How do people interact with what your organization offers? Knowing the answer won’t control your brand, but your interactions can provide insight into the brand and an excellent benchmark of what you’re really here for. Brands live in the minds of people. If you ignore people, you’ll never connect your brand to anything valuable. Anything real.

The ideal client values people.

Joel Reed, OpenArc CEO
At OpenArc, we practice a process we call “design-driven development,” and what sets it apart is our intense focus on the client. We solve individual communication challenges, so one solution doesn’t fit all. Over two decades of developing and leading development teams, I have seen the value of the well-rounded technologist. There are certainly revenue metrics and other things you can find in the glossary of a business book, but design-driven development is creative and collaborative, built on the client’s vision and a lot of listening. It’s brand building through relationship building, and this kind of unique offering attracts a more ideal client – partners that require care in how a solution is conceived and executed. Partners that we want to work with.

I find that when you value people – their insights, their thought process, their affections – you become more open to collaboration and to great ideas. Simply paying attention will bring wonderful dividends. If you’re purely data-driven, that can become overwhelming. We pride ourselves on our technical expertise, and data is absolutely crucial to what we do, but tempering it with creative understanding makes complexity more understandable and adds a human connection. People, with all their flaws, are the matrix we operate within – which leads us to tomorrow’s point:

The ideal client isn’t afraid of a fight.