Paul Merrill Week 8 Application Assignment

Interview: Alan Colvin, Cue Brand Design

I interviewed Alan Colvin, a Principal for Cue, a brand design firm based in Minneapolis. His firm's clients include Best Buy, Andersen Windows, Briggs & Stratton, Jack Daniel's, and Johnson Controls.

Question: How many people work at Cue?

Answer: Two partners, five full time employees (three designers, a project manager, and a studio manager), and one intern. We have freelancers beyond that.

Q: How do you see networks operating within Cue?

A: Our business management is handled by the partners. We both handle employee management. I manage the creative product side of the employees. Our business manager handles timeframes and deadlines for our designers. Designers relate with our project manager on creative execution of projects.

Q: How do you see networks operating in the context of Cue and Cue's client base?

A: Ed, my partner deals with the day-to-day contact with clients. We both go to meetings with clients. The way we work with clients is to set up expectations and deliver against those. Creating the right expectations comes more through defining the scope of work and then defining a plan against that, which would be a strategic thing that then comes to life as the creative aspect of the business. My partner manages the strategy aspect, and then I manage the creative aspect. Ed drafts the written proposals and we confer on the specifics of those. Our project manager works on the timing of the proposals.

Q: Have you seen situations in the context of Cue where the formal leader was not the real leader?

A: This is designed into the process. Project management follows up with the client on details around printing specifications and scheduling details. The client or the project manager may take the lead. that kind of ebb and flow happens organically.
    In the design role, a designer may have experience that answers a particular project need that the strategic or creative lead may not have. That's usually a temporary thing where that person comes in and provides an insight that other people may not have. The client may recognize that special insight.

Q: In your role as co-principal, have you encountered a situation where learning more about an employee allowed you to leverage their leadership abilities, internally or externally?

A: That would be akin to what we were just talking about. For example, we have a designer who is very big into blogging and her interest is fashion. Recently we had a potential project with a retail fashion outlet, so we brought her in as kind of a quasi-expert on that topic. One of the ways that was credible is that she has a blog with about a million followers, and that became a really pertinent part of the conversation.

Q: How have any of the networks you mentioned changed since Cue has been in business?

A: At our very starting point, we had two or three people. One of the more dramatic changes was when we got a project manager. We were challenged in covering the overlap between our strategic and creative areas. Before, the two circles were just barely touching. After the project manager came on as a third element - an execution part on the backend - managing people internally, making sure deadlines are met, printed stuff delivers to the right place on time and on budget, accounting for any variables that may change the cost of the execution.
    The project manager role is fairly common now in creative agencies. It used to be called the "traffic" role. They go to meetings to make sure all the right people are talking together and making sure there is some sort of connection between the different roles and functions. Project management has taken on more of the responsibilities from an account side and has had more power in directing the participating parts.

Comments:

I found it very interesting to see the application of some of the network relationship principles in action within a design firm. I appreciate how Alan and his partner Ed have recognized their individual strengths and weaknesses and have built their successful business around that. Alan and his partner definitely run their business based on some of the principles covered in Ibarra and Hunter's article. Alan reflected this concept: "The key to a good strategic network is leverage: the ability to marshal information, support, and resources from one sector of a network to achieve results in another (2007)."

One area I wished I had been able to explore was factors that resulted in employee turnover during their company's history, as Krackhardt and Hanson discussed in their article (1993).

References:

(A. Colvin, personal communication, July 5, 2012).

Ibarra, H., & Hunter, M. (2007, January). How leaders create and use networks. Harvard Business Review. 143-152.

Krackhardt, D., & Hanson, J. (1993, July-August). Informal Networks: The Company Behind the Chart. Harvard Business Review. 113-120.