product and user-experience designers who have an instinctive flair for the customer’s experience. And yet, even our most tech-oriented developers must build to enhance, rather than impede, creative application. But all this needs to be coordinated, and for that, we need a new animal. “… the coder represents the foundation of advertising in the digital age.” So here comes another newbie, digitally spawned. We call them digital producers. In the tech industry, these people are often project managers, because all around, there are specialists who need to be coordinated, cajoled and encouraged. But the digital producer is not just a glorified digital project manager. He is the keeper of the vision, the link to the client, and often the talent scout for the project. Digital producers sit at the hub of the project, managing everything from user journeys to market research, from design to the engineering roadmap. To put a fine point on it, the digital producer is the leader of the project. Then there are the digital creatives: the people who dream up, write and subsequently make everything from banner ads to contextual, geo-located billboards, from company web pages to menu apps for quick-service restaurants. At one end of the scale, they handle InDesign or PhotoShop while coding a bit of HTML5 and CSS. At the other, they are artists, engineers, and architects, virtuosos of design and powerful coders. They’re quick and nimble enough to get to a minimally viable product at Silicon Valley speeds while still upholding the brand’s aesthetics and values. And finally, there’s a very rare bird – the inventor. The person who gets technology so strategically and in such a creative way that he brings something radically new. It is she who asks if a tennis racquet itself can double as a coach; if virtual reality can give someone the experience of being at a hotel from half a world away; if kids can be urged to exercise more by linking a favourite drink to a fitness tracker and exercise program. These are people who can see that the purpose, stated or not, of one object is in fact the solution to another problem. These four are not a hierarchy, and treating them as such seems to me to be utterly corrosive in a creative culture. Rather, they are a virtuous circle, each incrementally