A Day in the Life of a Creative Consultant

Moving from agencies to the consulting world, a lot of friends would ask me, “What is it like to be the UX Design & Creative Lead at IBM iX?” Well, nothing quite captures the immensely dynamic (at times, crazily roller-coaster-like) consultant lifestyle better than the past 48hrs of my life.

I started my Wednesday morning early with a mad rush to finish building a beautiful presentation deck that captures the stunning UI work we have created throughout the week. We have poured in our hearts and souls to create the sort of UX that would delight the end users, as well as balancing different business needs of our client.

With limited time on hand to get the deck up to a WIP state that’s ready for internal team sharing, I skipped lunch and was feverishly crafting my deck with strong storytelling that would give our design work the sort of love only it deserves.

My empty stomach was hammering at 3 pm like a loud alarm clock reminds me that the best part of the day has arrived! Closed up my laptop, hopped on workmate’s sports ride, and we dashed off to CUHK and gave a class of Tech. Engineer students a taste of IBM Enterprise Design Thinking (EDT).

I took them through the different steps of EDT with practical hands-on exercises that make it such a unique approach that has helped IBM clients to digital reinvented themselves in scale with speed. It was awesome to see these young minds absorbed it all in, and got excited by the power of Empathy. Check out all the fun in our workshop captured in this Boomerang GIF! (Awesome energy, Julia & Sherry, my fellow EDT facilitators!!)

2 hours later, I hopped on a taxi and finished an internal conference call on my 1-hour ride back to the office. I bought a takeaway dinner(or lunch?), and jumped back onto my laptop while inhaled in a delicious Taiwanese chicken rice (anything tastes delicious now haha). The team and I tweaked and pushed the design deck to perfection, all the way till 3 am.

Grabbed some much-needed sleep and on Thursday morning, we did a final rehearsal before arriving at the client’s office. We gave the client an amazing presentation that doesn’t just showcase our beautiful work but also our love and care for our client’s business. Now we all feel like on top of the world.

Stepped out of the meeting room, slipped my laptop into my travel bag, and rush off again. Except for this time, dashing to catch a flight. As of this moment, I’m sipping Martinis right next to the pool in a Siem Reap boutique hotel while enjoying a much needed holiday. (Ok, this last bit is dramatic, and I prefer to relax in a healthier way. But like any story, we don’t mind to add a bit of Jame Bond-ish to it, do we?)

48hrs of real craziness. It’s also immensely fun and inspiring. My transition from the agencies world to consulting gave me the chance to create more impact with Design, and along the way, I get to grow and learn much, much more.

If you ever get the chance to make that switch, I’d recommend you to take the leap. I’d say that especially to the Creatives, as a wise mentor once told me, that “You’ve gotta experience more so that those experiences fuel your creativity.” Of course, You’d have to work harder than ever too. I can only wrap up this sharing with, again, a reminder from Gary Vaynerchuk, “Have you hustle enough today?”

#IBMers #Rock #Awesomeness #WildDucks #Energy #Ambassador #Holiday #DanceSignOff

** This article was originally published directly on LinkedIn back on September 29th, 2017. Link Here >>**

Michael is a storyteller and creative at heart. He is the Global Associate Design Director at IBM iX, the experience design consulting arm of IBM.

At IBM iX, Michael designs smarter businesses through progressive strategy, enterprise experience, and transformational technology. He believes placing humans at the center is the key to impactful business results at scale. An Enterprise Design Thinking Leader, Michael lives every day as a prototype.

The above article is personal and does not necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.