Happy Birthday Open...

Open was 5 on Thursday.

We had a lot of fun. Lunch together (supported by 20 litres of scrumpy), a London red double decker bus trip (we broke down, but luckily near a pub), dinner, and drinks and yes some dancing. It was an amazing day full of smiles.

At dinner I realised that I’ve been part of the furniture for 2 ½ years now. Which is odd, because I sometimes still feel like the new boy.

When I joined I was gobsmacked by the amazing sense of community, zero bullshit way of working and incredible focus on delivering work and ideas of the highest quality. Qualities and values that are still here, and stronger than ever before.

When I joined Tim talked to me a lot about ‘hand picked team’, the concept that Open was only going to do the best work by hiring the best people. I feel humbled to be recruited under that label. But it’s an approach that serves Open brilliantly. Open is staffed by some of the brightest in the business. Account managers, writers, designers, analysts, developers and processors. And the people I've hired in the mobile team are simply the best bunch of people I have ever worked with.

I remember reading this blog post years before I joined – where James explained where the name came from. I’ve nicked a bit below…

"But Open is also about how we want to do business. Not just in the sense of being transparent but in drawing the best people and ideas from wherever we find them. We know that we can’t have everyone inside our company and under our control. But we can forge partnerships with the best and that’s exactly what we’re going to do."

Open isn't like most other agencies. We collaborate well, we walk away when we're not needed and we focus on the work and the people. Like it says on the website. We're bringing the right people together to change the world. 

Here’s to the next five years. Considering the journey we've been on – I can't wait to see where we end up.