When I started Pragmatic I didn’t set out to build an agency; I just wanted to continue building more bigger and better websites. At some point, we started to be referred to as an agency because that’s what people called businesses that did similar things, but up until recently I didn’t think twice about it.
On agency
I’m obsessed with Pragmatic. I live and breathe the business and often dream about it too. I feel that I’ve mentally examined every nook and cranny of our purpose, mission, vision, services, processes, tools, documents, culture and ambition. People were calling us an agency, but it was only a few months ago that I wondered what being an agency actually means.
So I looked up the word. And my favourite definition was this:
The capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power; action or activity; operation.
Wiktionary
So now I think about an agency as a force for change in the world. The ability to convert energy from potential into kinetic; to manifest change.
On being pragmatic
Before I started Pragmatic, I freelanced for several years. When I started the business, I called it ‘Pragmatic’ because that’s how my clients described my approach. Maybe it’s a case of nominative determinism but more and more, the nature of the business and the work we do is about pragmatism:
an approach that evaluates theories or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application.
The nature of working on a digital platform means that the results of any activities are easy to isolate and identify. This poses its own questions and problems for society, especially if we consider that there is no industry that will escape the accelerating disruption of technology. Fundamentally, however, the answer to the question: “What was the impact of this?” in a digital context should always be knowable, which means that digital is inherently pragmatic.
Differentiating our approach between the idea of “digital” or “reality” is a false dichotomy. So really we end up with pragmatism as the only tenable framework for decision-making.
By utilising the measurable successes and combining the information that we can easily retrieve, it allows us to piece together an approach that starts to make larger discernible changes. Lots of small information creates big direction.
On being a pragmatic agency
By definition, we’ve defined ourselves as something that has the ability to manifest pragmatism. It means we make decisions based on the success of our actions.
Each member of Pragmatic instills this in everything they do, irrespective of the size of the problem. We identify the solutions that will provide the most benefit from previous successes, both ours and yours.
By setting the stage for pragmatic thinking from the beginning of our tasks, from the start of our relationship with you and from the initial meeting with your team, we also set the stage for success from the start of the project.
And what better way to create success than by optimising for success?
We are an agency. We are Pragmatic.