I loved being a college student. In those days, there was no Internet, and by extension no Google. So as an English major, I spent hours in the library and checked out enough books that carrying them from dorm to class and back to the library, and repeating this semester after semester had the added benefit of providing arm exercises! But I digress. Today’s students depend heavily on information gleaned through the web.  Instead of books, most carry laptops. Information is instantaneous and as I am discovering so is the urge to pilfer, copy, and violate copyrights.

Professors now have software to help them weed out the offenders. And in the business world, this is becoming a serious problem for companies that are on the leading edge of innovation, and who like Dynamic Digital Advertising showcase a lot of their work. Anyone can put up a website and call himself or herself a web master, but to make the site viable when that person has few skills, tempts the wannabe to troll and see “what’s out there” and then copy/paste images and content and pretend like it is theirs. Appalling, and Paul, who monitors our site for such thievery, finds that trollers come from as far as the Middle East and as close as Maryland. 

At DDA, we work to give the clients who select us, the best design be it for a trifold brochure or a trade show graphic. If the new client comes to us for a website, that company has the complete assurance that we start with a blank slate and build from there. The proof is in the looking. Check out our portfolio, where numerous samples of websites, trade show graphics, medical illustrations, video presentations for anything from a medical device to jewelry bolster my claim. If you study our website carefully, you’ll see we fit the classic Aristotle observation, “The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”  

A few days ago, I went to buy picture frames for a poster project I was working on for our new Dynamic Digital Advertising (DDA) office. There was a young lady working in the frame department at the time which made me say to myself, “Great, she’ll know what I want and I’ll be out of  here in record time.” So, I explained I was in search of 10″ x 10″ white square frames. “Oh,” she says “they are over here. We have 8″ x 11″ and 11″ x 14″ squares.”  ”No,” says I, “I need squares.”  ”Those are our squares.” I actually left the store bummed. Is it possible she did not know the difference between a square and a rectangle? Isn’t that something you learn in preschool? 

Segue to who we are as a full-service advertising agency at Dynamic Digital and what we expect. First, in terms of excellence, it is always to try and surprise clients with the quality of the work we produce. For example, we routinely provide not one logo when a company comes to us for logo development, we provide ten or twelve truly unique ways our graphic designers feel represents that company, its product/service, and the message they want to convey from a logo. The project coordinators work closely with clients to make sure we are on the same page with every request they make, be it changes to a website or reprints for a brochure, we have a process that ensures the client’s voice is always heard.

To stay competitive today, we have to excel everyday. As we have grown, we have resisted the temptation to isolate ourselves from clients. We do not believe in voicemail. Calls are answered quickly, as are emails. We want our clients to know that working with us on all their advertising, promotional, and marketing needs  includes a personal touch. Organically, our culture at DDA has always given everyone permission to perform.  David and I encourage initiative on every level. We knew when we started DDA that everyone who signs on — be it a programmer or a writer, a videographer or an animation artist, a production support person — has to WANT to deliver excellence. It cannot be foisted on anyone, it has to be the individual’s  choice. We have a saying on our wall “NO AVERAGE PEOPLE WORK HERE.” I should add, no average employee stays. 

“The principle is competing against yourself. It is about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.” Steve Young    

Since we work a four day, forty-hour week at Dynamic Digital Advertising, Fridays can prove very interesting. New clients express concern that their needs or questions will not be met or answered because they can’t reach a human. When they find out that not only are the project coordinators answering emails on Friday, there is someone at the office to field calls (usually David or I) and when necessary emergencies occur from (”my email can send but not receive” to” I’m getting an error screen” to something more drastic like “my site is down”), someone knowledgeable will contact them within the hour and resolve the issue.

Everyone who works here, writers developing content for a website, support staff doing build out for a website, animators doing Flash, programmers and their everlasting code design, strive to make the relationship between us and our clients a WIN-WIN. Not easy to do for a full-service advertising agency, because there are so many layers to our projects, and because everything we do is custom not borrowed or lifted from some other source. For example, our taglines in postcards and brochures are tailor made for the specific product, the architecture of all our website work is carefully thought out to be user friendly, technically sophisticated and Google minded. I could go on, but you get the point.  

And also on Friday, when I answer the phone, I often get a surprised response from an old client that I am physically in the office. At the same time, that person is delighted to know the request won’t be shuffled off to Monday. In other words, our regulars don’t call on Friday unless it is something that cannot wait. And to them, I say thank you for your thoughtfulness! On Fridays, I also often get a request to come work for DDA from a supplier or a telemarketer or a delivery person. Flattering really, but when time has become as precious as it is today, I know we are blessed to have three-day weekends. Let’s not ever take it for granted by doing our best to tie up loose ends before the close of business on Thursdays.