#Magic Moments
Last week we did a little post about our company’s culture and one of our good friends had mentioned how nice it was to see good, old-fashioned grainy pics of great company moments. Well before the times smartphones had became such good cameras. It got us doing a little trip down memory lane – thinking about some of the great events of the past, some of the magic moments we’ve experienced as a company so we thought we’d share a few of them with you…
A week of #MagicMoments starting with a small personal one…
I started the company back in 2012 and like most start-up entrepreneurs I was doing a lot of networking at the time. I must have been averaging 4-5 events a week (at least) as I looked to meet new people, gain our first clients and learn as much as possible about business. I had always heard of a mystical organisation called ’The Entrepreneurial Exchange,’ it was one of the most prestigious networking groups in Scotland, pretty much for the big boys and girls only and holding a kind of scary appeal. I had already heard about who the big-hitters in business were in Scotland and they all seem to be tied to this one organisation in some way or another.
Kind of out of the blue, one late November afternoon, I got a call on a Thursday afternoon from Margaret Gibson of PSYBT asking me if I had a black tie? Margaret, who was the Marketing Director of PSYBT, had told me that the charity had a table for the Entrepreneurial Exchange Annual Awards Dinner and somebody had cancelled last minute. Unbelievably, I was getting the chance to go to the Entrepreneurial Exchange Annual Awards Dinner at the Hilton. Excitingly, I stopped what I was doing, got into a suit and made my way to the Hotel.
Luckily enough it turned out to be one of the very best nights of my life. The Entrepreneurial Exchange was everything I hoped it would be and so much more. I met some wonderful new people, heard incredible tales of ordinary people doing remarkable things – billion pound companies being created out of nothing, multi-million pound, international deals. I was one of those people, at that time, who listened a lot to the news and it was all – recession, recession, recession or just bad news – this was like another world!
I was fortunate to be there for Maitland Mackie (of Mackie’s crisps fame) inspiring yet hilarious 20-minute acceptance speech when being given his ‘Lifetime Achievement Award.’ Then hearing the equally inspirational ‘Gio Benedetti’ get up a few minutes later and say – ‘don’t worry, I won’t be as long’ with an Italian accent that I was oh so familiar with. I seen a slightly tipsy German man named Twickler (nobody could get his name right) celebrating with unrestrained joy at winning one of those oh-so hard to win awards.
So many of my business heroes were in the room that night and I even had the great fortune to meet a few of them afterwards. I truly enjoyed every last moment of this incredible experience – leaving the hotel bar as daylight was appearing at around 6AM the next morning.
That night changed my life, opened my eyes and more importantly, opened my mind, to what was possible. I remember going straight to my family home in Kilmarnock without sleep and boring my poor dad to bits about the incredible evening I had just had. Something changed that night, I realised I enjoyed being a designer but what I really wanted to be was one of those superhero entrepreneurs…
Benedetto
Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.
‘Design with soul’ may be the company tag-line, but to Benedetto, it is also a way of life. He believes that creative and commercial enterprise is about purity of thought, honesty of construction and boldness of execution.
He believes in bringing out the true essence of human endeavour and considers his job of articulating the great work of people and companies an absolute privilege.
His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder and Creative Director of the loft, a branding consultancy in Glasgow.
He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.
Find out more about the loft’s entrepreneurial approach >>>