If you think you can do a thing or think you cannot do a thing, you’re right.”
- Henry Ford
We’re a bit over four months into the life of Substance. Things are going well… new clients, new projects, new office space, new coffee maker, new opportunities… but before we look ahead to the future, let’s dive into a bit more detail about the idea of the “campfire agency,” and how we arrived at this point. Because if you don’t know the past, how can you understand the present or the future? (Or something about being doomed to repeat it…)
When we embarked on this journey, we set out to create a great experience for ourselves, our co-workers, and our clients. We wanted to share, to inspire and be inspired. As we say around here, “always do better.” So, before we gathered around this little campfire agency we call Substance, the first thing we had to do was decide to build the campfire.
Deciding to Build a Campfire
This was one of the easiest decisions for us to make. Why? We believed that we could.
Like the Henry Ford quote above, and we believe this wholeheartedly, you can’t commit half-way to being a campfire agency. Either you’re going to be open, honest, and true to the idea, or you’re not. As soon as you compromise the idea of a campfire agency, you’ve effectively extinguished the fire. But the difference between believing you can do it and actually doing it is monumental. You have to live what you believe.
We believe in the power of a campfire agency, that it is a way to always do better work, have better communication, and be a better team. When I say “believed,” I don’t mean it like, “oh, sure, that’s a good idea, it sounds creative, let’s do that.” Having it apply only to the “creative” department won’t work. Everyone has to be around the campfire. That means the designers, the strategists, the project managers, the developers, the accountant, and the owners (sometimes all these roles are wrapped into two people). When we signed the lease on our office space, there were four huge L-shaped desks, and a big wall dividing them into 2 groups of two. We destroyed this perfectly fine configuration. At what point would it ever make sense for us to separate ourselves from anything going on in our studio, either mentally or physically?
The campfire is part of our core. We wrote it into our declaration, and we remind ourselves that it is part of our culture every day. We plan on having everyone sit around the campfire, our version of the long table, as long as there are enough spaces. Then, it’s out to get a bigger table (maybe something like the ones they have over at Mother… but less concrete I think).
Stay tuned for Step Two: Gathering Wood. And after that, there’s building the campfire, feeding the campfire and positioning logs, telling stories around the campfire, and making s’mores.
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