I’ve been visiting the Brand Builder blog now for a few months. Olivier (I assume that’s the guy’s name) shares a lot of great thinking. Plus, I like that there’s someone out there who feels long blog posts are okay.

The other day he had a post called The Hybrid Thinking Proposition. I found it interesting for a number of reasons…

ONE: He references Seth Godin and Purple Cow. I’m a big fan of Seth and his Purple Cow book. If you haven’t read it, you should. (And yes, I should write a haiku about it.)

TWO: He talks about a changing creative industry. That’s something that David and I have been thinking a lot about when creating Substance. We’d be foolish to create something that is modeled after how things have been done in the past, since that’s not the way things are going to be done in the future.

THREE: From his blog, “What if instead of chasing big clients, you focused on helping great little companies grow into extraordinary ones? What if you only worked with clients that you want to work with? What if you turned away work that didn’t interest you? What if you did what every innovator has done since the beginning of time: What if you changed the rules, one client at a time, one project at a time?”

Know who you are, and who you want to be with. This means your co-workers and your clients. You’re going to be spending a lot of time with them. You can change their lives, and they can change yours. Wouldn’t you hope for positive change?

The idea of the “traditional” agency, be it advertising, interactive, branding… is going away. What will “hybrid” mean for Substance? We’ll see where the path leads. Someplace untraditional.

Thanks for a great blog, Olivier.