Celebrating 15 years of It’s Nice That
50 million readers, 30,000 articles and 25,000 creatives later; how have we enabled creativity to thrive?
It’s Nice That launched on 3 April 2007.
That’s 15 years of championing creativity; day in, day out.
5,475 days of commitment and dedication to the industry that we love, and are privileged to be a part of.
Our impact in that time can be summed up with three stats;
— We’ve reached over 50 million people through our platforms
— We’ve written over 30,000 articles; across over 15 creative disciplines about everything from Advertising to Zines
— We’ve championed over 25,000 creatives; giving them a chance to be discovered, admired, commissioned and thrive in their careers.
Impact beyond our wildest dreams.
Far beyond anything we imagined a one-week university project could achieve.
Today, we’d like to mark the occasion by saying a huge thank you to everyone who’s had even the slightest involvement along the way. Whether you’re one of those 50 million readers, a creative we’ve featured, a client we’ve had the pleasure of working with, a collaborator we’ve commissioned, a speaker at one of our events, an employee who’s joined our team or anything else in-between. Thank You.
In that time, our mission of championing creativity has never changed, but instead evolved into something bigger.
Through the success of It’s Nice That, and our desire to serve our audience in new ways , we’ve grown a group of companies that It’s Nice That sits in the middle of — The HudsonBec Group.
And that innate desire to help creatives, or as we prefer to say “Enable Creativity to Thrive” is now a purpose that sits over all four of our businesses — and feels like a much more important legacy to speak to at a milestone like this.
For the first time last year, we got really clear on what Enable Creativity to Thrive really means — and brought this to life on our HudsonBec Group website
Along the way we’ve learned a lot about what it takes to really enable creativity day in day out; both internally and externally. Here are the four things I think have been fundamental.
- Believe in people
Along the way we’ve learned to fundamentally and unconditionally believe in people, and what they can bring. We haven’t always executed this successfully, and we’ve learned the hard way not to micromanage or infantilise the people who work for us.
The one sure-fire way to make sure someone doesn’t thrive, is tell them what to do every day. The magic that can happen when someone has space, time and autonomy to think for themselves however, is incredible.
2. Take personal development seriously
Alongside the gift of responsibility, people also need support and development. In the last 15 years, we have tried to do everything that a self-funded bootstrapped company can do in terms of supporting our teams to be brilliant.
We’ve been committed to ensuring our employees leave more aware and capable than when they arrived and invested so much time, effort and resources into rigorous appraisal and development systems. They haven’t always been perfect (and we’re rejigging them as we speak), but everyone needs an opportunity to think in depth about themselves; what they’re good at, where they need help, and make sure they have an ally to help them get there.
3. Build platforms, not projects
Using our reach to ensure the voices of others are heard and discovered is one of the most powerful things we can do to help others thrive. We are at our most powerful when we create systems, or platforms for this to happen regularly — rather than one-off initiatives.
It’s Nice That and Creative Lives are the most obvious examples — but this applies to all of the businesses in the group. There are so many one-off projects out there in the world, but if you can put the work in to create a larger system — the chance to create greater impact only gets bigger and more exciting.
4. Consistency, consistency, consistency
Consistency is key. It’s how we’ve built enough trust to have our platforms and businesses grow. Whether it’s consistency with posting daily articles on It’s Nice That, delivering brilliant work for clients on Anyways, or being dogged to ensure new talent and opportunities are promoted every single week on Creative Lives or If You Could — without consistency we would never have lasted 15 years.
It may sound too simplistic, but if you can keep turning up, day in, day out, striving for the same mission — you’ve got a great chance at making something impactful. Of course we all need to evolve (and we are deep in thinking about how It’s Nice That needs to evolve ourselves) but never underestimate consistency.
If you’re in the business of providing opportunities for others, I hope there’s something in those four nuggets you can take to help what you’re doing.
Before I sign off, I wanted to extend a special thanks to our current It’s Nice That and wider HudsonBec Group teams of incredibly talented people, all of whom are working tirelessly every day to give opportunities to others; Afari, Africa, Alfie, Amelia, Amy, Anna, Annabel, Brittany, Callum, Carol, Charlie, Clara, Dilsah, Dom, Ellen, Elfie, Estelle, Indi, James, Jeanne, Jenny, Jess, Jessica, Jessie, Jody, John, Joey, Liz, Louis, Lucy, Lucy, Marianne, Matt, Melodie, Mercedes, Mike, Olivia, Ornella, Rob, Saffron, Sana, Saskia, Shivani, Simon, Sophie, Tanya, Thu Ha, Thyme, Tia, Will K and of course, Will H.
Here’s to the next 15!
Alex
P.s — We are creating an archive of stories of people who we have helped thrive over the last 15 years. Has It’s Nice That or one of the HudsonBec Group companies helped you to thrive? If so, we’d love to know how.
- Did we give you the chance to be discovered on the site?
- Did our content inspire a new project for you?
- Did we commission you for a dream project?
- Did you find a job through us?
- Did your time working in our business help your career?
- Or something else entirely?
We would love to hear from you.
