Playing a collaborative tune
“No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it,” by H.E. Luccock is reportedly one of Richard Branson’s favourite inspirational quotes about collaboration.
A collaborative mindset is essential at Filigree not only for achieving great outcomes for our clients but because it’s integral to the way we as an agency work. So how and why do we collaborate, and what are the benefits for our clients and team?
When we support a client with stakeholder engagement, we’re focusing on the need to connect with the individuals, groups and key players who’re at the heart of their project, such as local residents, community leaders, businesses and politicians. Equally our strategic approach with clients on placemaking is informed by engagement and dialogue, as well as being underpinned by research and arts and cultural practice.
And as a small agency, collaboration is one of the best ways we’ve found to meet our client’s needs and deliver a quality service. It ensures we’re nimble enough to have the right skills in place for each individual client and able to assemble the best team for the job.
Whilst we are specialist communicators with sector expertise spanning 20 years in the field, we believe that teaming up with others helps us to keep our thinking fresh and ensure we’re delivering innovative and relevant solutions for each new project.
Founder and director Sam Holgate says:
“We regularly work with a carefully selected set of highly experienced partners to deliver our outstanding results. Collaboration keeps us flexible, ready to respond to challenges, aligned with experts in a given field, and ensures we never short of an inspirational team to bounce ideas off.”
Collaborating with digital agency Miura, we’ve delivered brand positioning, naming, communications and placemaking strategies, as well as website content for a new development of 2,000 homes in Greenford. Working together we offer a diverse set of experience and expertise to our clients.
We also regularly partner with online engagement platform Commonplace on regeneration, housing and infrastructure projects, to generate open, ongoing dialogue between planners, developers and communities. This has changed the way stakeholder feedback is thought of, generating more trusted and wide-ranging community engagement.
This collaborative way of working and flexibility brings the benefit of being able to scale up or down when needed, so we can meet the client’s needs at pace and work productively. Everyone in the team is encouraged to share ideas and as we’re boutique size the client benefits from everyone’s input in working closely together.
Sam adds: “It’s really rewarding for the team to work alongside others who have different expertise but in related areas. It encourages us to challenge the way we think. Whatever your size it’s all about connections and working with other agencies can also mutually help create a new network of opportunities for us all.”