We recently took a day to focus on innovation, striving to remove barriers for creativity and strengthening our team.
Cool right? Just like “Color Days” in grade school, we broke our regular routine and got to stretch our legs, or in this case, we stretched our thinking. The goal was to ask – what could we do for ourselves without rules and budgets to restrict us?
As a San Francisco digital agency, one of our greatest strengths is the diversity of our individual expertise. Some of us benefit from our previous roles in large international agencies, while others come from small start-ups. More than just our roles, our team is a collection of exceptional people. We have skateboarders, musicians, ex-military personnel, moms, former collegiate athletes, DJs, even a former university architectural professor – all with valuable points of view and dynamic solutions. Our commitment to drawing on these experiences and collaborating across functions allows us to discover distinctive solutions and find value in unexpected places.
My team (GO ORANGE!) developed a custom app to help build internal agency connections. We took a traditionally cold technology, and made it personal. Culture is a funny thing – it establishes a tone and infuses a common understanding in its people of how to move a team forward. Solutions that work in bigger agencies can’t keep up with a team like us. What set our app apart from enterprise tools with the same intention was that this was tailored to our needs – an elegant, custom solution to a specific need.
Our day ended with spirited presentations, active demos, functional prototypes, and powerful team momentum. Momentum that we bring to client’s problems.
Just like those “Color Days” in school, we benefitted from teamwork, some competitive spirit, and a little workout. Removing barriers between us has created stronger teams throughout the agency. We can improve the effectiveness of client relationships by tapping into the right people at the right time, often in unexpected ways and yielding true innovation. In a rapidly moving, client focused environment, strong team dynamics force everyone to bring their authentic self and individual experiences to the table – creating the optimal outcomes for our clients.