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As more late-stage millennials and Gen Z’ers enter the workforce, there has been a steady trend across industries to focus more on philanthropy and social consciousness. In fact, 75% of millennials say they are more likely to want to work for a company that actively gives back to the community.

The current generation’s “do-good” attitude has created a movement that has resonated all the way up to big companies, urging them to make a change not just because it looks good, but because it’s the right thing to do. Some studies even say it bolsters productivity and teamwork by enabling employees to build on critical skills while participating in something they care about. Talk about a win-win.

Many companies have taken this to heart and are looking at how they can best make a difference. Stella Artois’ partnership with Water.org was unveiled in an ad during this year’s Super Bowl, pledging that every purchase of a Stella Artois beer chalice will provide as much as five years of clean drinking water for a person in a developing country. Warby Parker has been donating one pair of glasses to a person in need for every pair sold for almost ten years, much like Toms has done with shoes. Microsoft started the YouthSpark program to empower young people by providing training in STEM areas and computer literacy.

And, though Hatch may be a smaller marketing agency (or “boutique” as some shops like to spin it), we always knew we wanted to give back in our own way.

When we first settled in Bridgeport three years ago, we could see how much potential the city had and knew right away that we wanted to do whatever we could to help it prosper. We vowed to one day establish a program to support the Bridgeport business community—one that would allow us to team with our neighbors to do some good.

We took the time to carefully look at our strengths and the needs of the community—and where those two might intersect.

It’s clear that it has become more important than ever for a business to have a solid brand identity and compelling digital marketing assets to be competitive in their given field. Unfortunately, many small and non-profit organizations lack the resources necessary to create and maintain a marketable brand, so they often fall behind. There are hundreds of small businesses in Bridgeport that aren’t getting the exposure they both need and deserve, and we’re out to change that in any way we can. At Hatch, we strongly believe that when one of us succeeds, we all benefit.

Which is why we hatched the Hatch Initiative four months ago.

Under the Initiative, small businesses in the Bridgeport area can apply by telling us their personal story. Once selected, Hatch donates up to $10,000 in billable time to provide branding, web design, content creation, or marketing assets—whatever is needed. In turn, we require a minimum fee, 100% of which is then donated to a charity of the business’s choice from our list of causes.

By helping to create a strong local business community, Hatch is hoping to write itself into a new history for Bridgeport—one that resurrects the hustle and bustle of the state’s largest city.

Three awesome companies are already working with us under the Hatch Initiative (meaning three charities are benefiting as well!)—take a peek at what we’ve done so far.

Curious to learn more? Go to the Hatch Initiative page to apply. 

Facebook has announced its latest update—and it’s a big one.

News feeds will now show more posts from friends and family, and fewer from brands and businesses. This is a move that founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says will encourage interaction, engagement, and more ‘personal moments.’

Here are some excerpts from his Facebook post on the change:

“We built Facebook to help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the people that matter to us. That’s why we’ve always put friends and family at the core of the experience. Research shows that strengthening our relationships improves our well-being and happiness.”

Zuckerberg goes on to say that while many things that appear on your news feed may be entertaining, they aren’t contributing to your happiness or well-being, something he believes will be bolstered with more person-to-person interactions.

Facebook’s goal is to reduce passive engagement, such as watching a few seconds of a video or skimming through an article and then moving on to the next post. Instead, it hopes to increase likes and comments on personal posts, returning Facebook to the era of 2009-2012, when news feeds were primarily populated by posts from friends.

“…while many things that come up on your news feed may be entertaining, they aren’t contributing to your happiness or well-being.”

And while that all sounds warm and fuzzy, this will have a colossal impact on brands and businesses that rely on the social media platform for organic marketing and customer outreach.

Facebook’s change will force followers to go directly to a business’ page on their own accord, as it will no longer automatically show up in their news feed. To many businesses, this seems like a portent of doom—because honestly, how many people will actually click to their pages unprompted?

Brand pages will also be severely affected. Posts from popular pages like Buzzfeed will no longer show you Tasty videos, and CNN won’t routinely show you that day’s news. Instead, followers will need to visit these individual pages and search out what they want, or find an alternative source of information.

Ironically, Zuckerberg actively anticipates a drop in total time spent on Facebook: “By making these changes, I expect the time people spend on Facebook and some measures of engagement will go down. But I also expect the time you do spend on Facebook will be more valuable.”

This change is a next step in the attempts to dispel the Facebook ‘bubble of fake news’— where people are only shown news and opinions that already support their beliefs—by eliminating the news from your feed altogether. But, many brands stand to be severely (or fatally) impacted, especially those like Upworthy, Diply, UNILAD, and Buzzfeed, who rely heavily on Facebook for social traffic.

Not surprisingly, sponsored posts or paid ads don’t stand to be disturbed, so brands will always have the option to pay for traffic. This means that your news feed will still be chock-full of sponsored content.

At first glance, this change comes across as positive and human-connection affirming. But on further inspection, it starts to seem high-handed, unnecessary, and money-hungry.

The Facebook news feed has naturally evolved over the years to reflect what people desire from their social media—a mix of personal posts from people they care about, up-to-date news and entertainment, and light visual content. Thousands of users report depending on Facebook as a primary news source (over 67% of Americans), and to remove this as an option seems detrimental to Facebook as a brand.

This also demonstrates to users that they really have no control over what they see on their feeds. It’s a grim reminder that Black Mirror isn’t as much of an alternate reality as we’d like to think.

It will be interesting to see the results of this adjustment—unfortunate loss of listicles and animal videos aside—and see how organizations adapt to yet another disruption in social media marketing.

“Art and design are completely different. Art is about making questions- design is about making solutions…in design, you have to make sense.”

The film Design Disruption explores the new world of design, and how today’s designers—and the world’s perception of design—are shifting approaches, methods, and philosophies to adjust to the new expectation of out-of-this-world excellence in design.

Part of the issue is that so much of the actual work and knowledge that goes into modern design is kept behind closed doors, so the world is largely unaware of all the expertise it requires—and thus design is undervalued because people view it as ‘magic’ that occurs with, say, the swoop of a digital stylus.

But there is much more to design than a pretty interface. The true beauty of design comes when something works, and works well. Beauty is surface-level and low on the totem pole in the design world—if it’s pretty now, it won’t be in a year or two, and there will be real issues if there is something fundamentally wrong.

Designers must also consider familiarity when creating new products—anything that’s too foreign runs a high risk of rejection from the public, particularly products that include a level of potentially uncomfortable social situations, like AirBnB or Uber.

Even Apple must carefully tread this line—when the first iPhone came out, people were taken aback. No keyboard? Everything on a single screen? Internet?!

And so Apple had to come up with very targeted, guiding marketing that led users to a point where they could comfortably approach the iPhone, like the ‘calamari commercial’ of 2007 that featured a simple walk-through of the phone’s main features that started with a familiar pop culture reference in The Pirates of the Caribbean.

The idea of disruption comes from a long-held tenet of designer belief—your best ideas come when you’re a little uncomfortable. We wouldn’t have beautiful design if we stayed inside comfort zones. This creed has been in operation since long before Ben Franklin stood in a rainstorm with his kite, and continues to guide creation across disciplines from technology to furniture.

Recently, however, disruption has come to find a more literal definition. Designers are seeing entire industries as being in need of a shake-up—when only a small number of people at the top are benefiting, it’s time for a disruption.

Or when they see something that everyone has become accustomed to not working as well as it could- like thermostats stuck on a wall, or subpar public transportation. These are hotspots for designers to come in and interrupt the flow and remind people that hey, things don’t need to plonk along like this- they can be great, they can be beautiful.

They just need a little disruption.

Find out more and watch the film Design Disruptors by InVision here.

We’ve all experienced that sinking feeling when something goes wrong at work. Your first thought is usually something along the lines of: oh no, did I mess up? Here are a few simple steps I follow to avoid any of those dreaded he said/she said situations:

1. Email Folders

I take a lot of pride in my email filing system – each client gets a folder and within those are additional folders for each job. Sometimes the volume of emails can be overwhelming so having a system helps to make things more manageable. Also, with all of these folders, I’m able to quickly find an email whenever there are questions or disagreements.

2. Follow-Up Notes

With so much communication through email these days, it’s nice to be able to speak to clients on the phone or sit down face to face. However, it’s important to create a paper trail when things are not done over email. As soon as I finish up a call or an in person meeting, I send off an email detailing the key points of the phone call and next steps. Also, I request confirmation from my clients and/or colleagues that we all had the same takeaways.

3. Get Approval in Writing

I know it drives my clients crazy sometimes and I sound like a broken record, but I ALWAYS get approval in writing. The following words/phrases, while nice to hear, do NOT count as final approval:

Looks great
Love it
Thanks
Perfect 

After a few times of having me email “Please write back with written approval”, clients usually get in the routine of using the word “approved” and everyone’s lives become easier.

We’ve challenged ourselves to seek out creative typography in Bridgeport for the next 30 days! Check back daily on our Instagram to see the unique type we have found in our city. Want to join us? Tag pictures of your city with #30DaysOfType.