Nurturing individuals

Chuck Carey: To me, the greatest accomplishments are extremely subtle. For me, they are not about the press releases, not necessarily about the projects. Although the projects and the quality of the work is definitely the manifestation of it, but for me, the greatest accomplishment-- It really is, it's the growth of a lot of individuals, both as an individual on their own career path and as a team. I mean there is essentially artists who are trying to find their way through a career. So it's a lot of really wonderful people each with their own set of quirks, and that's probably what I love most about watching them all blossom and grow and collaborate, brainstorming. Well, I mean how sort of maybe abused is the idea of what that really is? But watching our people work together in a brainstorm, watching one person's synapses fire and other synapses fire, watching dots connect. To me, when I see that, it's just really cool to me because it's such a subjective craft and yet the standards that ultimately the work is held to is some of the highest standards of the business marketplace, hundreds of millions of dollars that flow through the clients that we work for and so having the underpinning of knowing that and being truly professional about that, while still being a vibrant, creative organization, to me is it's really the essential. Sort of gets me out of bed in the morning. The studio itself is somewhat of an external manifestation of our values. But, it's not like the owners dictate what that is. We let that be what it is going to become and to me, that's a joy, a real joy, and so I would love to hear your perspective on that. Robert Blatchford: Just from a life perspective, I mean the energy around the office is really cool. You listen the music, you usually use to listen to it pretty loud where someone has to knock on your door and say it's battling with my music. It's a very fun environment. I mean, you come in, it's casual. The interaction with people is casual. We get to a conference room. It becomes serious when it needs to be serious, but for the most part, everyone is pretty light. We talk about politics, excuse the word but it's -- it's a good sort of energy that you want in here. And I hate to use the word energy but it's true. It's-- you interact with people, you enjoy interacting with them, you don't mind seeing them everyday, and it's a healthy place to work. Chuck Carey: It actually wouldn't surprise me if companies 5, 10, 15 years from now felt more like design studios because they are really built around getting the best out of each person, and having that add up to be a great team experience. A lot of businesses talk about that and then you walk into the environment, and do you guys know this? Do you work in production? How could you possibly expect someone to bring their best when they walk-into a sterile environment that's about conformity and not about individuality and innovation? I mean, how could you reasonably expect people to be in their best mental space when it has almost nothing to do with the things that truly inspire them. Dressing up your cubicle with knick- knacks is a far cry from a space that really makes you feel comfortable and lets you truly have your best thought process. Robert Blatchford: Yeah, no cubicles, and no time cards. It's really you come in, you know what you need to accomplish. So you have yourself at check for that. So you are kind of, you are responsible for it. Chuck Carey: That's the kind of people we want to work here, honestly, is people who get that, that they understand that it's part of the ethos here is we are not supervisory. We are not going to be judging you hour to hour, moment to moment, day to day. We are going to be working to enable you to accomplish things that five, six, seven, eight, ten months ago, you didn't think you are capable of doing. I mean that's really the business that we are in, is helping people to get to that point. Robert Blatchford: Well, currently we are working for a client overseas in Turkey and I saw one of our producers throw little comment on his Facebook that he said, I am learning how to speak Turkish, which to me is, I mean that's kind of cool. You are working at a project, not only we are traveling overseas for work working with foreign clients, but we are also learning the new language because of it. So it's kind of cool that we get to challenge ourselves in that world. Chuck Carey: Yeah. You have to remember we are lucky to do what we do, really, really lucky. We get to come to an office every day that's all about innovation, creativity, new ideas, visual expression. You are pushing either pop culture forward or visual culture forward. So what Robert is saying like really that -- that makes me happy. That's what I would hope that somebody is doing instead of saying oh, gosh, I have to get on conference calls in a different zone, that they would say, this is an opportunity to not stop learning, to not stop growing, to learn a foreign language and to connect with the foreign culture. To me, that's like, that's it. The opportunity is everywhere around the people who work here and that they have the spirit to embrace it, to me, is really the ultimate goal.