Please give a brief description of yourself
My career path has been far from linear. I started out in Singapore as an FX dealer, before transitioning into the design and then advertising, after which I co-founded a company called JumpStart Asia which produced television formats like “Asia’s Got Talent”, onto which we layered digital ecosystems of e-commerce, social media, virtual reality, amongst others.
I am currently a UX Lead at GovTech (Singapore) where one of our primary goals is crafting ‘moments of delight’ through innovative and user-focused customer experience design. This is achieved by solving complex problems through user research, expert analysis, prototyping, and iterative collaborative design with users and stakeholders.
Singapore is building the world’s first ‘Smart Nation’ with fuller use of technology to live, work, and play. GovTech is an agency that enhances national capabilities ensuring that the key enablers are in place to lead citizens, businesses, and government agencies to leverage technology to make lives better in a Smart Nation.
What were some factors that helped you decide on the Part-Time Master in Digital Management?
In 2015, I could see the tsunami of ‘digital transformation’ affecting industries like advertising, banking, and insurance, and felt it was time to do a Masters at Hyper Island to understand the world and how it was evolving.
I had done a couple of short courses which I thoroughly enjoyed and decided to do the part-time Masters so I could continue to work and support myself while engaging in the course.
Because Hyper Island is such a well-respected institution I had no trouble getting buy-in from my work at Ogilvy where I was a Global Creative Director. The workload was heavy, but because Hyper Island does not separate the learning experience from one’s work (on the contrary we were encouraged to fuse work with the projects that we undertook) – it was entirely manageable.
What are some specific moments or highlights where you had the chance to apply your learnings outside of Hyper Island?
After 15 months at Hyper Island, I observed a lot of changes in the way I worked, thought and viewed the world – starting from Hyper Island Way Week where we learned about ourselves through tools like the Johari Window, and through agile and scrum ceremonies such as the Check-in, to a strong understanding of digital trends and tools with which to tackle ‘wicked’ problems.
It’s been four years since I completed my Masters at Hyper Island, and without the time that I spent there, it would have been impossible to transition successfully from Advertising into the world of User Experience, where one of my primary goals is crafting ‘moments of delight’ through innovative and user-focused customer experience design.
Any Advice to anyone exploring further education?
Understanding how technology is transforming society and translating this into business impact is extremely important. Digital leaders need to understand the shifts (behavioral, economic, and social) that new technology drivers are creating like big data, cloud computing, mobile engagement, and social networks.
We need to promote collaborative environments, break down communication silos, and migrate towards a collaborative culture and environment which facilitates teamwork. Hyper Island provides you with the skills, training, and tools with which you can develop these understandings.
In the current climate of fear, fake news, and misinformation, Hyper Island teaches you how to apply Masters-level thinking to everyday interactions. For example, I think critically and rationally about all the information we receive from friends, family, social media, governments, news channels, and I believe it is important to break down, analyze and reconstruct your own mental models in order to learn and grow.
This is an interview with the alumni Premika Posaw on how she applied mastery learnings in real-time scenarios and made the transition from Advertising to User Experience.
