Get to know the people who make Springbox an exceptional agency. What Inspires You? is a series of posts that offer insight into our talented and creative staff. 

Leland Means

What did you do before joining Springbox?
Marketing executive with Dell — in both Consumer segment and Small & Medium Business segment. First part of my career (2 ½ years) was in heavily analytic marketing involving pricing, profitability, promotions, competitive and strategic market analyses and demand/supply. The second part of my career (6 ½ years) was in brand management, channel marketing, business intelligence and medium business programs. This included brand management for every product Dell sells, e.g. servers, storage, networking, software, desktops and notebooks. The third part of my career (2 years) involved global leadership for SMB and Consumer co-marketing and partnership agreements with Fortune 500 companies.

Where do you find inspiration?
Books (ethics, psychology, economics, biographies, history), music, travel, deep and lasting friendship with my wife, time with my boys, maintaining fascination and perspective on the time in history that we live, and appreciating my rural roots and the opportunity I have been given.

Which websites have inspired you recently?
(I have taken the liberty to go beyond websites.)

First, technology that has positively impacted me most the past year in my personal life has been the impressive interface Netflix has built between the online experience and mobile devices — managing your favorites, queuing up movies, etc. Two years from now — or perhaps even sooner – more and more people in developed nations are going to expect that if a company knows them and identifies them on one device, they will be able to move seamlessly to other devices and engage without much/any interruption.   

Secondly, near field communication (NFC) is a technology whose time is due or overdue. We already highly value our mobile devices and this is an obvious evolution. When in Japan, one sees a form of this in action all over the place with customers transacting simply by waving their phone near turnstiles, machines, etc. to transact. 

Thirdly, gaming and gamification to solve world challenges is an interesting concept that is evolving and in which I would like to see more people participate. For instance, low-power wireless gaming consoles are coming to the developing world in the next couple of years. Seeing how this impacts our ability to collaborate, crowdsource and build global momentum for large-scale challenges will be fascinating. I look forward to playing a part in this — pun intended.


Which trends in interactive are you currently paying attention to?
Aside from transmedia (Netflix), NFC and gaming, it is really engaging to see and participate in the revolution underway (started in 2009) with mobile computers that we all carry around — also called smartphones. Remember when you were a kid and watched Star Trek or Star Wars or The Jetsons (all good in their own special way)? Our smartphones currently have the capability do to tons of the things we saw then as kids. It is going to be thrilling seeing us use mobile devices interchangeably as our remote control, home management tool, communicator, wallet, passport and all-purpose tool. I have a hover car on order, too, with flames and a hood scoop — hasn’t shown up yet though.