Callum Parks
Rice University
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Mitchell Massey, Senior Interactive Producer and Creative Strategist, 900lbs of Creative, Dallas (32.7° N, 96.7° W)

Mitchell Massey is the senior interactive producer and creative strategist at 900lbs of Creative, a Dallas-based experiential marketing and design studio founded in 2009. After earning his bachelor’s degree in cognitive science from Rice University, Mitchell worked in user experience before earning a master’s degree in video game development from Southern Methodist University. As creative strategist at 900lbs of Creative, Mitchell works to understand the needs of different clients to provide personalized solutions. As senior interactive producer, he leads teams in project execution. Mitchell has worked with various companies, including Amazon Web Services, Boy Scouts of America, DXC Technology, Gatorade, NCR, Red Bull, Resideo, Royal Caribbean International, and Visit Seattle.

For the first part of the interview, Mitchell and I talked over the phone. I was presented with a wide array of new ideas and got a peek into an industry I knew nothing about. I live in the Dallas area, so Mitchell was kind enough to set aside some time to give me a tour of the design studio so I could better understand what his job entails. To quote Mitchell, “900lbs is a future-focused interactive design agency with a mission to serve and empower their clients and industry trailblazers.” 900lbs of Creative creates user experiences, and Mitchell let me experience some of these, such as a virtual reality project developed for an airline company’s Christmas party. It was exciting to see so many new technologies under one roof, all being integrated to communicate clients’ messages. Mitchell said the ability to use and integrate so many technologies makes 900lbs of Creative unique, because “it’s not just about the technology, it’s about the story and the messaging.” 

Just as 900lbs of Creative’s services are unique, Mitchell’s path from cognitive science to design is also unique. With a passion for math and technology, Mitchell had an original goal of engineering. While researching companies, though, Mitchell discovered the field of user experience design and loved the blend of psychology and computer science. Our discussion about user experience made me realize what I’ve taken for granted. I always expect there to be a drop-down menu, a search bar on a web page, and readable font. Maybe the effectiveness of user-centered design is why I’ve never thought about something I interact with daily. 

Talking to Mitchell made me appreciate the importance of visual communication. Virtual reality, interactive maps, and animated menus made me think about how communication is enhanced with technology we now have for the first time. Mitchell explained the history of the studio, how it began as a video development company but changed as technology changed. With the pace of technological advancement increasing, I can only wonder how time will change the ways we communicate our ideas.

Highlights from the interview:

What is your current position?

I’m a producer and strategist, and that means that I lead teams of interactive developers and artists to execute projects, and I also help understand the needs of different clients and different industries to create interactive visions before a concept is locked in for development.

When did you envision yourself in your current position?

Well, I knew when I was applying for the master’s program for gaming during my senior year at Rice. So I knew before I graduated from Rice that I wanted to be a game producer or at least a project manager for interactive teams in emerging technologies at that point. But it wasn’t until I got to 900lbs that I knew all the different branches of where my career could go. Right now, I’m onto a path of more into the strategist realm and managing teams of producers. 

Was there someone who acted as your mentor? At Rice or in graduate school?

I had several different mentors at Rice and at grad school. I remember at Rice there was a leadership lab [Leadership Rice] that would do career counseling and profiling. I got to do some great personality assessments and strength finders [with David Peterson, previous Associate Director]. I learned about my strengths through them rather than just ideas about jobs. That was the first step of my journey as a freshman, just identifying my strengths. That was a really big step. Then I majored in cognitive sciences with a focus in human factors and human-computer interaction, and I had some great professors [Phil Kortum, Mike Byrne] in that field. In my job, user experience is really important, so really understanding that empathy for users—how do you make sure the design and experience is meeting everyone’s needs—that was important as well. Then in grad school I had video game production professors. Even here, at my job, I have great mentors [in agency strategy and creative direction]. Right now I’m focusing on learning a lot of the business side of the company, not just the production side, so I’m working with the account management team to look at the business side of projects.

I’m also a cognitive science major. It’s good to meet another, someone who has a career in it.

I originally applied to Rice because I knew I wanted to go to an engineering school. While in high school I originally thought I would be pre-med, and I realized I didn’t want to do that, and I also realized I loved technology. I was shopping for a laptop before I went to Rice, and I was just obsessed with that research and learning about products. I was looking at CES, videos, and all that stuff. I was just really excited about consumer electronics, and I was good at math, so I was like, okay, I’ll do this engineering thing. But then I started researching companies. Google and Facebook were getting pretty big into user experience design at that point. I didn’t even know you could blend psychology and computer science in that way, so when I was looking at schools, I saw that Rice had a human-computer interaction program. That appeared to be the best undergrad track for me. I did one semester of computer science, and then the programming side got a little bit complicated, so I wanted to focus more holistically on experiences.

That’s really cool. What skills do you find yourself utilizing the most in your position?

There’s a lot of analytical thinking. So not just math but, for example, organizing a six-month schedule. Managing of all the different groups. Formulating estimates. There’s a lot of project management skill sets—Gantt charts, estimating worksheets, different software sets. That’s part of it. Another part of it is just communication, understanding different needs of different people. I talk to programmers differently than the way I talk to artists, and that’s all different from the way that I talk to clients. Psychology and communication skills are huge. And then there’s technical skills, too. Understanding how our software engines work, understanding how things are made, and being able to identify issues and anticipate the errors that we might…the risks that we might face and knowing how to mitigate against those.

What kind of projects do you work on?

So, me personally, I work mostly on different interactive experiences using different emerging technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, interactive touch displays, and even just traditional PC and mobile app[s]. I’ve also worked on traditional video, 360 film, all kinds of interactive media. For example, right now, I have a project working on a customer experience center for an IT company. We’re doing some touchscreen experiences for them as a marketing tool for the customers that go into their center. I’m also working on a safety command tool for a major cruise line that wants to visualize their ship and all the safety systems in it so that they can monitor scenarios. I’m also working on other major visualization tools. I’ve worked on some small virtual reality games as well. We worked with a tourism group in Seattle to visualize a new convention center that was being built there, so I worked on an augmented reality tool for that. So just within the last six months to a year, I’ve worked on ten different projects, and they’re always a little bit different.

How much of what you do is the management aspect, and how much is the hands-on development aspect?

I would say probably sixty percent, more like seventy percent, is more overseeing teams hitting deadlines and lining things up for success. I wouldn’t really call it a management…I’m not micromanaging people but just creating a vision for how the project can be delivered on time and helping lead the production. And then I would say another thirty percent is actually looking over the shoulder of an artist and critiquing a design for a certain functionality that it has to have. It really depends on the project and the needs of the project. Some projects are more sixty percent engaged with developers and artists and only forty percent on the management side. So it changes, but I’m not an account manager. Those people are like ninety percent or ninety-five percent client-facing and management or business-oriented. And I’m here to make sure that the art and programming teams reach success on their milestones and deliver the project on time, so I’m very involved with them.

What’s the favorite project that you’ve worked on so far?

That’s a great question. Can I give you three favorites instead?

One was my first project. It was a nature education game for a nature museum here in Arlington called River Legacy, and we created twelve animal-themed minigames for the Microsoft Connect. And just watching huge groups of kids play and learn is really fun. My other favorites would be our cruise line and safety project, and we actually did a leadership training experience for Boy Scouts at a new leadership lab in Minnesota, which was a full cinematic theater experience. We had a touch table where eight kids could play different minigames together and then four projectors covering all the walls to make it feel like a panoramic theater experience with different cinematic and stories.

That’s really cool. It seems like the projects you work on just combine so many things. 

We call ourselves a special forces unit because we can do so many things, and we’re all about different clients in industries. We try to meet them where they’re at. We don’t call ourselves a VR house or an AR house because it’s not just about the technology, it’s about the story and the messaging, so we’re kind of a futuristic marketing agency that focuses on technology but, you know, we used to only do small one-off projects that would maybe be three months, and then they’re done, but now we’re doing multi-year, multi-phased enterprise apps and tools.

What do you feel about the impact of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), and how do you see it going—where do you see it going from here?

That’s something we’re constantly talking about. Virtual reality is proving to be more successful in industry than enterprise settings such as training. There’s a pretty big consumer base, but we’re seeing that location-based entertainment, things like the VOID or a virtual reality arcade are more likely to appeal to a wider group of adopters than just owning an expensive rig at your home. Whereas augmented reality can be powered by a mobile phone, so everyone can eventually have access to that kind of experience. So I think augmented reality is going to be bigger in the consumer market; that’s where a lot of the research is showing it trends recently.

And where do you see the development of mixed reality going?

You know, it’s funny, I think eventually the industry is going to head towards combining VR and AR into one form factor. We’re already seeing the newest HTC Vives [Virtual Reality Headsets] have augmented reality cameras; we’re also seeing AR-powered devices try to embrace VR more. So mixed reality isn’t just blending your real world with virtual things; it’s also going to culminate in one device that accomplishes everything, I believe. Everybody has this vision of the augmented reality glasses, you know, but that could actually be a form factor that could allow both VR and AR. So the best answer I can give you—I think mixed reality will simplify devices. I think it will use multiple senses. I think it will be used in a lot of different ways for different people, and I think it’s coming faster than we think, but there’s a lot of technology hurdles and development hurdles to get through before it’s everyday for millions of people.

I got to try out a mixed reality headset called the Magic Leap. That was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. I totally see so much potential in that.

It’s really cool to see companies like Magic Leap take a ton of energy and investment and ideas and really work on a next gen device. I think that’s huge; they’re embracing developers, they’re embracing creators. You know, from our experience, too, there’s still always going to be the challenge of fidelity and basically that viewing area. How do you make the viewing area on one of those devices as large as possible? So, you know, we’re still a little bit worried about the field of view on that device, but they’ve shown some really cool demos.

What do you think makes your company stand out as a great place?

I think what makes us stand out is that we have certain specific values [passion, empathy, quality, curiosity, adaptability] that really get us trust and results for our clients. We’ve also identified a high growth section in the market [creative visuals for enterprise communication]. We’ve seen other video game studios, or even virtual reality studios, fizzle or have a hard time retaining team members because of the way that they approach business, certain investments that they make, or even just, you know, the marketplace. But I think what we’re doing by serving enterprises’ needs and telling different stories with different tools is a unique combination of things that will continue to evolve and that we’ll be able to scale with it. It’s funny, I actually have a whole “who we are” deck here, so I can talk about who our clients are, what makes us different, all that stuff, but, you know, I think we’re trying to just be very responsive to innovation rather than getting pigeonholed in one area. 

How do you feel like the development of technologies in these recent years, with how fast it’s been, how do you think it’s reshaped the way the company functions and the work you do?

900lbs is ten years old. We originally started as a video development company with two people, and we’ve scaled up to about twenty-five people, and we’ve used game technology for the last four years. So already, even just in the last four years that we’ve even been working with game technology, we’ve seen a lot of changes with game technology. We’ve seen everybody being interested in virtual reality for their marketing, kind of feeling almost less exciting now, because everybody has it at their marketing experiences. So we’re seeing industries really ask powerful questions about what’s going to be useful long-term. Just as an example, I was on a project where we had scoped out a full room to be using Microsoft Kinect and then Microsoft kills support for the Kinect. So even that fast, technology can shut down or stop being in use. So it’s changed a lot since I’ve been here, but we are seeing some clear trends and directions we can continue to work off of. 

What are some of those big changes that you see happening in the next five years?

The next five years? The things that get us excited are 5G technologies. 5G is going to help with location-based experiences because GPS will be powerful enough to track people indoor[s] at a very high fidelity. We’re also seeing improvements in projection technology. It used to be very expensive to have high lumen small form factor projects, but we’re actually seeing really cool transparent LEDs. There’s technology like the Lightform, which is using depth sensing to do custom projection on different surfaces at different layers. There’s some really cool visual display technology coming out at enterprises. We’ve seen even just the ubiquity of AR enabled devices: the iPhone bringing AR to so many people, that’s only going to continue to grow.

I want to give you some other answers, too, like I think people are starting to focus a lot on multiple senses. VR’s finally allowing things like haptics. 

Bose, for example, is finally coming out with an augmented reality SDK for audio-only experiences.

So, you can still be on the go, hands-free, and receive information about the world around you. There are things like that that we’re excited about. Blending artificial intelligence, Internet of things, that have been buzzwords for a while are finally combining in the ways that we want that are accessible to developers.

How do you feel, in your industry, you support your own professional growth?

That’s an awesome question. There’s a lot of ways. One way is…I’m insanely curious. So I’m constantly learning, I’m constantly doing my own research and finding inspiration, whether it’s reading technology news, whether it’s looking through design blogs and portfolios, you know, finding inspiration in peers in the industry, that’s one way. Another way that I sustain my own career growth is by actively seeking mentorship. I’m trying to learn more [of] the business side of the industry, so I’ve been working with some of our directors here to understand how we stay profitable on projects, how we meet our clients needs, all those things. I also think another great way is just knowing what a roadmap looks like for you. If you can think three to five years into the future about all the things that you’d like to accomplish, you can create that roadmap for your own learning as well. So you have to aim your sights at something. There are things like meetups; there are industry groups that can support your learning. You can also do the opposite, which is to gather as much related experience as possible that will not necessarily be directly related. As a creator, we draw inspiration from nature. We draw inspiration from video games, movies. So kind of having a range of broad experiences can only bolster your ability to do more dynamic, interesting work.

I am a student who is a cognitive science major, who loves design and those sorts of things. I’m minoring in engineering design. What advice would you give someone who is working in a field like yours?

The thing that I would say first is get your ideas in a visual form. Visual communication is very different from verbal communication in some ways. Sharing a language with artists with visual medium is its own skill set. When I was in cognitive sciences, I was writing psychology research papers and learning statistics or critiquing designs based on usability research. But then if you’re interested in design, I would also add, you know, teach yourself Photoshop, After Effects; seek free resources online that will enhance your learning of those visual mediums. The other thing I would say is identify the kinds of companies that interest you and look at the styles that those people are using. Like really understand their portfolio. I think it’s really easy to get fixated on a brand or the kind of work they do, not really how they do it. So understand how these companies work, what their people do day-to-day, and learn what software and toolsets they’re using. Most people, most studios, will find tools that help them work quickly and effectively, and you can learn to use those same tools as well.

What was your most memorable experience in your career that helped develop you as a person?

Memorable experiences are very trialing times that made me grow. In grad school, I had a project that was getting behind schedule that was having creative challenges, and the way that we responded to that ended up in a better product, so we went through the challenge of getting a team that was off course back on track. And that taught me a lot. Even on the job here, we had one project that, like I said, we had to totally change the technology of the project halfway through; we had to quickly come up with new designs to stay on track with our schedule. Sometimes the hardest times and challenges are actually the most memorable times.

Well, that concludes all the questions I have. Is there anything you want to add?

There’s a lot I could say. The cognitive science program at Rice is really awesome. Really take advantage of the flexibility that it gives you as an interdisciplinary program. At least when I was there, you could really use it to create your own path and find things that you want to blend together. It’s easy to focus on a double major but don’t forget the opportunity to explore a lot of things that are interesting to you. I was always told it’s better to be a specialist and not to be a jack of all trades, but depending on where you want to go, sometimes being a jack of all trades gives you a lot of broad experience you can culminate all together. 

That’s what I’ve been trying to do here at Rice. Just with engineering design and cognitive science. It’s a nice blend.

Like my brother. He’s torn between being in IT and going to law school. And then he found out there are companies that use machine learning to help lawyers win cases [Example Reference: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/05/23/how-ai-and-machine-learning-are-transforming-law-firms-and-the-legal-sector/].

So he was a looking at unique intersections like that that blend his skills together, and it was the same for me. I didn’t want to be in academia, and I wanted to do interesting technologies but not be in entertainment. But then what was cool was usability research really trained me in processes—using processes to drive results—and so being a project manager was like a natural fit for me that I never expected. Things like that—knowing your strengths, knowing not just what inspires you but what’s the work, every day, that you enjoy doing that you can do hours and hours and hours of?

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.