Hughes Leahy Karlovic

I had been a member of HLK for approximately 76 hours when my new boss called me.  

E: “You going to be around in April?”

B: “Uh, yeah?”

E: “Okay cool. I think I’m going to send you to Seattle. We’ll talk more later.”

And that was it. Fast forward 6 months and I found myself in a lecture hall that could have just as easily held a Psych 101 class. I attended at least half a semester of Psych in 2001, so trust me I know the rooms. But there was a difference this time. This time, people actually wanted to be there, unified under a single objective: to make our work better.

Throughout the day we spoke (or rather, the geniuses spoke and the rest of us furiously tweeted) about the value of content, the importance of advocating the ridiculous and the true art of typography (think I’m being dramatic? Google Jon Tan and prepare to have your mind blown). Plus, as anyone who has been following the #aea discourse on Twitter knows, we s...

What is going to happen to the digital landscape over the next nine months and how will it impact our lives?

We'll tell you. Welcome to the Smart Department, where we not only practice our amateur clairvoyance but also discuss, research and write about our thoughts on that very question. 

The Smart Department is an ongoing series of articles that will attempt to make sense of this increasingly integrated digital world. Here at HLK we spend a lot of time pondering and discussing the role of digital in the creative industry. And the Smart Department represents our endeavor to document that.

Each month for the rest of the year, HLK will focus on one aspect of the digital universe and author a frenzy of articles dealing with the month’s topic as it relates to our industry and the business value we provide to our clients. We will be addressing topics like content strategy, web design, analytics and measurement, social media, mobile development, UX and PR.

In the beginning it m...