František Procházka is the type of guy you want on your team. His passion paired with his amazing work ethic and positivity makes him the type of guy you can spend the day with grinding away on new crazy technology project. Or, share a few beers with. For the time I have worked at Bistro, I have never once seen this dude lose his cool. Always positive. Always smiling. When it comes to technology, he knows all. And trust me, I have asked just about every question. He’s like a younger less ambiguous version of “The Architect” from the Matrix, his hands shaping the core of Bistro’s most important development projects.
This attitude has contributed to his success as Technical Director at Bistro. He’s built an impressive resumé of clients, working with brands like Google UK, ŠKODA AUTO, Vodafone, Česká spořitelna, and Heureka.
His history with Bistro goes back to the early days, now becoming one of the pilots controlling the rapid trajectory of the company. Fana is highly knowledgeable, precise and a hell of a basketball player. (He’s shown me up on the basketball court plenty of times) Since I am always bothering him with technical questions, it only makes sense to sit down with him and ask a few questions about his roles and inspirations at Bistro.
T: So, welcome Mr. Fana. Thank you for taking time out of your hectic schedule to sit down with me. I wanted to start our interview with your role here at Bistro. I want to give people more insight on what you do and how important it is to the Bistro ecosystem.
FP: I’m what you call the technical guy at Bistro; the architect of our IT and digital projects. Whether we are working on a client campaign or an internal project… my goal is to take my expertise and push things further: make things more innovative…. precise and even creative, from a technology standpoint. I connect our imaginative creative team to reality. Because of their hard working personalities, sometimes our guys get a little tooooo... creative. I try to bring them down from space... to earth, to ensure whatever ideas they have are doable.
T: So on some levels, you are like a creative liaison?
FP: Exactly. I try to bridge the gap between creative aspirations and what is realistically possible.
T: From what I have observed, you have your hand in just about everything technical going on at the agency, whether it be the coding or general IT matters.
haha. I should. All the guys in the development department are fantastic at what they do. Each have taken the time and energy to properly refine their skills. I am there, streamlining projects to our coders ensuring that expectations are consistently met and exceeded, when the opportunity presents itself. It’s a constant battle of balance. Whether I have a short period of time and we need to deliver a project that's on point, precise, and mind blowing ….or we have a lot of extra time and so we try to innovate and go above and beyond the project’s set parameters.
T: Building off of that. One thing I respect and admire about you is that you are very knowledgeable. You know just about everything about well... everything. Whether I am asking you a silly question about my computer or asking you how to put together a complex campaign, you always know what's up. Where does this come from?
FP: I am constantly learning and trying to teach myself new things. Whether I am trying to better improve my english or pick up on the latest technical jargon. But really this all started around 7th or 8th grade during grammar school. My friend and I were constantly competing against each other. I would spend a day creating a GIF and my friend would see it… and would be like “you son of a bitch” and proceed to go out a create something like my code or something even better. A friendly rivalry.
T: That’s cool that you guys had this early age rivalry, because this in itself pushes you to become good at what you do… eventually great.
FP: Exactly… and over time more and more guys became part of our little crew of coders. We were always competing against each other, sharing knowledge and building off of each other. I would see a friend build websites simply in Notepad when everybody else was using the legendary MS FrontPage. And things like this really pushed me to hone my craft. So when I came to Prague, around High School… and I was ready to make a little money for the important things, food, clothes and... beer. Why not make money doing what I love? So I met up with a friend, Tomas Klenha, who was looking for a coder at the agency Nydrle. And the rest is sort of history. This is where I had my professional start. I have been working with Tom since then.
T: Tomas has shared a couple a stories about Nydrle with me. So you guys have been together for over 10 years?
FP:Tom was actually my neighbor since I was born. We are from the same home town. We go waaaaay back. And it's funny now, because we are both living in the same area in Prague...so we are neighbors again. This friendship that we have developed over the years has grown into a brotherly bond. That's why I am working here, because I trust him absolutely. You will never have a boss like this.
T: So you've been here since the beginning of Bistro?
FP: I was there in the beginning helping with small projects and about 4 years ago they brought me on, full time for Vodafone projects.
T: Moving outside of work, what things inspire you?
FP: Outside of work one of my biggest sense of joys is my fiancee. She is a creative, inspiring individual who is constantly working to make things better. She may even be more creative than me. Not to mention a fantastic cook. The joy and excitement of coming home to her is simply great. It doesn't get better than that. She really makes things much... much more better.
And of course since I am a kid from Krkonoše, so I am always playing some sports. Cycling, squash, tennis and my personal favorite basketball… especially during the summer.
The summer is a great time to take a load off and go cycling, take a trip to the countryside. Being outdoors and throughout nature.
And I am always buying new technology or new creative advertising magazines. I love analyzing the creative ads… how they are executed and what they are trying to communicate.
T: Congratulations on the engagement! Back to Bistro. What things are you excited about in 2016?
FP: There is so much going on at this point. I feel 2016 is going to be a big year for Bistro. We are the biggest we have been…. almost 40 people at the agency. We’ve done so much at the agency, with soo little, I can’t wait to see what we do next with all these creative minds under one roof.
