What to do with all this noise
We live in a noisy world, and it’s not just noisy for our ears, it’s noisy for our eyes and our minds too. Modern communication has allowed us near-unlimited access to all our loved ones and acquaintances. It’s also made for a vast sea of content and managing all of this noise can be taxing and lure us into a hypnotizing scroll. At A Hundred Monkeys, we do our best to acknowledge this and have developed our process to be just as efficient as the names we deliver. We practice what we call “The Economy of Language.” It’s one third of our brand attributes. It’s centered around our bread and butter — language. It’s part of what keeps the lights on and cans of La Croix in the fridge.
We pride ourselves on being succinct in our deliverables and communication. We put emphasis on all the words that we use and how we use them. This doesn’t mean we see communication as a waste of time, quite the contrary. We value communication so much that we put as much effort in articulating our thoughts as we do in formulating them. At the studio, we don’t allow responding for the sake of responding to crowd our day-to-day communication. When it’s our business to engage (i.e. scheduling, objectives approval) in order to complete our work, we are on our toes. When it comes to follow-up emails or check-ins, we try to keep a careful balance between remaining in touch while not hovering over anyone’s shoulders. We’re firm believers that when a client is ready or has made a decision, they’ll reach out — they know exactly where to find us.
Economy of Language dictates our operations and has even found its way into our social media accounts. For a while we didn’t think these accounts brought much to the table for us. Over time our position has and will continue to evolve. At present, we find our accounts help us engage with other creatives out beyond our immediate reach. We do our best to be mindful of how we contribute to the noise — by playing in the space with our brand attributes in mind.
We can’t avoid being online and most of us use email and/or social media every single day. We have to have an email address — we don’t need to have social media accounts, yet they feel more and more necessary. Don’t get me wrong, modern communication is fantastic — we’re able to reach people from all over the world, but when does all this communicating and collaborating inhibit us from actually getting any work done? It feels like a part-time job keeping up and it makes me wonder — how much of our communication is necessary? I’ve taken a lesson from our company’s rulebook and it’s made my life noticeably quieter.
It’s refreshing to have straightforward and concise communication, we hope our clients appreciate it too. At the end of the day, how you communicate is just as important as having something to communicate. So keep it short, keep it sweet and by all means — necessary.
