5 Questions with Justin McCammon, Director of Engineering @ Open Influence
5 Questions is a series where we ask CMCI Studio alumni to share insights about the future of design and how to grow as a creative. To learn more about the Studio masters program check the details at the end of this story or visit our website. Enrollment is now open for fall 2019.
This week we’re featuring Justin McCammon, Director of Engineering at @ Open Influence.
Justin graduated from the Studio program in 2011. After graduation, he started out as a Creative Technologist and moved around to a number of gigs, including a few companies he started.
“I’ve bounced around between working at ad agencies, starting my own companies (both startups and consultancies) and working for other startup tech companies. After starting out as a “Creative Technologist” I’ve worked in software engineering roles ever since just diving further down the path to tech enlightenment of becoming one with the robots.”
Justin has built a lot of things in his career but when we asked him what his favorite was, he let us in on a little secret.
“So I’ve actually never said this publicly before so here’s a world exclusive: I’m the creator of @spud_caddell. You might have heard of it as the twitter bot that trolled Bud Caddell briefly in 2013 and the creator of such classic tweets as:”
“It’s certainly not my biggest impact project or even that impressive. But you know what, I still laughed out loud reading through it after all these years. The origin story was that I wanted to do a project that used the Twitter API, NodeJS (which was just picking up steam) and regex (which was a personal obsession at the time). So I ingested Bud Caddell’s tweets, looked for a list of certain business-y words and if I found one replaced it with “spud”. To me, it’s a perfect encapsulation of what I learned while at Studio — find something you’re interested in but don’t know how to do and find a project that’s fun enough to motivate you to learn it while having a laugh along the way.”
5 Questions with Justin
What is the most important lesson you’ve learned over the course of your career so far?
[Justin] How to step back and figure out if something is actually important (rather than just important because it’s in front of you this minute). I get very passionate about my work which is a blessing and a curse — I can “over-care” about things that seem like the Most Important Thing Ever that really aren’t important at all given just a little time and distance. It’s something I still struggle with daily — how to care a lot but about the right things at the right time.
When you look at the current landscape of design and technology what are you most excited about and most concerned about?
[Justin]I’m excited and concerned about one thing in particular which is privacy. The wave of making so much of our lives public that started a long long time ago (think the original message boards of the internet) and has ramped up considerably in the age of social media is starting to crash.
I’m excited it’s crashing but I’m concerned about what will remain when the tide goes out again. Will we demand stronger privacy, encryption and data protections or will we trade it all for convenience and commerce?
When you think about the designers of the future, what do you see as the most critical skills they will need in order to be successful?
[Justin] Stay really, really curious. When the entirety of the world’s knowledge is at your fingertips what will you seek out?
How did your experience in the Studio graduate program impact your ability to be successful in your career?
[Justin] It was an incredible catalyst of personal growth for me. I feel very lucky to have had roughly a year to 100% dedicate myself to learning, experimenting, failing, learning and trying it all again amongst an amazing group of fellow students. It’s a luxury too few people get to experience and I really came out of Studio feeling like I’d found my calling and had the tools to continue in pursuit of it for the rest of my life.
What are some of the most important tools and processes you use in your job right now?
[Justin] Agile (kanban style for the process nerds out there), slack and the incredible work of the open source software community — so much is built on the backs of passionate volunteers it’s just amazing.
You can follow Justin on Twitter here.
Follow the rest of our “5 Questions” series here.
About CMCI Studio
CMCI Studio is a design graduate program at CU Boulder. Driven by a culture of collective creativity and fueled by design thinking, our mission is to transform our students into design professionals capable of leading us into the future and solving problems in a rapidly changing world. Our graduates have gone on to design and lead teams at Google, Apple, Spotify, Uber, Pinterest, Dropbox, Airbnb, Wieden+Kennedy, R/GA and many more.
We are currently accepting applications for our 2019–2020 school year. The application deadline is February 15th. Get more details and apply at our website.
