you’re awesome every day. Positive self-talk can go a long way!
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can find me online here:
You can find Active Theory online here:
https://twitter.com/active_theory
https://www.linkedin.com/company/active-theory/
Thank you so much for the time you spent doing this interview. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success.
Thank you for your time!
