Portland is a small small town in some ways. Working in the interactive industry only seems to exaggerate the smallness, since everyone has worked with everyone somewhere along the line. If I had a nickel for every time I met a prospective client who turned out to be best friends with a friend, friends with a coworker, cousin of a teammate — or what have you — I’d certainly be rich by now. Life is like Alice’s relationship map on The L Word; we’re all woven together more tightly than we think.
The last decade of working at various agencies, as well as for myself, has helped me realize how important that web of friends, coworkers, and acquaintances can be. Every project I finish, client I make happy, and helping hand I lend builds a reputation. People trust me based on their experience of what I’ve done, how I think, and their faith that I will do good things on their behalf in the future. That’s pretty awesome, and also a huge responsibility.
Within an agency setting, you can only affect so much change. You get to know people, try to work on the organization from the inside, but in the end can you really alter a company let alone an industry? Not unless you’re the boss, leading the way. But as an independent person in the industry, or as a small business, that’s where the real excitement is now. It’s not just about finding projects and paying the bills, it’s about changing the shape of the industry entirely. Some of us are trying to be the change we’ve evangelized all these years.
You just never know when an old friend or coworker might come into your life in a meaningful way, and not just with paying work. I’m finding all kinds of crazy synergies happening lately within the interactive industry, and I know something really good and interesting is going to happen. People I know, have worked with, worked for, am friends with are part of this. I want to be a part of it, too. Between us all, surely we can make a difference and a change for the better
And that’s where we get back to living in a small town. Reputation is not popularity or infamy or how many people you know. Reputation is not some made-up notion people have of you, it’s the culmination of your deeds. So be a doer; build a community of doers around you. Leverage your network, your reputation, your work and make something good. Be the change. Be a doer.
How are you creating change in your industry? How are you a doer?