<aside> ⭐ This is a blog we wrote in early 2020
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The neatest solution would’ve been for us to say we’d only work with charities or nonprofits. But that felt too neat – we knew businesses were part of the problem and that wasn’t something we wanted to ignore.
A few weeks after we’d set up the business, a couple of us were in Austin, Texas, watching Al Gore discuss his new book, The Future at SXSW. Gore detailed the ways in which business was failing the world. It was the first time we’d heard anyone articulate the problems so clearly. And hearing Gore talk about those issues really got us thinking.
Gore had opened our eyes to a view of the world that was more complex than we’d previously understood. One in which humanity was out of step with the ecosystems on which it depended, the global economy was crumbling, separatist ideologies were emerging, and corporations were damaging democracy.
Gore’s ideas had shown us the importance of our two core values: reason and empathy. And that if you really want to change the world, first you have to have the right information to understand it, and then you have to communicate that information in a way that resonates, and compels people to act. This inspired us to launch our own publishing project, Weapons of Reason, to help us better understand the world, and in turn help others understand it too.
The more we learned through Weapons of Reason, the more we grew to appreciate the interconnected nature of the global challenges we were covering and where businesses sat among them. This helped us clarify our early thoughts about making a positive impact as a business. It wasn’t really as simple as just working in a one sector or space that we might feel comfortable saying is ‘unproblematic’ and sticking to it (not least because we don’t believe such a space exists). Instead, there was something to be said for getting into the weeds of where the problems exist, and trying to be on the right side of the solutions.
Seven years later, all the clients we work with need us to have a sophisticated understanding of the world. All are affected by similar, complex problems. And so our attempt to understand these problems have helped us serve our clients, while navigating a path for our business which we feel comfortable with.
Today, Human After All creates brand-led communications for people we’re incredibly proud to have worked with – all of whom have needed help dealing with the same big, global challenges*.* These include: