Unlearn the old, arrogant one-way model and build stuff that people want to share.

Decoded co-founder Steve Henry on the need to keep up with developments, while remembering timeless principles of creativity.

ONE ‘H’ IN HHCL, BELONGS TO HIM. And now Steve Henry is in the process of growing his new venture, Decoded to help the advertising industry stay up to date with technology.

Mr Henry was gracious enough to answer a few questions about how to prosper in the creative industry.

Q: How did you get started in the creative industry and why is your latest venture a tech start up and not another advertising agency?

“I started at a little agency called Crawfords above a chip shop in Paddington. I thought I would do it for a year to pay the rent, but got trapped !

My new venture is a company called Decoded which provides digital enlightenment to people through a series of user-friendly, accelerated learning one-day courses.

We have a net promoter score of nearly 80, which is higher than Apple or Google. I set it up because I’m not a techie by nature and I wanted to learn about all that stuff as painlessly and quickly as possible.”

Steve Henry

Q: What are some of the risks and opportunities facing the creative industry?

Steve Henry: Where do I start ? Not taking risks is the biggest risk. Being so scared to take a risk that you end up with no creative industry worth having.

But there’s a long list of risks:

• Not understanding how to use data to help creativity, losing everything; valuable through awful research;
• Not understanding how to work well with clients;
• Clinging to old-fashioned models of business.

Perhaps the biggest risk is that Advertising forgets that it IS a creative industry, and becomes a money-grubbing extension of the research industry.

Q: New technology has amplified old and created new forms of behaviour. How do you decide what to invest time and money in to build skill-sets around?

Steve Henry: I think you need to understand code — because that shows you the underlying structure.

Then data, because that’s the output and it will transform all creative industries.

Then the hardware. It sounds like a lot, but we do 3 one-day courses, one on each topic!

Q: Why should every person in the creative industry be able to code?

“You don’t need to be able to code — you just need to know enough to be able to brief a developer properly. But it is great if you can code — because then you’re one step closer to prototyping ideas. And THEN you’re one step closer to getting rid of research.”

Steve Henry

Q: What qualities do you look for in a strategist or creative these days?

Steve Henry: Same as ever. A strategist needs to be able to get inside the head of the customer. And the creative needs to be able to surprise me, while engaging emotionally with the customer.

Q: If you were to test a candidate’s skills by giving them a small project, what would you ask them to do ?

Steve Henry: Just give them a brief, like they’d get in any ad agency. For a bank or a beer or a car. Then ask them to show me something I’ve never seen before.

Q: What should students and graduates, looking to up their chances of breaking into the industry, focus on, in terms of skills and knowledge topics?

Steve Henry:

Get your head round code. But you can do that pretty quickly — really it’s all about originality of thought and intelligence, which aren’t really skills. You’ve either got them or you haven’t.

Q: In his essay on how to build brands in the digital age, Martin Weigel writes: “There is as much to unlearn as there is to relearn”. What are you unlearning and relearning?

Steve Henry: I think the key thing is interactivity. You have to unlearn the old rather arrogant one-way model and build stuff that people want to share and co-create.

Q: With the way that tech, design, comms and product development are merging, what would you advise 20 year old Steve, if he asked you where to work?

Steve Henry: I’d say … do what I did back then — find a place that really cares about creativity. At any point, in any city, there are usually two or three places that do that consistently.

You want to work there, not the places where they’re happy to do “ordinary” work. (Which will kill your spirit in about 3 years.)

Back then, I got into Dave Trott’s agency GGT. Now I’d be looking at Droga or Wieden.

Work there for 4 years or so then start your own place — where you can launch your own products.

That’s what I did back then. The main thing I’d do differently would be learning how to work closely with developers.

Thank you Mr Henry.