ROLE
Principal Creative Director
RESPONSIBILITIES
I worked across multiple Dynamics 365 products, including our Mixed Reality app suite and Customer Insights, as well as spearheading demos and keynotes for D365 executives.
OUTCOMES
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I lead and managed a multi-disciplinary demo team, crafting stories and interactive experiences that captured the power of Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Mixed Reality. The demos we build scale from labs within Microsoft to CEO boardrooms to keynote presentations, including a demo that led to a huge 5-year contract with PepsiCo.
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I lead storytelling for our Dynamics 365 Narratives team, establishing and applying storytelling frameworks across our Microsoft Dynamics business. I authored keynote presentation and sales artifacts that contributed to 85% sales conversion and increased online engagement.
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I managed our Art & Audio team and worked closely with key leaders to author and evangeliz the Design Principles that aligned our design teams across our D365 Mixed Reality app teams, including Guides, which has become a flagship product with the highest customer satisfaction scores.
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I partnered with the D365 Icon team to develop the MR App icons that work in both 2D and 3D scenarios. The icons were showcased during the Microsoft icon refresh media blitz.
“What are the keys to engaging an audience to foster the understanding that leads to action?”
— Question from our D365 Creative Process Research Phase
CASE STUDY - PROTOTYPING DEMO TEAM
Bridging Tech and Purpose
TEAM
Creative Director - Michael Harnisch
Writer - Michael Harnisch
Engineers - Matt Johnson, Semih Energin, Rachel Rattay, Justin Savino
Storyboard Artist - Brett Ciacco
3D Artist - Eric Youngstrom
PMs - Colleen Michal, Lydia Williams
Product Owner - Michael Tan
Studio GM - Jeff Lepine
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My team was tasked with creating a demo for a meeting between Satya Nadella and the CEO of PepsiCo, showcasing our Dynamics 365 offering with the goal of a multi-year contract agreement between PepsiCo and Microsoft.
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Using our Demo principles as a guide, we embarked on a journey of finding the right combination of products and story in order to simply and clearly highlight the differentiated technology Microsoft could bring to the PepsiCo ecosystem. Through our discovery process, we aligned with the Pepsi Account Executives on the pain points PepsiCo was facing as well as the opportunities Microsoft could provide.
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With a quick 3 week turnaround from inception to execution, we worked quickly to storyboard a solution that fostered confidence with the Pepsi account team. We landed on an "end-cap" demo that connected our augmented reality capabilities (Product Visualize) with the Power Platform, highlighting how our 'low-code, no-code' software could empower PepsiCo to streamline workflows and boost workforce efficiency.
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The "top-to-top" meeting ended with a 5-year agreement worth hundreds of millions of dollars, a rousing success for Microsoft, Dynamics365, the Pepsi account team, and our Demo team.
Storyboards allowed us to quickly align with our partners on the flow of the story and the scope of the technical work that would be required to create and asset list, build, and debug within the tight timeline.
Our goal was to showcase the transformative potential of Dynamics 365—how data, cutting-edge apps, and the flexibility of the Power Platform can drive business success. We collaborated closely with the Product Visualize product owner to create a compelling story that could be seamlessly delivered in a live demo, in the very room where Satya and the PepsiCo CEO would meet.
The size, shape, and orientation of the room would also come into play to ensure perfect execution of the story with our audience in the room. We choreographed the entire demo to mitigate risk.
Agility was key - when the focus shifted to "Bubly," our responsive demo team quickly adapted, making targeted updates based on the Pepsi account team's feedback—ensuring the presentation was perfectly tailored to their needs.
It was crystal clear in the demo that the data was real and easily connected through our Dynamics offering. The Power App visuals were intentionally kept simple to highlight how easily anyone can create an app that boosts workforce efficiency. In this case, the app bridged communication between an end-cap salesperson and the person responsible for building and installing it.
LEARNINGS
Technology Alone Doesn’t Close Deals
Stories that make complex technical solutions easy for non-technical audiences to grasp are game-changers for closing business deals. Companies are focused on solving workflow inefficiencies and boosting profits—not just the “cool factor” of new tech. Clear, relatable narratives show how technology directly addresses their biggest challenges, driving real business impact.
Real-time Code Supersedes Flashiness
We focused on leveraging real-time code that would highlight the magic of the Power Platform vs. faking a more curated experience. This was noted as factoring into the final business decision that netted the 5 year contract.
CASE STUDY - NARRATIVES
Storytelling at Scale
TEAM
Creative Director - Michael Harnisch
Writer - Michael Harnisch
Animators - Eric Youngstrom, Ryan Fernan
Producers - Jeff Lepine, Cass Rodriguez, Sofia Rabin
Studio GM - Josh Keckley
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I helped lead storytelling for our D365 Narratives team. We supported presentations for external and internal audiences across the entire organization, with the goal of fostering engagement that would lead to action (read: customer sales).
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Lead our Narratives creative efforts by authoring a Storytelling framework that helps us scale effective stories across Dynamics, from PowerPoint decks to videos to keynotes.
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I authored a framework that was evangelized throughout the org and utilized for all external presentations, such as Microsoft Ignite, as well as sales tools that would be shared with customers. My framework continues to be used as a foundation of design thinking within the Narratives team.
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85% customer conversion rate using Narrative authored artifacts
2020 Ignite Power BI presentation helped set the standard
2021 Business Application Launch Event (BALE) keynote was very well-received
Feedback from business decision-makers indicated they had difficulty understanding exactly what our software did with their data, hindering adoption. Employing an “atom” metaphor and revealing the data as a path to “see” their customers, the tech become much more understood and trusted, leading to an 85% conversion rate for our Technical Product Managers in the field.
During one of the most unpredictable times of the modern business era, before talking about the importance of data, I authored a presentation that likened the Covid era to a road clouded by fog, rain, and darkness, using Microsoft’s D365 offering as the headlights, wipers, and GPS necessary to move forward with confidence.
(Animation created directly in PowerPoint)
As the keynote designer for the 2021 Business Applications Launch Event, I worked directly with Dynamics 365 President, James Phillips, on bringing his story to life. Using a series of connected video slides, James was able to tell the rich visual story at his own natural rhythm, with editable PowerPoint elements that kept the story agile and seamless.
LEARNINGS
Craftsmanship and Attention Matter
Talented sellers get even more energy from good content. I received numerous comments from people that the artifacts we created made them better and the audience more excited. Engagement indeed led to action.
Relatable Stories Create “Wow Moments”
Experiences in which the audience can relate tend to be stickier, more memorable, and more likely to inspire action.
CASE STUDY - MIXED REALITY APP SUITE
Aligning on Craft
TEAM
Creative Director - Michael Harnisch
Graphic Designer - Tim Kviz
Concept Artist - Dylan Pierpont
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Empower every designer on every app team to create meaningful and high-quality assets that are tailored to our first-line worker audience as wells build coherence into our daily workflows.
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Work with leadership across every app team to align on a set of usable Design Principles that can be applied in design reviews and focus testing.
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I ran Emotion Mapping workshops and met regularly with leadership across each app to align on research insights. I used the Emotion Maps and available research to author and evangelize what become our final Principles. True/False questions for each principle were actioned in design reviews to ensure consistent feedback and a coherent app suite.
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Design coherence, development efficiency, and customer scores all were positive impacted by the Design Principles framework.
Working with leadership across all App teams, we landed on these 5 Principles in which to craft the best experiences for our first-line worker audience. Each principle had a set of true/false questions that we used to focus test each potential design. Posters were designed by Tim Kviz and displayed in each studio, from Seattle to Vancouver to Hyderabad.
BONUS CONTENT!
Multi-Dimensional Icons
TEAM
Creative Directors - Michael Harnisch, Paul Cooper
PM - Lauren Keckley
Designer - Sofia Ibarra
Animators - Ryan Fernan, Steven Walker
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Create icons for each D365 Mixed Reality app that comply with the updated Microsoft app standards.
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Create icons that work in both 2D and 3D scenarios, accurately showcasing the value and differentiators of each experience.
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I collaborated with Paul Cooper and Lauren Keckley on the Mixed Reality App Suite icons, which were required to work as both flat icons in Windows and volumetrically in the HoloLens. Sofia Ibarra, the designer who created the final assets, did an incredible job creating a meaningful mark in both versions.
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The icons were incredibly well-received and were the main icons showcased in the media release for the updated Microsoft 365 app icon suite.
EVEN MORE BONUS CONTENT!
First-line Heroes Unite!
TEAM
Creative Director - Michael Harnisch
Artist - Dylan Pierpont
Graphic Designers - Tim Kviz
Colorist - Michael Harnisch
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Celebrate our First-line Worker audience while also creating images that boost morale and echo our video game development past.
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Create "Marvel Comics Group" style comic covers in the spirit of Jack Kirby that showcase the amazing features of our MR Apps and hint at the future of the Power Platform.
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I worked with Dylan Pierpont, our esteemed concept artist, to tap into his Comic Book art skillset and create a series of covers that really highlighted the power of Mixed Reality. Tim Kviz helped supply a few of the type marks and I finished the project by providing color and CMYK filtering in Photoshop.
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We printed a series of posters and stockers that were given away to our team during a morale event, described by several developers as some of their "favorite swag of all time."
“Michael [has a] unique ability to deconstruct complex systems and weave them into captivating stories.”
— Sangya Singh, Vice President, Power Platform Intelligent Automations, Microsoft