Thinking

We’re Looking for a Few Good Eggs

We're hiring and here's why: The communications world is changing fast — faster than any time I've seen since we started up in 1999. And we're moving with it. Our clients now need campaigns and brands that function across endlessly evolving devices. They need stunning content — photos, illustrations, text  — to bring their stories to life. They need all of this planned and deployed more quickly than ever. We're fortunate to have challenges like these pouring into the studio and we need some great new staff to help us meet them. We currently have a few positions posted on our jobs page and several more will be going up over the next few weeks. If you're interested in helping visionary world-changers tell their stories and get heard, or if you want to support a team committed to doing that, we want to hear from you.

25 Years of Social Venture Network

What happens when 250 of the most innovative, passionate, resourceful social entrepreneurs get together for four days, at Skamania Lodge in the awesome Pacific Northwest? Stimulating conversations. Inspiring presentations. Actionable advice. And a lot of laughter.



Not much sleep.

Instagram to the Rescue!

Instagram may have saved my sanity.

A lifelong fear of flying and my spirit of adventure found me traveling cross country earlier this month by rail from DC to a Free Range retreat in Oakland. My 8-day-round-trip trek took me through sixteen states and all nine circles of Hell. I'm only mildly exaggerating when I say that Instagram salvaged my sanity. When the angry drunk with the knife was ranting, Instagram was there. When we crested the Sierra Nevadas, Instagram was there. When we rolled to a remote stop in Arizona at midnight and they led a few of my fellow passengers off the train in handcuffs, Instagram was there.

SXSW 2012 Recap

What's it like attending SXSW in Austin, TX? I think my friend, Kyle Evans of Bloom Foundry, said it best: "It's like being hit in the head with a rainbow."

More questions than answers: Kony 2012

It’s been fascinating to observe the phenomenon that is Kony 2012. Here at Free Range, we’re no stranger to being asked to make media that will ‘go viral.’ Our response over the years has been that there’s no guaranteed recipe for big numbers on a video campaign. What you can do is make sure you’ve got a solid idea/story/message; a clear understanding of your target audience; an action step or ‘ask;’ a great outreach plan to pound the ether-pavement and get folks ready for your launch; and a sense of the zeitgeist — an instinct that the world is ready to hear and act on the story you have to tell. 

Learning to Live the Truth

I've been following the Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood debacle with interest. Komen’s decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood programs — and the subsequent decision to allow them to re-apply for funding, with no guarantee that they’ll actually receive it — reads like a study in how NOT to make organizational decisions.

Winning the Story Wars — Our Upcoming Book

July 10, 2012 is the big day. After a year and a half of development, Winning the Story Wars is going to hit the shelves (hopefully there will still be plenty of physical stores by then). The book, published by Harvard Business Review Press, is a deep exploration of mythmaking, marketing and the shape of the future. I want to share it all right now, but I'm told if I publish all the content online, nobody will buy the book. So, I'm resisting the urge and just sharing a taste of it. I'd really love to know what you think.

The Free Range Rebrand: Designing Our Story

These days everyone is talking about telling stories — which is great, because we’ve been refining our storytelling methodology for the last 13 years. But the sudden popularity has also challenged us to define what that really means, as our once-esoteric field has become more crowded. Nearly a year ago today, we recognized that we needed to rebrand. 

We knew we couldn’t build a coherent brand without a deep understanding of how we do what we do, and why. We needed to unpack the magic and the science behind our work, and we needed a new story to define what it means to be makers of media that creates a more positive future. And each of our new brand expressions, from an updated logo to this website, needed to reinforce that story.

10 Tips for Successful Brainstorming

Ever been in a “brainstorm” that’s more like a braindrizzle? At Free Range, we have pretty stormy brains — always on the lookout for unexpected creative solutions to client challenges. Here are a few techniques we use to get the best ideas from ourselves. Please add your own best practices to our list in the comments! And if you have a particularly horrendous brainstorm experience to share, happy to hear what doesn’t work!

1. Act “as if”

Envision the end result, and imagine experiencing what that feels like. Come at it from an emotional/spiritual place. Ask: “If people need to feel this way in the end, what do I need to create to make it happen?” Don’t worry about the “how” first — the “how” will flow naturally from this process. Try imagining that you are the client, or the user, or the experiencer of the end result — what do you see, feel, experience? Don’t worry about the gaps yet!

Our Toughest Client

Last year, Free Range began to stare down the same challenge many of our clients face: our website was approaching its fourth birthday and starting to look outdated. In addition to the design and technology being several years old (in internet years, that's ancient!) the content and structure didn’t represent our current approach — and our current vision for the future. Though the prospect of becoming our own client was a little scary, we committed to the collaborative task of rethinking, redesigning, and rebuilding our site.