A lot of times, it’s not the content that matters most, but how you present it. I give you… drumroll… How To Open a Door!
The devil is in the details.
(Thanks to Johan Dahlfors for sharing)
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Wow! Finally we’re here. It took some time. Here is the history of Honesty offices:
Early 2009: Honesty Office #1
Honesty office number 1 was a smallish space (actually a meeting room) crammed into the corner of an architect’s office. It was not big, kind of expensive, but really nice. And hey, it only needed to fit one person, me, so it was nice. I actually like the place a lot.
Late 2009: Honesty Office #2
The second Honesty office was a garage, or a piece of a garage rather, that we rented from an event company. By now the new partners had arrived and we needed a bigger space. I just never realized exactly how fast we would grow. The new garage-office got extremely crowded as you can see in the picture below.
2010: Honesty Office #3
Honesty Office number three was something we stumbled upon by accident. The garage needed a change of the pipe system and we got this place as a replacement. We rented is second hand from a book publisher. This was the office where Honesty went from being a garage band (literally muhaha) to being a real and very profitable agency. The office also had an awesome courtyard where we threw a party or two. Or three.
And Now… Honesty Office #4. Our First Own Office.
Finally… finally, we got a place of our own. Honesty office number four, where we’ve gotten exactly what we’ve been looking for all along. An industrial space in an awesome area with fantastic 6-meter ceilings and enormous windows (see image at the top of the post). And today we’re moving in. After a weekend of carrying tables, fixing the electricity and just generally feeling like Jerry Maguire, it’s an amazing feeling to see everybody moving in and starting work. I think pride would be a good word for describing what I’m feeling right now, and also for what I see in the eyes of the rest of the Honesty family. Yup, pride is the word.
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We’ve been looking for over a year now for the perfect home for my favorite entrepreneurial project, the advertising agency Honesty. It’s really important for everything we do to with the company to project honesty, transparency and creativity, and this place was just spot on.
It’s located in the easternmost parts of Stockholm’s SoFo area (south of folkungagatan), a perfect area for a creative venture. We have the water 100 meters or so away where we can launch our kayaks, a nature reserve a 10 minute mountainbike ride away and even a small ski slope a 20 minute walk from the office. Still it’s no more than an 8 minute walk from Nytorget with great shopping, restarurants, cafés and bars surrounding it.
Even more importantly, the place itself just shines with creativity and productivity. I had the words “loose fitting clothing” in my brief for our new office, by which I meant just that – the place shouldn’t feel like tight pants and pointy shoes that may look good but that gets in the way of creation; it should feel more like overalls. And with a 6-meter ceiling height, enormous windows, a 420 square meter open space, and a really roomy delivery lift going straight into the office, this place made the cut with honors!
As you can see, we’re still have a bit of work to do to get it done, but we’re moving in on monday, so the builders had better work quickly!
Welcome over for a cup of coffee soon and I’ll show you around.
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You could define artistry as “conveying information in creative ways”. Bad artistry does this without evoking much emotion, while great artistry shortcuts its way into our minds by provoking powerful emotional responses in us. It’s no coincidence that deviant art has always scared people in power. To this day we still have countries in the world where “dangerous” types of music and other artistic expressions are outlawed. The most powerful leaders in history, both political and in business, have also understood and utilized the power of great artistry to reach their goals. For better or for worse, they have all been great artists.
If I break down my own work into basic pieces, it consists of collecting information from many walks of life (with technology being a particular favorite walk), connecting this information into patterns (aka ideas) and conveying these patterns in artistic ways that include speaking from the stage, writing thought provocing texts and delivering different kinds of live presentations; all in an effort to inspire people to take action (and, on a good day, pay me money out of gratitude).
When looking at these three C’s of collect, connect, convey; I realize that many people have access to precisely the same information I do. Much more so today than, say, 50 years ago. Fewer, but still a decent number of people probably see the same patterns and make the same connections I do. Perhaps then, the key differentiating factor whenever I’ve fared well in my ventures, has been in the artistry of presenting these ideas so that they have triggered the strongest emotional response?
While this might sound like a depressing concept, that “it’s not about the product but about the salesman”, I think that it’s really not. An idea is only useful when realized, and that takes inspiration and energy. If I can conjure that out of thin air, it’s nothing short of magic.
And if this is the case, then I’m not an ad guy, a technology nerd or even an entrepreneur first. I’m an artist. On a stage. In the spotlight. Getting business leaders and marketing managers to get out of their chairs and hit the dance floor.
I’m an artist. There. I said it.
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They say you can get away with anything with a little charm. There is some truth to that. Of course we are all much more willing to cut a brand some more slack if we meet a really cool, charming and friendly person when something goes wrong and if that person treats us like royalty. Usually we call this “great customer service”.
But what if we don’t meet anybody and instead get a letter of apology sent to us from a distance? Sure, the text in the letter can take the brand some way, but what about the visual expression? Can a letter of apology look so good and charming you’re willing to forgive just about anything? I’ll let you be the judge. Let me show you an example:
How Ace Hotel Says I’m Sorry
As you know from before I’ve been a fan of Ace Hotel. I’ve stayed at the New York variety several times and at the original Seattle location once (I’ll tell you more about the Seattle experience some other time). For the most part, I’ve been very happy with my stay, but this summer I was disappointed. Me and Sally had just spent a week on Shelter Island (highly recommended by the way), a three hour drive from Manhattan and planned to spend our last night on Manhattan before going home to Sweden. I booked Ace as usual but when I called the hotel from the car on my way over to double check my reservation they had lost the reservation and were quite reluctant to assume the responsibility for loosing it. Instead they offered me to get it back if I paid an additional $80. Needless to say we were pissed.
Upon arrival, perhaps biased by this annoying incident, we also felt that the room we ended up getting was pretty bad. Dark, damp and small, with a window towards a wall. This didn’t make thing better. (Although they did have a cool internet surprise waiting that I’ll post about some other time). We went home to Sweden feeling that our next temporary New York home would be anywhere but Ace.
A couple of days later an email dropped in from the charming (no irony here, she is charming) Valentine who works at Ace, starting out with: “I just returned from being out of town and saw your tweets and Facebook posts — so sorry you had what sounds like a ridiculous fiasco with your room…”. She promised to make it up to me with a complimentary room night (in a nice room this time) on my next New York trip. Things started to feel better.
One day when I came home from work, the envelope at the top of this post rested on the floor. I opened the envelope and found this:
How can you NOT forgive someone who goes through the trouble of sending something like that over to Sweden. This is in my mind the design equivalent of meeting a really cool and charming person who is genuinely sorry for a mistake. This person not only makes things right with something material, but with sincerity and charm. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what matters to most people. We want to feel special.
And the next time you hesitate about using your marketing budget for great design, think about it in terms of customer service. Because really, that’s what great commercial design is.
Ps. Let’s see if the letter looks cool on the reverse side too:
Yes it did.
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