For twelve years, I had the pleasure as Element's owner, chief strategist and creative director, of overseeing one of Columbus, Ohio's most respected marketing, communications and design firms. We attracted top-notch talent and A-list clients, and we launched brands, created marketing campaigns and crafted strategic communications that won international acclaim for Element and real, measurable results for our customers. 

Beyond the work itself, Element was known for its unique, people-centered professional environment. We had unlimited vacation days, four day work weeks, cocktails upon request and weekly breakfasts cooked together and enjoyed with coffee roasted on-site.

Life was truly good at Element. A better -- more complex -- life, however, was calling.

It started slowly. On something of a lark, I took a trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 2001. That trip changed my perspective, and would ultimately change the course of my personal and professional life. Later that year, I co-founded an non-profit organization called Asia's Hope. My original goal was to "do the charity thing" on the side, and keep Element as my top priority.

Fast forward a few years and a completely different picture emerges: Asia's Hope is growing like crazy -- 16 orphan homes, 500 kids and 90 staff in Cambodia and Thailand -- and I'm the only person in the States working full-time for the organization. By Fall of 2009, it was clear to me that I could not successfully run both Asia's Hope and Element -- at least not without making some significant changes.

So, on October 25, 2009 I informed the Element staff -- and all of my clients and vendors -- that the agency would be closing. I shut off the phones, sold the equipment and began my new life as Executive Director of Asia's Hope. 

Now, the tables have turned: the majority of my time and effort is focused on providing homes for orphaned kids in Cambodia and Thailand at high risk of sexual and economic exploitation. I have, however, retained the Element brand, and as Element will continue to provide strategic and creative consulting services -- albeit on a very selective basis. 

If you're interested in working with a seasoned communications professional who has recently signed a new lease on life, contact me john@elementville.com or 614.859.9221.

Speaking of passion, Marc Gobé's excellent book "Emotional Branding" recommends the following shifts in perspective from traditional branding to emotional branding. We think he's onto something:

1. from consumers to people: Consumers buy, people live.

2. from product to experience: Products fulfill needs, experiences fulfill desires.

3. from honesty to trust: Honesty is expected. Trust is engaging and intimate.

4. from quality to preference: Quality for the right price is a given today. Preference creates the sale.

5. from notoriety to aspiration: Being known does not mean that you are also loved!

6. from identity to personality: Identity is recognition. Personality is about character and charisma.

7. from function to feel: The functionality of a product is about practical or superficial qualities only. Sensorial design is about experiences.

8. from ubiquity to presence: Ubiquity is seen. Emotional presence is felt.

9. from communication to dialogue: Communication is telling. Dialogue is sharing.

10. from service to relationship: Service is selling. Relationship is acknowledgment.

Passionate: We're anything but aloof. Cool and distant don't interest us. We care, and we want you to care.

Don't get us wrong. We completely like and appreciate "cool and restrained." And at some level, we'd love to set your company's name in gray Helvetica Neue Ultra Thin and charge you 50 grand for the privilege (Okay. I kid. No one really does that, do they?) and call it a brand.

We've just never found clients gullible trusting enough to let us do that. And, frankly, we'd hate ourselves the next morning.

While there's certainly something to the maxim "Less is more," it often translates into less effort, less emotion, less connection. In which case, "Less is just less."

This is probably why we don't get a lot of work from uber-chic, exclusive-for-the-sake-of-being-exclusive, "you should feel privileged and a little intimidated to buy and use our product" types of companies. And that's okay.

Okay. It's not Helvetica Neue Ultra Light. But it's just as pretentious, no?

We're passionate people. We laugh, we scream, we cry, we even dance (some of us better than others). We don't divest ourselves of our personality or our passion when we sit down to work on a project. We think it matters, and we hope it shows.

Element is now tweeting. 

Vibrant: We make an impact, connecting emotionally as well as intellectually.

You know the stereotype. Art students. Graphic designers. All-black wardrobe with accessories, personality and a portfolio to match. Cynical. Terrified of serifs.

At Element, we're not afraid of color, of joy, of laughter, or of serifs. We're very serious about our work, but we don't take ourselves too seriously.

Our people are all really interesting, and have amazing life experiences and personal idiosyncracies, and we're all encouraged to bring our emotions -- not just our intellect -- to the office and to every project. As a result, we tend to attract clients who appreciate our approach and our vibe.

So, when you step back and look at, say, a year's worth of Element work, you'll notice it's not just excellent, it's exciting. It doesn't just inform, it inspires. And while we hate to think we have a "house style," it's hard to deny that we have a certain approach that affects our all of our work. And we think it's good.

We do a lot of positioning and brand strategy for our clients. We tend to put things into words before we put them in pictures. We ask lots of questions about competitors and core competencies, obstacles and opportunities.

The answers to objective questions (e.g. "Who are your top local and regional competitors? How do you beat them and how do they beat you?") come pretty easily. It's the subjective ones that take a little more work.

Questions like "What adjectives describe your product, your company and your personnel equally well?" are more difficult, require deeper reflection and longer discussion. Done right, however, this line of inquiry bears invaluable data that can provide the basis for a really great design project.

At Element, we've identified seven such adjectives, words that describe our staff, our company and the work we produce. Over the next few posts, I'll tackle each of these adjectives one or two at a time.

Element, it's people and the work it produces is: 

Vibrant

Passionate

Personal

Eclectic

Hospitable

Accomplished

Confident

Pressure: a constraining or compelling force or influence; urgency, as of affairs or business

Stress: physical, mental, or emotional strain or tension; a specific response by the body to a stimulus, as fear or pain, that disturbs or interferes with the normal physiological equilibrium of an organism.

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Dictionary definitions aside, I would colloquially describe pressure in terms of "I have a lot to do, but unless everything goes wrong, I can get it all done" and stress as "I have so much to do that, if anything goes wrong, I'm screwed."

I work well under pressure. I work very poorly under stress.

Frankly, I'm feeling a bit stressed today, which is bad. In general, however, I've been moving toward a life of pressure, which is good.

I've seen (and had) employers who, apparently, make a conscious effort to keep their employees under constant stress. Like it's some sort of game in which the employers want to keep some sort of psychological upper hand. I've also known people who have willingly submitted themselves to constant stress to 'get ahead.'

Jeez. Maybe I'm just too lazy, or maybe I'm not ambitious enough. That's fine with me. I'm happy. And I think it's paying off at work.

Element has adopted a model that looks similar to a Results-only Work Environment. The collaborative and consultative nature of our work probably prevents us from creating a truly 'results only' workplace -- no schedule at all (just get your work done) -- but I'm definitely buying into giving my employees more responsibility and accountability while giving them significantly more freedom and free time.

I can't remove all potential stressors from my life or the lives of my co-workers (and clients and vendors), but I can certainly contribute to their well-being by working to create an organization that values quality relationships as well as (or maybe even more than) quantitative results. Sure, we have to pay the bills. But let's be honest. Most modestly successful businesses can 'pay the bills.' So what do these businesses do? They create more bills for themselves by funding relatively lavish lifestyles.

[Caveat 1: I consider myself to have a relatively lavish lifestyle as well. My car is nicer than necessary, and my house is filled with more and better possessions than I need. We eat more luxurious food than is necessary and we drink better beverages than most. My office probably has more toys than we need.]

[Caveat 2: Please don't take this as an assault on any specific businesses or even on 'business in general.' I'm really just trying to work some of these things out for myself, and I'm using this blog as a sounding board.]

[Caveat 3: I'm really not all that good at this stuff myself. I still stress my employees out all the time. Most of it is just being generally obnoxious, but some of it is probably due to occasionally unrealistic expectations that I either permit or directly impose. So there.]

I wonder what would happen if we all just decided that we already have enough? Would the economy come to a screeching halt? Maybe. Maybe not. Reminds me of a press conference I saw wherein a prominent politician was asked "Do you think that, in addition to innovations in 'green technology,' Americans should curb their spending and be content to live at a slightly lower level of general consumption?" The politician answered, "No. Americans work hard and deserve to have the highest standard of living in the world. I don't think that our living standard is the problem."

But what if it is?

Okay. I'm stepping outside of my areas of expertise and influence. I'm not going to waste a lot of time trying to get 'America' to stop spending money and to adopt a more sensible attitude toward work. I am, however, going to keep on trying to do that for myself.

Some business owners will spend a few hundred dollars to get a crappy logo designed, and then they'll spend tens of thousands of dollars to have that crappy logo applied to signage, vehicles and collateral.

It's "penny wise and pound foolish" thinking, I tell ya.

Here's a nickel's worth of free advice: spend as much as you can on the creation of your brand and look to save money elsewhere.

You can have the nicest fleet of trucks, the most impressive offices and even the snappiest web site in your industry, but if your brand -- your logo, your tagline, your secondary graphic components -- doesn't differentiate you from your competition, you're wasting your time and money.

Sigh.

I know this all sounds self-serving, but I'll tell my competition's clients this. Don't skimp on the important stuff.