What Does ‘Enabling Creativity to Thrive’ Actually Mean?
How do we prove our purpose?
Our group purpose at The HudsonBec Group is to “Enable Creativity to Thrive.” You’d be forgiven for being cynical about whether it actually means anything at all in a world saturated with wooly, abstract company purpose statements. Here I’ll try and prove why ours isn’t actually that abstract at all.
At the end of every financial year as well as analysing our performance against the standard metrics; finances, reach, growth etc. we also report back against our purpose. However, doing it in a way that feels tangible and real against such an abstract idea has always been tricky.
So, last year we attempted to make it real and count exactly how many individual creatives we’ve actually helped. From ones that we could name personally that we see and work with every day, right through to those further afield who we’ve reached through our projects and initiatives.
To do so, we created a kind-of totaliser. An animation that we presented to the whole workforce, and gave us the opportunity to stand beside our purpose and examine it in front of the people who know us and the business best.
We were really proud of the result, but the animation has lived in a folder on our server since we presented it nearly 6 months ago, which felt like a waste.
So, now it’s here for you too, as animation builds, and although a little out of date, we hope it still holds us to account to not just talk the talk, but also walk the walk of enabling creativity.
I promise to try and get this published much sooner next year…
+39; The first group of people we enable to thrive are the brilliant team we employ across the group. We had 39 on the payroll in our fiscal year 18–19 ranging from people who’d been with us a couple of weeks, to those who have been with us for years. Not quite Amazon-scale but an important number to us.
+45 =84
Alongside this full-time team, across all of the businesses we contracted a total of 45 freelancers over twelve months; from regular writers on It’s Nice That or Lecture in Progress, to long-term specialist creative talent for big Anyways Creative projects.
+298 = 382
We commissioned 298 creatives, that’s everyone from Anton working on characters for Adobe Creative Types to Emily Soto who shot the Richard Turley ‘In Conversation’ photos to Jiro Bevis who has illustrated editorial spots for Lecture in Progress for the last 2 and a half years.
+1,497 = 1,879
We published 1,497 individual work articles on It’s Nice That in 12 months; helping creatives build a profile for their work and get everything from new followers to new commissions. It’s Nice That has always been and continues to be one of the places we can have the biggest impact in enabling others to thrive by simply giving them a platform to be seen.
+14 = 1893
Our Ones to Watch feature on It’s Nice That was a beauty this year. Giving the spotlight to some incredible talent from all over the world including Jacob Wise, Jee-ook Choi, Yushi Li, Regular Practice and 9 other incredible creatives.
+18 = 1,911
We added another 18 through showcasing the world’s best graduates in our biggest graduates class ever;
From Justin Carter in Canada to Fanélie Muselier in Switzerland and beyond
+48 = 1,959
The 48 speakers who have taken the stage at our monthly event Nicer Tuesdays. Each one given 15 minutes to give incredible insight into their work to the 450 attendees and wider audience watching online. A personal highlight was the incredible Christoph Niemann and a deeply personal story of meeting her father for the first time from Deepa Keshvala.
+40 = 1,999
Chalk up another 40 for the 40 young creatives at our first ever Lecture in Progress portfolio review held in conjunction with G.F. Smith at their beautiful space in London. Helping the next generation navigate their first career moves, and helping at least 2 of them get full-time jobs!
+21 = 2,020
A huge highlight of 18–19 for us was our first ever project with Create Jobs; giving 21 young people from underrepresented backgrounds the chance to learn new skills and get their work seen. It was a joy to be a part of, and to see their work end up on the BBC was particularly special.
+545 = 2,565
Members of our team have been on the road giving talks across the country to over 545 people (after some very rough estimates); from University visits through Lecture in Progress to Anyways Creative speaking at Newcastle Design Event and of course Charlie’s now infamous Rube Goldberg university workshops.
+3,144 = 5,709
3,144 is the total number of jobs we advertised on If You Could Jobs. What better measure of giving people the opportunity to thrive than helping them find their next opportunity in the industry?
+8,155 = 13,864
We signed up 8,155 members to Lecture in Progress from across the world; giving them free insight and advice to help them take their first steps into a career in the creative world.
+174,706 = 188,570
Alongside those fully signed-up members, we also welcomed nearly 175,000 readers to www.lectureinprogress.com over 12 months. The start of some really important scale we hope.
+3,000 = 191,570
One of our most rewarding jobs as Anyways Creative last year saw us work with Sonos to inspire and entertain over 3,000 people at events in NYC and London through The Brilliant Sound Experience.
+3,000,000 = 3,291,570
Staying with our work as Anyways, we saw our Adobe Creative Types project reach over 3 million people (and counting) — helping them understand their own creative personality through a beautiful online experience.
+5,000 = 3,296,570
A whopping 5,000 people attended Nicer Tuesdays talks in 18/19…
+10,000 = 3,306,570
And we printed 10,000 copies of our physical magazine — which although isn’t anywhere near the scale of itsnicethat.com, it helps us reach places and people who’ve never heard of us before…
+4,761,191 = 8,067,761
And finally; the heart of our whole group — the readers of It’s Nice That. We inspired and informed nearly 5 million users on It’s Nice That over the 12 months in question; an unimaginable amount of people!
So, in summary, a massive 8,067,761 individual people who we’ve enabled to thrive, which feels like an achievement worthy of sharing beyond our four walls. And with only 39 full time people in the team we can feel personally responsible for over 200,000 each!
Maybe for the first time ever, it’s also a tangible, measurable benchmark for how we’re enabling creativity to thrive, and one we’re hoping to smash this year as we stick to that same purpose that’s helped guide us for the last decade.
Here’s to millions more!
