When Tim, Dave and I started Odopod in 2000, I had a personal goal. I wanted to create a healthy work environment – one that encourages diverse interests outside of work; one in which we would respect and like our clients (and in turn, they us); and most importantly, one where people (including me) would enjoy spending at least forty hours per week.

Odopod now has 60 uber-talented people, and we're growing as carefully as ever. With the Nurun acquisition, we join a network of 1,000+ experts all over the globe (Montreal, Paris, Shanghai, Barcelona, etc). It's a time of tremendous opportunity as well as of considerable vulnerability. I know from past experience that an acquisition can threaten the very culture and systems that made us successful.

Odopod and Nurun are committed to protecting and perpetuating the unique culture and energy of Odopod. In this spirit, I have taken on a new role, overseeing the integration of Odopod and Nurun. It's my responsibility to ensure that the quality of our work, the happiness of our employees, and the intimate attention we give our clients remain uncompromised.

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Odopod started at the end of 2000. It was the dawn of the “Digital Decade.” Over the past ten years, we’ve grown from a small digital studio to a fifty-plus strategically-minded digital agency. Meanwhile, the Internet has evolved from being something people use – to how people live.  

People are boldly adopting new ways of using digital. We are empowered by our personal devices and social networks to try things that might have previously seemed too difficult, time-consuming or expensive. Cultural shifts are taking place at a massive scale to how we shop, communicate, read, consume media, play games, bank and work.

How and when did this happen?

Rewind to 2001.

The dot-com bubble had just burst. Still, there were high expectations and optimism for the Internet. The decadence and “get rich quick” schemes of the dot-com era gave way to innovation and “stuff that works.” With a glut of used furniture, office space and brilliant minds, it was a great time to start a new kind of company.

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We like Facebook, and we’re not alone. It is currently the most visited site in the U.S. and boasts 400-plus million worldwide users. This week, Facebook took a big step towards becoming even more ubiquitous. The changes are a little tricky to understand, so here's an attempt to summarize.

First a quick explanation of the impact: With these changes, any website is now able to display content and products informed by a user’s Facebook profile – information like current city, likes, interests, etc. To clarify, this all happens without requiring the user to sign in on that website or provide it with any personal information. It’s simply a matter of the user being logged into Facebook, which is the first thing many users do when they go online.

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