The Industry Swap Experiment
An amazingly random thing happened this last week.
I found myself in Moab, Utah, with around 70 total strangers who now feel like my best friends.
I was invited by my buddy Jason to speak at the first-ever Summer Camp hosted by his company, Rupt, for the promotional products industry. There were team colours, a healthy dose of friendly competition, prizes, adventures and learning sessions, all set against the incredible backdrop of the Colorado River and the red rock desert.
It was fucking Magical.
As a brand guy I often find myself around brand people whether thats agency owners, designers or people building things in the creative space but I have always loved to pop myself in the deep water of the unknowing.
I know very little about this world.
Like most people, I’ve interacted with the industry countless times as an end user. Whether that’s branded merch, company swag, event giveaways or promotional products arriving in the post… but I’ve never actually spent too much time inside the industry itself or with the people who make it all happen…
so on paper, I had absolutely no business being there.
But that’s exactly why I jumped at the chance to speak at this event.
I love learning new things, and this room was packed with some of the biggest hitters in the game. People who have spent years building businesses and solving problems in a world I know jack shit about.
It would have been easy to say no. The travel was long, the industry was unfamiliar but saying no to this opportunity was never really on the cards for me.
I am getting older, and as that happens, the more I think one of the biggest mistakes we make is only learning from people who do the same thing as us. We all read the same design books, follow pretty much the same people, attend the same conferences and end up having the same conversations over and over again.
This felt like the exact opposite of that… I’m gonna call it the ‘anti-echo chamber’ move.
An opportunity to step outside my own little corner of the world and spend time with people who think differently and see things through a completely different lens. I had a feeling it would open my brain up in ways it hadn’t been before, and it absolutely did.
Now, even though this space doesn’t live and breathe design in the same way mine does, it still lives in the world of branding.
Most brand people spend their time on the fun stuff like the thinking, story, and execution side of design. We help make strategic decisions, build the identity, and create the funky punky assets. Then, more often than not, we release the work into the wild and hope it finds its way.
What really hit home for me whilst spending time with this incredible group of humans is that this industry is actually much closer to mine than I first realised. They’re positioned at an incredibly important point in the journey… where the identity of a company meets real humans in the real world.
They are a key part of what we do because they help bring businesses to life through experiences. And ultimately, that’s where ‘brand status’ is earned.
As brand people, we’re in the game of pattern building and memory. We help businesses become recognisable. The promotional products industry helps those companies show up in the real world, creating physical touch-points and experiences that reinforce everything the business is trying to stand for.
The biggest takeaway for me this week, apart from the fact that Moab might be one of the coolest places on the planet, is that every industry has its own wisdom.
Every industry has people solving interesting problems and has a lot of knowledge to offer the general outsider who is keen to learn a new perspective.
It’s easy to convince ourselves that all the answers live inside our own little bubble, but I’ve found over the years that many of the best ideas and implementations in my own business have come from looking outside of design.
Whether that’s borrowing hospitality thinking and applying it to my design process, or building an identity of my own that fuses tattoo culture with skate-shop vibes, the things that have helped me stand out have not come from simply doing what everyone else was doing.
One of the ideas I shared during my talk was Hotelling’s Law… the observation that competitors naturally drift towards sameness because it feels safer. Over time, everyone starts looking similar, sounding similar and offering similar things because nobody wants to stray too far from what appears to be working for others.
The irony though is that the safest thing to do often becomes the riskiest thing to do.
If everybody moves towards the middle, the middle becomes really freaking crowded. Which is why I’ve always been more interested in pushing at the edges… That’s where the interesting opportunities live.
That’s why I think we should all spend a little more time making anti-echo chamber moves.
Here are some ways you can do that:
1. Go to the event that isn’t built for you.
2. Read the book that nobody in your industry is talking about.
3. Spend time with people who challenge your assumptions.
4. Put yourself in rooms where you’re not the expert.
Remember, my friends… curiosity is often where the magic lives.
And if my week in the Utah desert taught me anything, it’s that sometimes the most valuable thing you can do isn’t go deeper into your own world…
It’s to spend some time exploring somebody else’s.
Big love and respect.
James
- The People’s Branding Mentor