OOP
our operating philosophy
Purpose. Brilliant Blue’s purpose, the fundamental reason we exist, is to provide ideas, expertise, and solutions to help our clients achieve their goals. We also exist to make a difference in the world. We do this by researching, ideating, determining, & creating – sound and intelligent innovations & strategies – and then implement excellent solutions, deliverables and support.
We provide best-of-breed ideas, strategies and solutions, both creative and technical – in line with the best interests of our clients business goals – using advanced research, creative messaging and data and systems integration capabilities – that offer new opportunities for companies to create growth, and to become more effective, efficient and better as organizations.
We help our clients better connect and build valuable relationships with their customers, that will help them better achieve their business goals. We also want to help our clients better understand their brands, and to act more decisively and efficiently with clearer, fact-based knowledge of their market and their customers "real" needs. By helping our clients achieve their business growth goals, we will achieve our corporate growth goals.
A great organization of individuals. Brilliant Blue is focused on creating a place for people to flourish and to thrive as individuals. We believe that every human being has unique potential, and while working hard to build our business infrastructure and methodologies to world class standards – we seek to create the conditions in which that creative expression can emerge. We highly encourage our people to discover and follow their unique gifts, and to flourish as individuals. We support the process of developing a unique contribution, feeling valued and contributing and of becoming oneself. We promote this through our work. Brilliant Blue is able to attract the best people to work here, because great people are people who are willing to deviate from the status quo, and become leaders who want to work with teams to help invent the future. People who succeed at Brilliant Blue have their own life purpose, and work to fulfill this within an environment of uncompromising excellence, in a relentless pursuit of creating ideas, innovations ,and outstanding solutions towards the achievement of the business objectives of our clients.
Identity. Brilliant Blue’s identity comes not from being a business development organization, but from the pursuit of its purpose and adherence to its values. As a company we are focused not only on what we do, but what our purpose is as a group of talented and valued individuals. We are secure as an organization, knowing that we are intelligently focused on doing our very best. Our teams working together are encouraged to push the tactical, creative and technology applications to the edge and beyond, to come up with big ideas and innovations that motivate consumer and employee behavior, secure in the knowledge that the underlying strategies are sound.
Values. Our key value – Make a Difference. Also, commitment to excellence in contributing to our clients’ key goals, servant leadership, respect, learning, integrity and personal compassion. These are not only ideals to which we aspire, they are standards for action and requirements of our behavior.
We do not seek to impose our beliefs on others, and Brilliant Blue does not require that employees share its values or beliefs. In fact, we encourage questioning and consideration, recognizing that knowledge begins with determination to find truth and clarity. We acknowledge that the human condition is based on the need to achieve success, and a willingness to deviate from the status quo to help invent the future. Everyone in our organization is expected to conduct themselves based on honesty and strong integrity in all dealings. We require that our people adhere to our purpose and values when they act in or on behalf of the company. Brilliant Blue is not a perfect company, but we strive to contribute to the best of our ability, not only to our clients goals, but to the Company as a whole, and to the people and communities in which we operate and can influence, both local societies and the planet on which we exist.
A Commitment to Fresh Ideas & Innovation. Brilliant Blue is dedicated to helping our clients find new and better ways to achieve their business goals. We are dedicated to thinking outside the box, carefully researching all elements to minimize potential risk, and then coming up with fresh new ideas, and ways to create innovation for our clients. We believe that to break through the competitive clutter and to be successful – you must show you have a different and better approach – innovation. Innovation only results when an organization is willing to challenge conventional wisdom. Brilliant Blue is able to attract the best people to work here, because great people are people who are willing to deviate from the status quo, and become leaders who want to work with teams to help invent the future.
A Commitment to Excellence. Our values guide the way we conduct business and are the platform for every decision we make. Excellence is one of our values. Our approaches to business must be systematic, rigorous, focused and creative. We expect to succeed in the marketplace by outpacing both the methods, creative solutions and the achievements of our competitors. We hold ourselves to the highest standards, set by our own sense of what is honest, and aligned with our client’s and our own best interests. We will be honest in all dealings, and reserve the right to advise our clients or ourselves if we believe the basis for strategy is flawed.
Business Building. Brilliant Blue requires that each of its current and future businesses operate excellently and to the best of our ability. We are, "business builders," looking to create excellent, enduring institutions. We view ourselves as building a company, not simply producing deliverables or selling services. Every task presents the opportunity to build a system or infrastructure such that the task will not be dependent on any one person. People who succeed here are not attached to a given role. An identity tied to expertly completing tasks is too narrow: we seek people who find it fulfilling to build excellence and innovation through systematic approaches.
A Creative Brand-Building Organization at the Core. We believe that the core essence of Brilliant Blue is creativity, and we believe this is what our clients expect from us. We are brand-builders, and we believe that a brand is every aspect of the experience. A brand is the visual, emotional, experiential, rational and cultural perception, that a customer, employee, partner, vendor, buyer or stakeholder associates with your organization, product, service, person, or issue. We believe a brand is, "every touch-point in your organization," whether it be visual, functional or informational.
Strong creative is in every step of our approach, from determining creative strategies based on sound research and data, are new ideas that present new innovative ways to achieve goals – and also in visual, messaging, systems integration, software and the creative solutions of applying technologies to achieve goals. We aspire to providing the best brand-building and creative messaging. Our visual creative, no matter what the medium (internet or traditional), must inspire, must create strong awareness, must be highly credible – based on the preferences of our target audience and must be based on sound logic and best-of-breed standards. We look for technologies that can be applied to a strategy or campaign in a creative way. We believe in looking past the norm, and in pushing ourselves to come up with new ideas. Creativity is enhanced by behavioral intelligence, and our teams are free to push the creative to the edge and beyond, secure in the knowledge that the underlying strategies are sound. Our goal is to develop "that visionary idea," that will keep our agency "in the business of making a difference, not just making money." Our focus is to find ideas that will create a sea change and help our clients become the leader, not a follower.
Sound Strategies Based on Fact, Intelligence, and Research. We commit to provide best-of-breed solutions, strategic, creative and technical – and always in line with the best interests of our clients and their business goals, using advanced research and data integration capabilities that offer new opportunities for companies to know more about their brands and their customers and to act more decisively. We will not succumb to short-cuts or bait-and-switch tactics – ignoring research and true knowledge for the sake of cutting costs to make a quick buck. We will remain keenly aligned with the need to ensure our solutions are successful and are committed to determining and developing best strategies for our clients, based on fact and grounded in research, knowledge and combined intellectual experience.
Systematic Methodologies. Because we work in the creative solutions world, our core deliverables can often be intangible. To ensure we stay focused on our core goals, our approaches to business are systematic, rigorous, focused and creative. We are committed to creating and constantly refining our methodologies in all aspects of our business, to create a systemized approach at all levels that will ensure the highest level of excellence both internally and externally. We seek people who find it fulfilling to build institutions through systematic approaches.
Governance. Our practices require that all employees work with clients, vendors, peers, supervisors and subordinates through authentic dialog and integrity, not mediated by the usual screens of role and relative position or politics (a requirement that demands considerable vision and maturity). Merit emerges as we openly and mutually confront difficult issues in a context of excellence. We recognize that a community’s collective intelligence and capabilities surpass not only the intelligence and power of each individual but also the sum of the individuals’ competencies. Our goal is to share that communal knowledge wherever possible to mutual company-client benefit.
Four Fundamental Beliefs about People and Work.
- We believe that people are not only means but also ends in themselves. Most businesses view people (employees, clients, suppliers, partners and others) as a means to some end. They treat people as instrumental to completing a transaction or meeting a goal. We feel that reducing people to a role in a process dehumanizes them. While honoring the roles they play, we approach people as unique human beings, as ends in themselves.
- We believe that people naturally develop. We know that adults continue to develop, both in multiple lines (cognitive, emotional, kinesthetic, ethical and spiritual, for example) and in generally definable stages. Brilliant Blue understands that people develop, and we are committed to an environment, infrastructure and practices that create conditions that help develop people into greater levels of complexity and wholeness. People who do not wish to participate in the development of themselves and others do not belong here.
- We believe that work is meaningful, and that effectively and positively contributing to work gives meaning to people’s lives. Many people view work's primary purpose as providing them the money or status to pursue meaning elsewhere in their lives. Brilliant Blue is not the place for them. At all levels of the organization, we connect work with things people find inherently meaningful. These include developing oneself, creating something excellent and enduring and contributing to other people.
- We believe in diversity. We believe that uniqueness and being different is an attribute, not a challenge. We revere individuals who stand out, not those who look to maintain the herd mentality. We believe in diversity of gender, race, creed, religion and beliefs – and the significant opportunities that diverse people working together, bring towards common goals. People who are not comfortable with diversity will not thrive here.
Purpose, Tasks and Titles. At Brilliant Blue our approach to business relies on the connection between the basic tasks we perform, and the creation of meaning. Every activity must be embedded in a tactical and intelligent context, and the context must provide the activities purpose. We do not look for rote solutions, but rather creative and cost-effective execution towards the achievement of goals. No matter how menial the task should appear to some, or how many times it shall be conducted over – it must be conducted with passion and expertise. We seek to limit hierarchy of titles, and determine that titles or roles have little to do with the ability to accomplish a routine task with excellence. No person is any more or any less important to a projects success. Every task provides the opportunity to create a purpose through which we can create innovation and success.
Effective Servant Leadership. No matter what the individual role, we believe a commitment to effective leadership is critical to the success of this organization. We believe every one of our people is a leader, will be treated like one and is expected to act like one. We seek people who can build institutions that allow other people to thrive, to be more whole, more fully themselves. The value and term "servant leadership," requires that we run our businesses such that we build and respect the value of people and not simply use them. A servant leader makes others more powerful. We believe that people develop through the proper combination of challenge and support.
A Unique Place. Brilliant Blue is not the right place for everyone and we acknowledge that Brilliant Blue’s worldview differs from that of most other companies. It is a place for people who find it natural to respectfully treat others as mutual partners. We are committed to the creation of conditions for personal and career development and to build meaning into the tasks we perform. It is a place for people who will tolerate nothing less than excellence and who have an inner drive towards self development. Managing groups is different from managing the individuals who compose them. We make a significant commitment to learning together, to developing corporate intelligence and to managing the development of our people and our business units. Our infrastructures and methodologies are developed to help individuals and groups develop their maturity, as a place for people who want to make a difference.
Our purpose and our commitment to leadership within this context;
Peter Ashworth CEO & Chief Creative Officer
Brett Olson CFO, COO
Julie Cimpko Creative Director
