It’s been four years since we attended our last HOW Design Live conference, and we were excited to hear it was in Nashville. A quick refresher, this is one of the top design conferences for creatives and Suttle-Straus sent three members of our Creative team on varying days throughout the week. We had the opportunity to see a variety of sessions by amazing speakers, including the first ever “HOW Women Lead” pre-conference. Here are the top three trends our team wants to share:
1. AVOID BURN OUT
This was a big focus at this year’s conference. Burn out is real and is affecting a lot of creative, along with other industries. This topic was brought up in several different sessions. Patty Lennon mentions, “When you are not doing what you are meant to be doing, you’re going to burn out.” As creatives, it’s important that we are enjoying the work we do in order to stay passionate and innovative, but this applies to all professions.
Jessica Hische mentions work-life balance didn’t seem to be a focus before, but it is now. The shift has gone from “What are you working on?” to “How are you?” Something to consider is what does your typical workday look like? Who are you outside of work? Are you productive working from home, or do you thrive better in an office space where your work and personal lives are separate?
Another speaker, Madison Utendahl says to “take being out of the office seriously, as burnout is so high.” At her agency they stress a work-life balance, in addition to traditional PTO, the entire company is closed for a total of 5 weeks per year. She noticed that even when the company provided PTO, not everyone was taking it, so by closing the entire agency employees were able to step away without any pressures.
2. WE ARE A COMMUNITY
“Community is Crucial. It is a conversation,” said Jadalia Britto-Colgate. “We need to break out of the checkbox mentality.” There is a power in numbers, she says, expanding on bringing team members together and how we can be courageous together and there is validation and support in unity.
Suzanne Kingsbury of Gateless Writing mentions, “Community is not competition. Create meetings to empower each other, as there is so much potential.” Keep in mind how much better an idea or concept could be if the collaboration happened with more creatives in the conversation.
Learning effective communication can be hard and Sara Morgan gave her top four C tips: Be clear, concise, complete, and courteous. She added we need to respect each other’s expertise and practice more transparency in these conversations. As a community we need to encourage each other to do our best!
3. FIND YOUR SUPERPOWER
“Our difference is our superpower,” says Madison Utendahl, another top trend we noticed.
Steven Gates mentioned: “Your skills are all different, so your careers should be too. What makes you different is your superpower, not your weakness.” As you know, there will always be peaks and valleys in your career, and understanding what you love and what you do is how you have a true breakthrough. He was right, you need to find out what you want and need to be happy and put yourself in an environment you feel supported.
Cass McCrory in the How Women Lead pre-conference had a fun interactive activity to write down key words that mean something to us and then narrowing them down to find our top 3 core values. The only way to greater fulfillment is by understanding what your core values are, but also know what the opposite of those are. “Fuel yourself with your core values and find out what becomes possible if you live out your core values for the next year.” I recommend following her to find out what your own core values are.
Again, big thank you to Suttle-Straus for sending us down there! As Andy Vitale said, we need to “Celebrate and amplify success.” and “Be in it together.”
If you missed it, you can watch the top 5 most popular sessions, as HOW provided these on-demand for free following the show: https://t.ly/Y-xzU
