“It’s sort of like elementary school but for dope people who care about the world.”
That’s how Dave Gloss, cofounder and CEO of digital design agency Here’s My Chance, described North Philly coworking space Impact Hub. Gloss’ socially-minded agency is an anchor member at the space, which opened its doors in the fall of 2013. Gloss said that when Here’s My Chance first moved in, the only other member there was Nate Nichols, president of digital strategy at branding agency Teal Orbit.
“We just sort of watched each other expand and always supported each other,” said Gloss. Then, the agencies had the opportunity to collaborate. And according to Gloss and Nichols, it felt good. Really good.
A year and a half ago, when calendar platform EventUpon was still Mel Baiada’s Basecamp Business, Here’s My Chance was called upon by its new investors to bring the brand up a notch.
“Mel Baiada got a consortium of folks from the Science Center, Ben Franklin Technology Partners and PACT to invest in it, and they thought it needed more collaboration,” Gloss said. “They recognized the brand and platform needed to evolve as well.” Once approached, Gloss decided to bring in Teal Orbit, which was tasked with retooling UI/UX.
“Our services complement each other perfectly,” said Nichols of the working relationship between the two creative agencies.
Then came the big shebang this past October — the We Can Survive Concert, a massive breast cancer awareness concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles presented by 5-hour Energy and CBS Radio. Proceeds for the concert went towards Living Beyond Breast Cancer and featured performances by the likes of Taylor Swift, Pharrell and Gwen Stefani.
“Living Beyond Breast Cancer contacted us to develop an engagement strategy,” said Gloss. But there was one problem: “We had stopped doing social media engagement and started focusing on the brand experience on social media,” he said. So, Teal Orbit came onboard.
“We were there to help capture [the concert] and engage that audience as they were active on the digital interfaces and social media channels,” said Nichols. “It was an awesome campaign, we drove crazy results. We had a lot of fun and great success.”
Though coworking spaces nurture collaborative efforts, business relationships like the one between Here’s My Chance and Teal Orbit don’t exactly happen naturally — rather, you have to invest in the existing community first.
“You don’t walk in and spontaneously collaborate,” said Nichols. “You have to create a presence and create some equity in the community.”
“I think the space does a really great job of creating opportunities,” Gloss said of Impact Hub. “You have things happening around you and get to plug and play, so it serves the platform where shared resources and energy can really foster creativity and collaboration amongst others.”
That creativity does not always manifest in work-related ways. Gloss said if you’re lucky, you can catch the teams from Here’s My Chance and Teal Orbit in the middle of a James Brown dance-off.
And as for future collaborations? We’ll just have to wait and see.
“We’re each growing startup companies and we do like working with each other,” said Nichols. “When the opportunity comes, we’ll definitely make it happen again.”
This post is sponsored by Impact Hub.
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