We are in the business of Change

As promised a while ago, we thought it would be useful to share the more long term thinking and work that goes into running and developing a design consultancy. In this series myself and other founding partners will be reflecting the past two and a half years, things we’ve learned and also about the future we all are quite excited about. We hope you enjoy this as much as we do.

At the moment of writing, we’ve been working on Nordkapp for exactly 950 days now, plus a few months of planning and preparations. Roughly a thousand days. Something that I am quite proud of is that apart from the daily craft of design, we’ve seen one massive economic downturn and still managed to actually keep on sustainable growth since the day one. Not bad from a bunch of designers still learning how to run a business.

Which leads me to this—If I were to pick one thing we’ve learned during the first thousand days, it is that the only constant is, and will be Change. Things will change, and they will change faster than you’d think. The peculiar aspect of this change is, that it’s quite hard to resist— when the industries, and the world around you is in flux, you have two options—either adapt and evolve, or get left behind. This is something that seems to happen on all scales as well, from micro to macro.

So, how does one adapt to this constant change? Like said, there are roughly put two basic options—either accept your vulnerability and start navigating by a good mix of reason and intuition, or start building walls around you to protect the status quo. By now, you should probably be aware that the last option will work only for so long (hello old content industries) as you’ve got likeminded clients and cash in the bank.

To be more specific, what I believe is the key to survival in the times like this is to embrace the insecurity, and constantly remind yourself of the possibilities instead of threats. Sounds simple, and pretty much is. Keep your spirits up, and your glass half filled. Have faith in what you do, because as they say, if you believe in nothing you will fall for anything.

Of course, there’s more than meets the eye here. For example, keeping up with the change is fairly time and resource intensive for any single individual to cope with, and this has its own reflections on the way businesses should run.

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In the following weeks, I’ll be sharing a few observations on how this all affects the way we run our business, process and methodologies. I hope this will help other people avoid some of the pitfalls we’ve been through, and possibly even encourage more people to start following their heart and do things their own way, just because they can.

Meanwhile, I want you to consider the following; As designers, our job is not just the craft itself. Instead, it’s more and more about helping our clients to envision and invent their possible futures, to plan and prepare for the evolving environment, beyond just art, business and technology. As creative minds, we possess the knowledge and skills to make the intangible concrete. We are storytellers, the catalysts, the sense makers and the agents of Change. For the most part, the future is being made of right here, right now. Be brave, be part of it.. and enjoy the ride.