Carl Smith // September 8, 2010

Transition Strategy Part 6: The Final Countdown

It’s been almost seven months since we started our transition to become the new ngen. Nope, that’s not a typo. As silly as it sounds, I have been dying to lowercase that g in public for months now. But things take time, and I’m glad we’ve managed this transition at our own pace.

We’ve stayed true to what we said in the beginning. We are rising above tactics and solutions we’ve become comfortable with to seek out new ways of engaging audiences. Our first client has been ourselves. It has been an amazing and frustrating experience, one that is truly defining us and how we will approach everything we do moving forward.

For anyone who’s been through this before at any level, you know how riveting and scary it can be. It feels like emerging from a cocoon and hoping all your friends think you’ve become a beautiful butterfly and not an ugly moth. But ultimately, what matters is if we’ve presented ourselves in a way that attracts the right clients. I’m confident in saying we have. Over the past few months, I’ve shown prospects our new look and feel and asked for their input. Amazingly, six out of seven great prospects showed a strong preference for the new presentation. One even commented, “I wasn’t going to contact you because I wasn’t sure you had a solid understanding of how to take a brand online. Now I’ve seen that you do.” On the flip side, four out of seven marginal prospects preferred the current presentation. The other three really didn’t care, which has been a huge problem. We’ve had too many clients, nice as they are, who just wanted something done. They didn’t really care what. To me, these sneak previews have been a nice reinforcement we’re on the right path.

One of the toughest challenges was how we present the work we’ve done. As we position ourselves to be more than the “what,” how do we show the “how “ and the “why?” We know prospects want a portfolio, so what exactly do we show? We think we’ve solved that in an elegant way.

Related to showing the work, we needed a new signature statement that we could rally behind when we get asked, “So what is it exactly that ngen does?” We use strategy, technology and creativity to help people get things done in the digital space. BAM! (Note: Yelling BAM! is optional.)

In the weeks following the launch, we’ll be talking in detail about the choices we made. Specifically, focusing on the new identity, content, design and all of the different applications. I’ve already talked about the new proposal and survey.

Many of you have seen bits and pieces of the new ngen presentation. For those of you who haven’t, you can see some of the new site and identity on Jeff’s Dribbble account. Katy has also leaked shots of the new icons on her site.

So hold tight, we’re bringing this baby in for a landing.