Culture: 25 things about Boondoggle Amsterdam.

OK, I’m a little biased here (Boondoggle Amsterdam is my current employer), but I think our ubergeek (and managing partner) Tom de Bruyne put together a pretty remarkable list of 25 things about Boondoggle Amsterdam. It is for you to judge to what extent the things match up to our acts.

Feel free to build upon or alter the rules, but please be so kind as to respect the Creative Commons license.

1. Great work is stuff that ends up on T-shirts.
2. We hate to pay for artists, we love to pay for craftsmanship. Artists don’t belong in creative agencies, unless a piece of art is on the briefing.
3. If it ain’t worth talking about, it’s shit.
4. We are total suckers for smart arguments. We just love to get convinced.
5. We like to see ourselves as the Quentin Tarantinos of the persuasion industry. We direct brands in such a way that they become truly remarkable. Plus we get to say “fuck” all the time.
6. We have an unhealthy fascination for Kim Jong Il, one of the last real evil scums. We want to have our own country with worshipping and mindfucking propaganda.
7. No matter where we go, we always prefer Amsterdam.
8. We are addicted to riding along the canals in Amsterdam going “aaaaaaah” and “ooooooh”.
9. If we didn’t convince a client, then we weren’t convincing enough. Period.
10. It is totally forbidden to use Apple as an example in presentations. No, seriously, you can get fired for that.
11. Apple is an incredibly interesting brand. They are the most talked about brand on the planet, while meanwhile acting like total dicks.
12. Sometimes we find ourselves acting like married couples. We’re not sure yet whether that’s a good thing.
13. Never mistake having fun for not being serious. We’re bloody fanatical about work, we just need to compensate a lot for that.
14. If you think we hate you, that’s usually not the case. We just think you’re an idiot.
15. We are absolute suckers for little acts of kindness. We think that world domination is in getting the little details right.
16. We usually get very disappointed in the creativity of the self-proclaimed creative class. Those who were once good in the shouting advertising business usually suck at creating ideas that are driven by a passion to tell, to inspire, to surprise and to get shared.
17. An idea for an idea is not an idea.
18. Great ideas make you want to do little dance steps. You just know when you’ve met a great idea.
19. We get horny from geekiness. And from utterly useless knowledge, like the fact that an office desk has 400 times more bacteria than a toilet.
20. Our Belgian roots manifest themselves at their worst when there’s eating involved. When we organize an event, we are only totally stressed out about the catering.
21. We embrace politics and tactics. When the right idea reaches the right person at the right time with the right arguments, we tend to sit back and smoke a cigar, just like Hannibal of the A-Team, mumbling “I love it when a plan comes together”. Some of us add some crotch scratching to this, but this is not a compulsory part of the ritual.
22. Fresh pasta flamed in a big Parmigiano cheese bowl… and other delightful little rituals really make us shut up for at least half a minute, while leaving a silly grin on our faces.
23. We decided that no strategic planner could leave the office without a translation buddy. Stuff can get really fluffy sometimes.
24. In a creative agency, democracy is overrated. Collaboration along strict lines isn’t. And yes, this still leads to subversive ideas.
25. We all adore the word serendipity, while the word “remarkableness” gets us into really nasty semantic fights.

Written in 2010, left as it was.

Original: Culture: 25 things about Boondoggle Amsterdam, 18 August 2010. Historical links may no longer work.