As is true with every single business in America today, no business is an island. Each and every business is part of a commercial fabric and, as such, is interwoven with a network of other businesses and individuals that service, support, patronize, or interact with it on a regular basis.

From the smallest family-owned independent small businesses to the largest multinational corporations, they all have one thing in common, they are made up of people. With a large cross-section of people, you get a large cross-section of morals, honesty, and ethical behavior.

DDA has always believed that ethics is not something that individuals bring to the job. It needs to be an entrenched, formalized, and definable set of values and goals that are postulated, institutionalized, and supported by the business organization. At DDA, they are!

A strong code of ethics is discussed and encouraged and adhered to at DDA for a few reasons. There is an old European proverb that says, the fish stinks from the head down. Kind of quaint, but somewhat nauseatingly true. The leaders of any organization have, or should have, great influence over practices and policies throughout the organization. Frankly, we don’t want to work at a place that stinks.

A strong code of ethics is also the best protection a business can have. Call it an ethical prophylactic of sorts. No truer an adage ever existed than what goes around comes around. We treat clients, vendors, and colleagues as we wish to be treated and they return the favor. It is also human nature to encourage kindness by being kind, fairness by treating everyone fairly, and morality by being morale.

Finally, we practice ethical behavior at DDA because we want to feel good about ourselves. More than just sleeping well at night, behaving ethically, being scrupulously honest and always taking the morale approach to relationships, practices, and situations awards us a certain self-opinion that raises our standards and allows us to respect ourselves.

Ethics, like transparency and honesty are not a discipline we must be taught or a set of rules to be imposed, but rather a gift we give to ourselves.

DDA subscribes to several business practices and principles that directs everything we do. They are transparency, ethical conduct, and doing the right thing. The practice of these are both just good, sane, logical and practical approaches to client and vendor relations and emotional, cerebral and feel-good-about-yourself practices and beliefs that allows one to look himself or herself in the mirror each morning and sleep well at night.

Some definitions through the eyes of DDA:

Transparency. I like to think I am a good communicator. I know I am a lousy listener. My other career path might well have been as a history teacher and I sometimes wonder if the excitement of the advertising and business world overwhelmed my common sense.

Despite my best efforts, I recognize that four people in a meeting or discussion will leave with four slightly or largely different understandings of what just happened, what information was shared, what conclusions were drawn, and what the next steps are. Since we believe strongly that good process is at the core of all efficiency, somehow each successful advertising, branding, or marketing meeting must result in common understanding, shared goals, and a focused unified vision of the end game.

Transparency tools are woven into and heaped upon every advertising, branding, or marketing project we undertake. DDA TRAC (Time Resource and Accounting) is an in-house developed, Internet-based time tracking database tool. The result is that every hourly billed project including programming, logo design, graphic design, copywriting, photography, video, 2D and 3D animation, illustration, trade show displays, large format graphics, print design and print production for sell sheets, catalogs, brochures, flyers, direct mail, business cards, training portals and tools, CME design and development and even search engine optimization (SEO) is invoiced accurately. No time, not one minute is rounded up or added on, and every invoice is accompanied by a detailed minute-by-minute description of how the time was spent. On time, On budget, On TRAC every time.

Additional tracking and reporting tools abound. DDA’s search engine optimization (SEO) work has a series of metrics that perpetually report website visitation, usage, pathways, experience-based mapping, rankings, and much more. Website analysis means corporate websites can be better understood, improved, and managed.

Online proofing development websites are assigned to each client and each project. Our clients see every project unfold, improve, and take shape and their input is welcomed, requested, and insisted upon every step of the way.

Transparency is as much an attitude as it is a report or tool. At DDA, we believe that direct communication is the hallmark of a truly professional service-oriented vendor. We answer the phone, have project coordinators for each client, welcome questions and love client interaction. Every project is a blend of skills, expertise, information, and point-of-view provided by both the client and DDA.

Call us anytime. At DDA, the Transparency is clearly better.

Ethical Conduct to follow Monday.

Doing the Right Thing to follow Tuesday.