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Elsewhere Wiki

Wiki introduction

An introduction to using our wiki to help understand how we work with organisations to help them with their digital products

Welcome to the Elsewhere wiki, here you'll find the detailed documentation of who we are, why we do what we do and how we do it.

Here's some links to get you started:

Otherwise just use the menu on the left and explore...enjoy 🎉

A digital product studio

Welcome to elsewhere, an overview of what it means to be a digital product studio. We help to improve organisations digital products through strategy, design and technology.

We are Elsewhere, a digital product studio based in Copenhagen, Denmark.

We help small organisations to enhance their digital innovation, effectiveness, and sustainability through top-notch digital services.

We recognise that genuine success demands more than just advanced design and technology. As part of our digital product work we foster outstanding teams, implement thoughtful processes, promote sustainable business models, cultivate inclusive communities, and nurture thriving organisational cultures.

This means that the people we partner with benefit from

The best environment for creativity and innovation
Accountability for the work we do, all the way from inception to real world results
A fun, collaborative and respectful working environment that gets the most out of everyone who is working with us
Flexibility and pragmatism in project scoping and planning. Our partners use us when they need us, no need to make costly and risky full time hires until they’re ready
Fast, effective and agile projects that deliver high quality digital results at value for money
Hand on experience learning about everything we do, so that you can do it without us one day

The people

Generalists

The employees use their vast the skills and experience they have in design and technology to help the organisations we work with

Any work we do from its initial inception to learning post project will have two of these employees assigned to it. These two people are responsible for ensuring quality and consistency throughout the elsewhere journey whether on a project or not. At least one of those people will be resourced as part of the actual project and be assigned in a production role such as project manager or product manager.

Why we have employees

The more elsewhere employees we have the more projects we can work on and the more positive outcomes we can create for the wider community

Employees broaden our range of knowledge and skills in house helping us to be more effective on our projects and improve those around us

Hired employees cost less than freelancers so we can make more profit more quickly, which facilitates our ability grow and reach more people

Elsewhere employees have their own network of people which broadens our reach in terms of the people we collaborate with

Why employees work for us

Elsewhere provides a vehicle for employees to further their personal and professional goals

Elsewhere provides fulfilling meaningful work that makes work rewarding

Elsewhere provides a competitive salary and benefits that allows employees to pay of the life they wish to lead

Elsewhere provides the opportunity to work with talented people within design and technology and further their skills

Elsewhere provides an attractive way of working to people who wish to establish more fulfilling relationships with the people they work for and who wish to use their skills to help people

Billy Maddocks

Always trying my best, founder, structured thinker, a love for strategy and research but only if the learnings are going to make it into design and coded reality

Introduction

I have worked in many senior roles throughout my career. My diverse background as a strategist, technologist and research allows me to understand and empathise with organisational challenges at all levels. This has helped me to gather a wide ranging understanding of effective strategy and processes all focussing on doing the most for people.

This experience means I am able to work in close collaboration with designers, product managers, domain experts, engineers, and organisational leaders to align between peoples motivations, market opportunity and organisational capabilities to workshop innovative solutions and follow those solutions from inception all the way to thriving solutions.

#DigitalStrategy, #Innovation, #roadmapping, #StrategicPlanning, #UserTesting, #CustomerResearch, #DesignThinking, #TechnicalConcepts, #CustomerExperience, #ChangeManagement, #InnovationWorkshops, #WorkshopFacilitation, #ClientManagement, #UserResearch

A bit of history

Learning to work in online companies

My work life started as a need to earn a bit of cash to survive and in doing so I stumbled across digital technology and online businesses as a place I felt most at home. I worked as a website administrator and a couple of different jobs. Website work came naturally to me and supported my computer science degree well.

Honing my technology craft

After finishing my degree I jumped headfirst into coding, helping to build and maintain a multitude of websites, platforms and blogs along the way. Most notably by the time I reached lead developer at a content marketing agency I learnt that coding itself was not the solution. To truly make successful digital products I needed to talk to users, measure their success and have business needs at the forefront of my mind.

Not only this, my seniority meant I had to train new developers, work with other departments and meet with clients. The complexity of people's own needs, motivations and the way they affected the work I did was becoming ever more apparent.

Embracing the strategic and people focused

It was at this point I was promoted into a more senior management position where yet again it was people that were the main challenge and what I learned most in this time. The boardroom I was in had a very diverse set of personalities, opinions and skills sets. The clients I worked with were being pulled in all directions by their bosses and staff. No matter how good the process, strategy or solution, it was being held up by conflicting agendas, motivations and success criteria.

What I know now is that I was trying to do what was best for our customers, my department and team members but this was conflicting against the need for fast growth and profit. I thought at the time it was because I didn’t enjoy my job and so decided to change my career path and move to Denmark.

The Denmark years

I moved to Copenhagen in 2015 and started a Masters degree with a focus on Artificial intelligence and user experience. I wrote my master's thesis with Hello Great Works and then started full time employment with them soon after.

Given my aptitude for strategic thinking I succeeded in learning a lot about design thinking, qualitative research methods and innovation strategy. Essentially how to understand what people need and bring a whole team of people along with turning that understanding of needs into a solution that people truly want.

The elsewhere years

Now here I am.

All my work and life experience has all culminated in the creation and running of Elsewhere, the studio I am so proud to have helped to start and turn it into what it is today.

Elsewhere is a studio where I get to use all of my previous experience working in strategy, technology and design to help talented people to build, nurture and champion their people first organisations. Truly balancing the organisations need for profit alongside what is best for their employees, customers and community.

I get to work with some of the most innovative organisations and people, to help them take the seeds of an idea or problem and turn them into thriving solutions. I get to strategise and research, then see and learn from solutions out in the world to hone my skills. I get to have my cake and eat it, then bake an even better cake next time.

My role at Elsewhere

My role as Impact strategist and researcher involves shaping both elsewheres’ and clients' visions, making sure everyone is heading in the right direction and knows the steps to get there. It’s all about charting the path to success and creating an environment of continuous informed learning to get there effectively.

Whether it's helping to grow individuals, organisations, or digital solutions, my role is to give clear guidance on the direction and back it up with solid evidence. When people are looking for someone to show them where we're going and why we're going there, I'm the person with the best current answers.

Of course, I can't do it alone. Effective communication and collaboration are key parts of what I do. I work closely with different teams and stakeholders to make sure we're all on the same page and moving forward together. After all, teamwork makes the dream work!

Digital strategy and roadmaps

Work closely with cross-functional teams to define digital strategies that support project objectives.
Develop roadmaps outlining the necessary steps and milestones to achieve digital transformation goals on a project.
Collaborate with technology and design teams to ensure the successful execution of digital project work.
Stay updated on emerging trends and technologies, providing recommendations for digital advancements.
Facilitate the collection of data from users and customers to inform strategic decisions and roadmaps

Impact measurement & research

Establish frameworks and methodologies for measuring the impact of organisational initiatives. for elsewhere and its clients.
Collect, analyse, and interpret data to assess the effectiveness and outcomes of implemented strategies, for elsewhere and its clients.
Prepare reports and presentations to communicate impact findings to stakeholders, for elsewhere and its clients.
Identify areas for improvement and recommend actionable insights based on impact measurements, for elsewhere and its clients.

Organisation strategy

Collaborate with key stakeholders to develop and refine Elsewhere and it’s client's strategic goals and objectives.
Conduct thorough research and analysis to identify opportunities for growth and improvement for elsewhere and its clients.
Develop comprehensive strategies and action plans to align the organisation with its long-term vision, for elsewhere and its clients.
Monitor and evaluate the progress of Elsewhere strategic work, making adjustments as necessary for elsewhere and its clients.
Collaborate with employees to help them define their goals, vision for their role and how to get there

Luke Jermy

Digital creative, visual thinker, Hobbyist birdwatcher, loving friend, Norwich City fan. He well versed in User experience (UX), User interface (UI) and how technology works

TLDR; My background is in design and digital technology. Worked with everything from startups to Google and everything in between. Founded a studio that helps to build organisations balancing people, purpose and profit.

✨ Now here's the rest of it ✨

I've has been working with design and digital technology in a number of different capacities since 2006.

Corporate beginnings

I started out working in the IT teams of large financial organisations as a software tester. In truth, testing was stretch for me. I liked to tinker and understand how things worked, but I wasn't systematic enough to be any good at it. And my attention span stinks.

Startups

In 2009 I moved to London and immersed myself into the startup world. It was here I got more involved in design: how to understand people and build things that made sense to them. This felt like much more of a calling. Turns out that crumby attention span was a bi-product of some sort of hyper awareness that thrives when doing creative, emotionally engaged work, with real people and their needs.

Agency life

After some years I took to life as a freelancer and started to bounce around some incredible creative technology and design agencies. I had the privilege of working with some massively talented people, as part of teams for the likes of Google and The BBC. London is great for opportunities like that.

The elsewhere years

And to this day, we're on a wild and very fun journey to help people to build organisations that balance the needs of people, and the purpose they are working towards, without compromising on how to get cash in the bank.

Why I'm even doing this

It's my fervent belief that the pairing of design and technology are transformative. We can do an awful lot with them when we put them to good use. The role of organisations, and their influence on the people they touch is the vehicle for how we're trying to affect the change we're working towards.

My Role at Elsewhere

As the Creative Community and Design Lead at Elsewhere, my role combines the art of design with community building and effective communication. I play an invaluable role in shaping our community, fostering partnerships, nurturing talent, and leading branding and design initiatives.

Community building

Curate events and communities to represent Elsewhere and foster collaboration with like-minded individuals and organisations.
Nurture leads and maintain a continuous pipeline of projects by connecting with start-ups that can benefit from Elsewhere's expertise.
Build and maintain a strong talent network to ensure a consistent pool of talent for employment and project needs.
Ensure the smooth operation and satisfaction of those working within our studio space.

Brand and communication

Define and refine Elsewhere's brand identity, maintaining brand guidelines for visual and verbal consistency.
Lead the communication strategy to resonate with our target audience through continuous testing and refinement.
Create and maintain communication materials that represent Elsewhere throughout the customer and community journey

Experience design

When it comes to project work, I take on the role of Product Design Lead. I am at the forefront of shaping the overall look, feel, and functionality of our products.

Conduct user research and analysis to understand the needs, goals, and behaviours of our target audience.
Lead brainstorming sessions and create user personas, journey maps, and wireframes to conceptualise user experiences.
Design intuitive and engaging user interfaces, creating high-fidelity prototypes and mockups primarily using Figma.
Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, stakeholders, product managers, developers, and designers to align design vision with project goals.
Develop and advocate for a user-centred design strategy that aligns with business goals.

Partners

We dislike the words client and vendor. These are our partners. The people we work with the help them to develop people-first digital products and services

Below is a selected list of partnerships we've had recently

TechSoup

We partnered with TechSoup to help them build a digital product. We helped them empowering nonprofits to use technology so that they can focus on their impact work

Working with a global non-profit to define a concept and vision, then build, a scaleable platform that helps Civil Society organisations learn about technology. The platform works by fostering collaboration between nonprofits and members of the technology community, creating learning plans, encouraging knowledge sharing and identifying use cases where technology can help.

Foundgood

We worked with the impact measuring digital platform Foundgood for over 5 years, helping them with all manner of strategy, design and technology

Foundgood is a digital platform that facilitates the collection of grantees's initiative impact data. This in turn can be used by the funders to measure the project impact and create a healthy dialogue about the project and desired outcomes. It also helps guide and understand how funds are allocated to better societal change, learnings and results.  Together with the founder, Hanne, we worked since day one on evolving the concept into a digital prototype. Five years later, the platform not only engages both funders and grantees, but also provides positive societal changes

Sourcewhere

Sourcewhere is an awesome startup with an awesome founder. When helped them with strategy, design and code to reimagine the way hard to find fashion items are sourced

Sourcewhere believes that finding the pieces you love should be easier than trawling through search engines and marketplaces, calling stores or being added to waiting lists. ‍That’s why they built Sourcewhere. ‍ They're the first fashion sourcing app, a place to find and request the beautiful things you’re looking for - past and present, new and pre-owned. Powered by a network of personal shoppers, sales advisors, and private collectors, they connect you to those who can access in-demand and timeless items, so that you can source fewer, better pieces that you’ll keep forever.

Project experts

Our ditigal products and company are nothing without our UX designers, UI designers, front enders, back enders, researchers, strategists, coaches and data analysts

Supporting the elsewhere employees is our network of freelancers, contractors and collaborators. These are highly skilled specialists who we rely on to execute on specialist tasks that require more high level skills than a generalist assigned to a project or if the work requires additional resource

What this means is that we are able to flexibly resource projects of highly skilled specialists who can deliver to a high quality, all whilst maintaining consistency and quality and keeping our costs and overheads down

Alfred Nerstu

One of the best digital brand and UI designers we know. He can take any digital product interface, make it look and feel perfect for the brand it represents in a scalable way

Overview

Alfred is a designer based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He helps companies marry product and brand by designing visual identities and user interfaces. He's currently freelancing and building a product of his own.

Projects

Alfred worked with us on:

Anders Hallundbæk

An awesome programmer or complex frontend and middleware, we always know we can rely on Anders when it comes to code

Overview

Remotely is a company of one, Anders Hallundbæk

He is freelance frontend developer and can really do a lot of things. The focal point is usually one of the following:

Web development & consulting
Digitization of needs & processes
Development of business-critical IT solutions

Projects

Martina Gobec

A wise head with an amazing level of experience as a creative leader, someone who guides us philosophically and spiritually

Overview

Martina is an experienced strategic designer, creative leadership coach, advisor and educator. Throughout her 20-year journey in innovation, creative and tech industries, she worked as a designer, strategist and design director both in-house and on the consultancy side.

Martina is a certified coach from the Co-Active Training Institute and is currently in certification with ORSC, Organisation and Relationship Systems Coach.

Projects

Martina worked with us on:

Rikke Koblauch

An amazingly talented user experience designer and researcher who knows what good is and will do what it takes to make it happen

Rikke is a freelance UX designer and researcher with almost 10 years of experience in building digital products and services. She's a Hyper Island alumni and has been working with big global brands and small startups within mobility, retail, healthcare, the public sector etc in Copenhagen, Amsterdam and London. She's been running my own tech startup and been travelling the world to teach and talk about user centered design.

We talk to Rikke if we need

User research - Getting to know the needs, pains and expectations from end-users

Synthesis and analysis - Identifying patterns, insights and opportunities from the research

Workshop and ideation facilitation - Turning opportunity into ideas

Prototype and experiments - Turning ideas into measurable prototypes

User testing - Putting prototypes and products in the hands of users to validate

Interface design UX & UI - Delivering designs and working closely with developers to ensure the best user experience

Sam Loomes

A pragmatic, hardworking and talented full stack developer that we love to work with. His understanding of technology, brand and UI is almost unparalleled

Proud founder of Good City. We they use strategy, design and technology to help companies evolve their ideas. The result is thoughtful digital experiences that we hope people enjoy.

Teresa Labriola

Creating positive, impactful, sustainable change and social accountability. Teresa specialises in private philanthropy and strategic development consulting

Teresa specialises in private philanthropy and strategic development consulting with a strong focus on impact donations, early-stage project management and the dissemination of the CSR framework. Experienced facilitator and have worked with entrepreneurs, students, the private sector, municipalities and NGO's, to help them see their great ideas become reality.

Wider community

Awesome organisations and digital products don't just happen in isolation. Here's the people behind the scenes who help us get the most out of our work

These people and organisations help to nurture elsewhere towards thriving through their knowledge, network, products and services.

It is important to us that everything from the coffee we drink, the furniture we buy and the administration services we use are as people first as they can be.

Here are some of the most notable partners we have at the moment:

Thought wardrobe

Coaching designers and change makers to be leaders. · Growing creative teams and cultures to shape work that matters.

Thought Wardrobe helps leaders, their teams and organisations align with their purpose and values, create better employee and customer experiences, implement innovation processes and lead change with more impact.

NGUVU

When you drink coffee from NGUVU, you are helping to strengthen female coffee farmers in Kenya, among other things by ensuring they are properly paid.

Overview

NGUVU /in-goo-voo/ means strength in Swahili. The goal of NGUVU is to empower female coffee farmers in Kenya by ensuring they receive proper payment for the coffee beans and help to improve the coffee farms. That way, you can drink delicious coffee and help make a difference for the women and their children.

NGUVU provides our coffee and is a business we very much believe in

Sunbrick

An amazing bookkeeper always with our best financial interests at heart. Sunbrick solve tasks in all areas of the finance function of small and medium-sized companies.

Sunbrick solve tasks in all areas of the finance function of small and medium-sized companies. They do everything from single tasks to a complete solutions.

They helped us to digitise your bookkeeping, automate bookkeeping, approval and payment of creditor invoices, payroll processing, disbursements and payment cards as well as reporting.

We would not survive without Peters skills and knowhow and attention to detail

Revinord

Top quality accountant and auditor and all round great guy, our chartered accountant Rene has than 15 years in digital industries, we can recommend him

Our chartered accountant Rene has than 15 years in the IT industry - as a founder and also as CEO level in larger organisations (US and UK).

He's result oriented and achieving the goals set out.

Specialties: Highly graduated - at MBA level - in Finance and Economics.

Citadel Lawyers

Law huh what is it good for. Well quite a lot actually- If we get in trouble or just need legal reassurance these are our guys

Citadel Advokater, which is housed in centrally located premises on the Esplanade, is a company made up of corporate lawyers. At Citadel Advokater, they are passionate about their craft. The various lawyers together cover a broad legal area, mainly in the business area. In this way, the we always receive a service that is adapted to the legal issue.

They know that legal matters can sometimes be convoluted and opaque. Through information before and during the case about how the process proceeds, as well as information about expected time consumption and fees, we would like to achieve transparency, understanding and clarity.

The work

Our services

We do digital strategy, design and code. But these can mean many things, UX, UI, front end, back end, user testing, data analytics, KPI's just to name a few

The services we provide to our partners all focus on helping them to be the best version of an impactful organisation that they can be. This means both helping them to deal with and see through all of the complex things that a impact start up has to deal with. These essentially fall into 3 areas.

Technology & design

The way we work with and think about effectively harnessing, digital things, technologies, digital product and technical stuff and design them the right way

There’s so many options and buzz around technology. We help you understand what technology you truly need. We then help you design, build and learn from it, so that you can stay effective and focus on your impact.

We believe

Technology & design has the potential to solve complex problems, improve processes, and make organisations more impactful. It can also create new opportunities for individuals and businesses, and enhance our daily lives. As new technologies are invented they force us to rethink our current ways of doing things and ask, is there a better way? Design is a great way to do this.

However it is important for impact led organisations to use technology thoughtfully and considerately, taking into account the potential risks and downsides. This includes being mindful of data privacy, ensuring equitable access to technology, and providing training and support for employees to use technology effectively and safely.

The challenge for small organisations

The challenge is there are too many different technologies, approaches to technology and a large amount of skills and employees required. This means that the small organisation doesn't have the money and resources to best explore what technologies to use or the capabilities to implement them effectively. This means they may be missing out on reaching their impact more quickly and effectively

How we help

Between our generalists and our specialised experts we already have the design and technology knowledge. By partnering with you to understand your organisation we can then provide pragmatic and actionable suggestions on how be best utilise design and technology to be the most impactful organisation you can be.

Not only this we have the team and the skills to then effectively design, build any technology you need. This means we are accountable for any suggestions we might have made earlier in the process and there's no need for any handover to a 3rd party

Save time and resources on understand why where and how to use technology within your organisation
A pragmatic a approach to the implementation of the technology you need focussing solely on the most impactful and value adding areas fist
Reduce the risk and uncertainty of costly implementing technology wrong by using us to effectively implement the technology you need

The steps we go through

Understand your organisations technology needs
Align around a vision for how technology can be used within your organisation
Create a roadmap for implementation
Design, build and test the first version
Keep learning and improving from what is released adding new things as required

The skills we use...

Technology experimentation
Emergent technology research
Concept building
Product roadmapping
Product ownership
Project management
Agile process facilitation
Brand design
UX design
UI design
Design systems
User testing
Digital analytics
Web development
Systems architecture
Content creation
Workshop facilitation

Research

How we do user, customer and stakeholder research and interviews in order to learn what is best for your digital product, website or people first organisation

People are complicated, but central to impactful success. Through research we help to understand the motivations of the people that align with your purpose, so that they stay loyal customers and advocate for you in the long term.

We believe

Small organisations should prioritise the needs of their people. While many people tend to equate this approach with a customer-first mentality, the reality is that customers are just one part of the equation.

To truly embrace a people-first ethos, organisations must consider the needs of everyone they interact with. This includes empathising with and understanding the needs of employees, customers, suppliers, partners, and anyone else with whom the business regularly engages, with particular focus on those in the community that are true believers.

While this may sound like a daunting task, the effort is well worth it. A relentless focus on people creates a more sustainable and successful business overall, proving better retention rates, increased innovation

The problem for small organisations

People are the life blood of any impact organisation. Their employees, their customers and the communities they surround themselves with can make or break their success. Couple this with hiring new employees, attracting and retaining customers, meeting and building relationships with the right funders are some of the most resource heavy, risky and expensive activities a a start up partakes in.

That's why it's deeply important to de risk these activities as much as possible by deeply understanding the need and motivations of the people that they interact with. This can be a resource heavy job and it can be hard to cut through the noice of what all customers, employees and partners are saying to get to the true insight and what to do about it.

How we help

Our generalists and our skilled experts have the skills in customer and employee research needed in order to make sense of the underlying motivations and needs of the people most important to the organisation.

The steps we take

Identify business and impact critical audiences
Understand the organisations purpose and how that maps to its uadiences
Understand the current knowledge within the organisation
Identify gaps in the knowledge
Define research plans to gain deeper knowledge into the audiences
Facilitate research
Gather insights
Provide actionable and pragmatic steps

The skills we use

Workshop facilitation
Employee interviews
Customer interviews
Customer research
Behaviour research
Data analysis
Service mapping
Storytelling
Insight gathering

Strategy

How we use quantitative data to understand organisations impact and design those into effective strategies for digital organisations

Everything has an impact, but you can’t measure everything. We help you to focus on the impact that matters most to your organisation, and how to communicate that impact, so that you stand out from the crowd.

We believe

As the name suggests impact is key to an impact start up. To ensure that an organisation is creating a meaningful impact, it's important to measure its progress towards its desired outcomes. This means setting clear goals, tracking its performance, and using qualitative and quantitative data to make informed decisions about how to improve your impact over time. Not only this communicating the impact you are making helps to attract the best talent, loyal customers and high quality partnerships.

The challenge for impact start ups

Understanding impact can feel like a large, complicated and unwieldy task. It can feel as if you should be measuring millions of data points from CO2 emissions to employees and customer satisfaction. But for start ups that just isn't feasible, it would take up too many costs and resources. The question is then what are the absolutely key things to measure and communicate? here there are many different frameworks, tools and software available to help. This is again creates more work, and takes up valuable resource in finding the right things to use.

How we help

Our generalists and impact specialists can help you quickly cut through the noise of impact and get to a pragmatic strategy

The steps we take

Define the impact and outcomes you want to reach
Prioiritise key outcomes
Identify key measures
Define process of collection
Analyse data
Summarise insights
Communicate impact to target audience

The skills we use

Impact strategy
Logical model mapping
Measurement frameworks
Impact frameworks
Qualitative and quantitative impact measures
Data collection tools and processes
Data analysis
Dashboards and data analytics
Story telling and communication
Workshop facilitation

Who we work with

At this point digital products and their strategies are ubiquitous through all organisations so there are many different types of organisation we work for and work with

This approach means that we work across a number of different types of organisation. This section describes how we see each of those types of organisation and how we typically help them.

Start ups

We help start ups to figure out the digital product part of their idea and create the first proof of concept, MVP all the way to product market fit

Overview

A newly established organisation that is seeking to develop and validate an idea's ability to create a successful business via its ability to earn money, help their customers and support their owners' lives.

What the organisation needs from elsewhere

Help aligning with a clear purpose and vision
Assistance in turning and idea /concept into something implementable and scalable
Advice and expertise on what it takes to build a digital product
Advice and assistance in hiring the and bringing in the right skill sets
Help with all the multitude of things it takes to build a digital product (from code to content and everything in between)
A low cost pragmatic team that can trust in
Help with prioritisation and focus

What elsewhere needs from the organisation

Availability to meet in person at least fortnightly
Belief and an interest in the problem that is being solved
Solving a problem that focuses on putting people first
Commitment to a long term partnership
Transparency in goals, financing and relationship with any board or funding

What the team from elsewhere might look like

One or two main elsewhere people who are always around and available and understand the product inside out
Specific expertise freelance hires for very specific jobs as and when required
Team that grows with each iterations of the product

Investors

If we help start ups then of course we can help those that invest in start ups to de risk their investments by bringing in digital strategy design and cost experts like us

We work with investors to help them de risk the start ups they fund

Research & innovation labs

We work with research and innovation labs to help them take a organisational problem or idea help it to grow and return into the business or become a spin off

Foundations

We work with funders to help them de risk the initiatives they fund where design and technology is involved

Large organisations

We work with large organisations that have pressing digital product challenges, our strategy, design and code skills can be an excellent addition to a team

As projects evolve, unforeseen complexities can arise, whether it's due to a lack of expertise, dwindling resources, or the sheer scale of the undertaking causing bottlenecks and internal challenges.

Our highly experienced professionals are available to seamlessly integrate into your ongoing digital projects. We bring a wealth of knowledge gained from two decades of executing diverse digital initiatives. Acting as an independent voice, we cut through complexities, offering support and guidance to steer your project in the right direction.

Unlike traditional consulting firms, our goal isn't to take over your project; instead, we collaborate with your team to provide the necessary expertise and resources. Our approach empowers your team to regain control and momentum. Once you're back on track, we gracefully step back, allowing you to continue with the newfound momentum.

How we help

Asking for help on your digital product strategy, design or code is a big deal. Here's what the experience of working with us is like our approach and our process

We recognise that our organisation is unique in comparison to typical service providers. By transcending the traditional boundaries of consultancy, digital agency, and venture studio, we are able to offer an unparalleled level of value and innovation. But working this way comes with its challenges in terms of communicating what we do.

Helping people to fully grasp what we do is hard work, but worth it. We truly belive in the way we work, so it is essential that we can effectively communicate how we help our partners, so that we can deliver the most value to them. We accomplish this by acknowledging existing mental models that we break, defining the common patterns through our process, and illustrating it all through tangible case examples.

Overview

To summarise how we help our partners, our approach is to balance a deep understanding of their unique context, whilst acknowledging that there are common patterns in how people behave, how ideas develop into businesses and how digital products are designed and built.

Theres a pattern to the work we do

We work with individuals and teams throughout their evolution, starting from the identification of a challenge or idea, through to them becoming a happy and confident team that can operate independently of our help. We view this journey as an evolutionary process, with each phase requiring a different mindset, focus and skillset. In the early phases, the mindset is open and experimental, while in later stages it becomes more focused and targeted.

No matter the organisation or department we've worked with we have found these phases always exist even if the number of people involved, the specific activities and the time taken in each phase varies.

Everyone we work with is unique

We recognise that every organisation has its unique context and specific needs during its lifecycle. Therefore, while the model above can provide a useful framework for assessing priorities at different phases of the journey, it is essential that we establish a relationship with our partners and take the time to understand their specific context. By doing so, we can tailor our approach and the team we hire to support the specific challenges our partners are facing. This allows us to be cost effective, pragmatic and selective in the work we do.

We do this through a standard set of steps for each project we work on and by working on multiple projects in "bursts and blooms". Bursts are periods of high intensity action, followed by blooms which are period of learning and understanding .

How we define our services

We have quite a diverse set of skills and knowledge within the organisation. In existing mental model terms we work on strategy, design, technology and impact with our partners. The difference is we define and execute all of our services with your employees, customers and partners relentlessly front of mind.

How this looks in reality

To see the lifecycle, bursts and blooms and services in action you can take a look at our cases.

Approach

How we approach the people we work with, the digital products we design and code and the people first people that we partner with

To summarise, our approach is to build a strong foundation of trust and understanding with the people we work with. By using existing well established digital processes, frameworks and tools and pragmatically customising our process to suit the needs we are able to create a safe space and high quality digital products that encourage innovation, trust and ultimately leads to the most successful projects.

Our approach can be described in detail through our principles below;

Principle 1: Digital product principles

Prototypes

We create and use prototypes to help the team, stakeholder and user understand the concepts of features. Our prototypes take many forms depending on the required complexity of the concept and the resources available. From paper sketches to clickable designs to coded prototypes.

Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)

We implement CI/CD practices to automate and streamline the development and deployment processes. This ensures a more efficient, stable and reliable delivery pipeline, integrating seamless DevOps principles into our workflows.

Accessibility

We design and develop digital products with accessibility in mind, ensuring that they are usable by people with disabilities. Adhering to accessibility standards (such as WCAG) is crucial for creating inclusive digital experiences.

Iterative quality assurance and testing - We conduct regular testing throughout the development lifecycle, including unit testing, integration testing, and user acceptance testing. This helps catch and address issues early, reducing the likelihood of major problems later in the process. Throughout all of our projects we create an approach that allows time and budget to be considered for the QA and testing needs of the project. This typically includes:

Requirements and Validation: We Verify and validate the platform requirements against stakeholder expectations to ensure clarity and accuracy.
Test Case Development: We create comprehensive test cases covering functional, non-functional, and integration aspects to evaluate the platform's performance and functionalities.
Regression Testing: We conduct periodic regression tests to ensure new updates or changes haven't adversely affected previously tested functionalities within the platform.
Usability and user interface (UI) Testing: We evaluate the platform's user interface (UI) and experience (UX) to ensure it is intuitive, user-friendly, and aligns with people’s expectations. We also ensure accessibility requirements are tested and met.
Performance and Load Testing: We perform tests to gauge the platform's performance under various load conditions, ensuring it operates efficiently and reliably even during peak usage conditions and also low data connectivity.

Principle 2: Partnership principles

We look at partnerships slightly differently than a typical agency or consultancy. We don’t have a linear set of steps we always follow, we don’t have out of the box team setup’s and we aim to work with partners for a long time. By being agile and pragmatic in terms of how we design our projects we are able to stay cost effective and achieve a high quality output, by putting focus on trust and the relationship early we are able to work on multiple projects with our partners over many years (see 2.3 Prior performance examples for this service) .

Assemble bespoke teams with a consistent owner

Any work we do from its initial ‘inception’ to ‘post-project’ learnings will have two generalists assigned to it. Those two people are responsible for ensuring quality and consistency throughout the Elsewhere journey. At least one of those people will be resourced as part of every project and be assigned in a production role such as project manager or product manager. Then each project will have its own quite specific and tailored needs. Therefore we assemble dynamic bespoke teams based on each project's needs. This is done by combining a generalist's broad digital knowledge with a specialist from our ‘expert network' of freelancers with the correct tailored skills required.

Pragmatic project design

Our partnership approach is to work in "bursts and blooms". During bursts, we work full-time with our partners to achieve high-intensity work that propels the digital product forward. Afterwards, we take a step back to allow our partners to adjust and learn from the changes we made.

As the digital product evolve, more challenges may arise, and we're ready to step in again for another burst of work. This allows us to work on small regular projects that have laser-focused outcomes, giving us the ability to provide accurate project quotes and achieve tangible success. This, in turn, leads to cost-effective and highly rewarding services for our partners.

We value the "blooms" just as much as the "bursts", as they provide space for our partner organisation to learn and integrate our work into their operations. We want to make sure that we're not just a temporary crutch for our partners, but instead, we're empowering them to thrive independently.

A typical overview of a partnership with different burst and bloom phases, highlighting the level of discovery, definition and delivery work involved:

Prioritise long term partnerships

We do our best work when we are involved early in the inception of a digital product or service and continue to be a trusted partner until they are able to do the work themselves or have their own internal team. To get to this stage with a digital product, it can take a few years.

Aim to become obsolete

Over the course of the partnership our aim in the end is always to not be needed anymore. What we mean by this is we want to enable our partners to take ownership of their own digital products and the team that supports them. This means training, sharing and onboarding or adopting our work is a big part of what we do.

Balance strategic thinking with action

We believe that we learn the most from a balance of short and pragmatic research & strategy activities and deliberate action. That means throughout our partnership we aim to get to the ‘doing’ part as quickly as possible, but only when we are sure that the strategy is well enough defined.

Principle 3: People principles

We’ve already said people are the hardest part. These principles are defined to help us make sure we address and understand the complexities of what it means to be human, whether that's the people on the project or the people we aim to help with the digital product we are creating.

Go deep on user and customer needs and motivations

What customers and users say isn’t always what they mean. We always endeavour to go deep on what the underlying motivations are, the ones that they might not even know themselves. Meeting these needs is the difference between an average and an excellent digital product.

Co create and design

One of the biggest blockers to change is ego. The status quo is also an 'ego quo'. It supports someone's professional identity and self-esteem. Often admitting that there's room for improvement is a potential threat. As the organisation facilitating digital change, we need to create pathways where people's ego can remain intact. The best way to do this is to co-design the path forward. Doing so is harder, but much more resilient.

Clear success criteria

From macro level goals of the project to the micro level intended outcomes of a meeting. We always define and align on what the aims and outcomes are and make sure everyone is clear why we are doing things and what success looks like. This makes sure the team stays effective, celebrates success and can do their best work.

Open and honest collaboration and communication

We foster effective and honest communication and collaboration within the project team. This includes regular meetings, retrospectives, transparent documentation, and the use of collaborative tools to streamline workflows. We aim to create a space of honesty and trust that is supportive of mistakes and misunderstandings. This ensures problems are identified early and dealt with to keep the project running smoothly

Process

The series of actions and steps we take in order to achieve success together

Digital product process

The difference is that we allow for the fact that each organisation's digital product is at a different stage and doesn’t fit exactly into one phase. Rather each burst project might require and mix these phases with varying fidelity. For example an existing digital product may need a small bit of discovery, a large bit of research and a small bit of coding and releasing and a small bit of training and onboarding.

The work clusters we choose from can be described as follows:

Explore & discover

This cluster of work represents the activities required to identify particular opportunity or problem spaces. Typically we use this chunk when the work is not particularly well defined or when there is a new innovation that we are trying to figure out where it fits within the current digital solution. Examples of activities in this area include:

Service mapping
Goals and objective definition
Interviews
Competitor analysis

Research

This cluster of work represents activities where we delve deeper into understanding a particular topic area, user or customer group.

Examples of activities in this area include:

Behavioural research
User research
Market research

Scoping, prioritisation

This cluster of work represents the activities required to turn a high level set of objectives into a prioritised set of achievable steps

Roadmapping
User stories
Backlog management

Design, prototype and test

This cluster of work represents the activities required to visualise and communicate a digital solution to the team, stakeholders, users and the developers with minimum need for code. Examples of activities in this area include:

UX design
UI design
Clickable prototypes

Code and release

This cluster of work represents the activities required to code and release a version of the digital solution. Examples of activities in this area include:

Front-end coding
Back-end coding
Data analytics implementation
Unit testing
User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
Quality Assurance (QA) testing for performance, usability, and reliability

Measure and learn

This cluster of work represents the work that takes place while the digital product is live, gathering valuable data on user behaviour and feedback in order to inform future bursts of work to improve the value of the end users and organisation as whole.

Examples of activities in this area include:

Data analytics analysis
User satisfaction surveys
User interviews
Feedback and learning gathering and sorting

Maintain and fix

This cluster of work represents, ensuring that the digital product stays stable and usable post live.

Examples of activities in this area include:

Bug identification and fixing

Team education and process

This cluster of work represents the work that takes place to ensure that an organisation's current employees are able to effectively work with the digital product we have created.

Examples of activities in this area include:

Hiring and onboarding of digital experts
Training of existing staff
Company documentation
Defining processes of how to interact and maintain the digital product

Our project process steps

Each burst project involves specific steps aimed at fostering trust with us and our partners, collectively deepening our grasp of the digital solution, and enabling practical actions that consistently enhance user satisfaction and drive organisational success.

1. Onboarding working session

These working sessions serve as a platform to collectively unravel the challenges we face and pinpoint the most effective ways to identify and address them. Typically, our session focuses on discovery, ensuring that all pertinent questions are raised upfront. This approach allows us to gather and deliberate on crucial information as a team before delving into potential solutions. Moreover, these workshops foster an open, collaborative environment, enabling us to collaboratively shape and define the project together

2. Project definition

We use the logical model framework in order to define and scope the project and turn this into a statement of work. The Logical model framework provides an overview of a project's goal, activities and anticipated results. It provides a structure to help specify the components of a project and its activities and for relating them to one another.

3. Project definition, process, roles and responsibilities

From the project definition we align on the process for delivering the work, team setup, their roles responsibilities and agree on a set of project collaboration principles.

4. Kick off

We bring the whole team together in order to share the key parts of defining the project we have done in step 1 to 2 and align together on how we’ll work together.

5. Sprints and/or work packages

Exactly how the burst will run will depend on what work clusters have been defined in step 3. But typically we will use some kind of agile methodology to run sprints of prioritised tasks with short regular check-ins when the work involves some coding and design. If the project is more research focussed then we will skill manage our tasks using a method like Kanban, but utilise sprints much less.

6. Retrospectives

To ensure the smooth running of the team we will do regular retrospectives with the whole team. Learnings & actions from these sessions are collected over time and when required can be used to define actionable tasks as part of step five to ensure feedback is visibly actioned.

7. End of project reviews

As the project nears close, we will review the collected retrospective learnings alongside the statement of work to ensure we have achieved our aims set out at the beginning and to summarise what we have learnt to take into the next burst.

8. Signal to bloom workshop

The last step in a burst will be to define how the work we have done will continue to be measured after we leave the project. We facilitate a workshop where alongside our partner, we help to define how further learnings will be gathered, what are the aims with the learnings and then how often we should check-in.

Org Lifecycle

Working with technology is not a quick win. It takes takes time and patience over many years. This how we view the people we work with and the change they are trying to enable

The phases we describe below are intentionally abstract, as they represent the common mindset, focus, and potential pitfalls that individuals and organisations face during their journey towards implementing people-first solutions. These solutions can take various forms, from spin-out ideas within large organizations to newly-formed enterprises with the seed of an idea for positive change.

Regardless of the specific form, people involved in these solutions experience the same range of emotions and biases, such as optimism, despair, excitement, disappointment, and uncertainty. By understanding and acknowledging these phases, we can better equip ourselves to navigate the challenges and capitalise on the opportunities that arise during the journey towards creating sustainable and impactful solutions.

The seeds

We consider seeds to be the beginnings of potential action - ideas or challenges that can lead to positive outcomes for customers, employees, or the wider community. Opportunities for growth and improvement are constantly emerging around us, but not all of them are worth pursuing. The challenge is to identify which seeds will provide the most value with the least investment.

In the seed phase, we help people to navigate this challenge by exploring the seeds that have emerged and evaluating their potential. This process involves understanding where the seeds came from, who they affect, and how they can be leveraged to achieve positive outcomes.

By the end of this phase, you will have a clear understanding of which seeds to prioritise and which to keep on the back burner for future consideration.

Test the environment

Once you have a clear understanding of the seeds you want to plant, the next phase is what we call "test the environment." During this phase, you'll need to understand what the optimal conditions for nurturing early growth are. This can involve asking questions like:

Who are the right customers for my product/service?
What kind of team do I need to build to execute my vision?
What partners and suppliers do I need to collaborate with?
What infrastructure and resources will I require?
How can I balance financial sustainability with the social or environmental impact I aim to create?

While it's very rare to have all the answers at this stage, it's important to stay open-minded and be willing to experiment with different approaches. You may encounter setbacks or obstacles along the way, but these can also provide valuable learning opportunities.

Our role during this phase is to help to identify and design experiments that can test different hypotheses and assumptions. We also provide support to execute those experiments and document the insights and learnings that emerge from them.

By the end of this phase, you should have a clear understanding of what a successful version of your people first solution would look like in terms of its target customer base, intended impact, and resource requirements. This can serve as a useful guide for the next stage of development.

Nurture

After testing the environment in the previous phase, it's time to focus on nurturing the seeds in that environment and bringing all aspects of the idea to life. As the idea begins to take shape, unexpected challenges will arise. Successfully dealing with these challenges by adapting and further testing will be crucial to this phase and to strengthening the overall essence of the solution.

While it can be tempting to move quickly and implement many tasks at once, the key to success in this phase is finding the right balance between learning and action. It's important to stay focused on the essence of the solution and to constantly reprioritize tasks based on their effectiveness.

During this phase, we provide support on production work and serve as a scalable set of resources that allow the organization to pivot and validate the essence of the solution. Having been involved from the early phases, we also serve as a useful sounding board as unexpected challenges arise.

By the end of this phase, you can expect to have answers to all the key questions you started out with on this venture. You will have created a new organisation, solution, department, or team that is starting to gain traction and success, even though there are still areas for improvement.

Careful growth

The seeds have sprouted, and the first leaves have emerged in all directions. It can be tempting to grow quickly and take in as many nutrients as possible, but it's essential for a people-first organization to reflect on what growth is needed and focus on effective and impactful growth in the right areas to ensure the best chance of thriving sustainably.

Our role during this phase is to help organizations instill best practices, explore new or refined customer groups, and hire and educate new employees on how to facilitate effective growth.

It's important to remember that growth isn't just about increasing profits or size, but about making a positive impact on your customers, employees, and the wider community. By focusing on impactful growth, you can achieve a more sustainable and effective solution that can thrive in the long term.

By the end of this phase, the purpose and direction of the solution should be clear to everyone involved, and the solution should be running efficiently. While you may not be at the ultimate thriving version of yourself yet, the path towards that goal should be clear, and everyone involved should be working towards it with a shared sense of purpose.

Thrive

You've made it to where you wanted to be, although it may not look exactly as you envisioned it when you started out. The journey to get here was time-consuming, required a lot of hard work, and a great deal of learning. But hopefully, it was worth it.

However, just because you have arrived at your destination, it does not mean that the journey is over. The focus now is on enabling more positive change and ensuring that you can weather any storms that may come your way. As the environment around you continues to change, it's essential to remain vigilant and adaptable. Prioritize exploration, research, and innovation. Keep a close eye on employee and customer satisfaction, keep reevaluating the partners you use, and don't let things slip.

At this stage, our role is to design ourselves out of helping you. You should be well-equipped to handle everything yourself and have the necessary resources. However, we'd like to stay in touch and be a valuable sounding board. We can use our network to help you find new staff and customers.

By the end of this phase, you should be close to achieving your purpose and having a significant impact. However, the landscape may have changed so much that your solution is no longer needed. What's clear now is that you're ready for something new, a change is coming, and you're moving on to the final phase.

Endings and new beginnings

One certainty in life is that everything will eventually come to an end. While this may be unavoidable, it's important to consider how we want things to end and plan accordingly. Throughout all phases of the process, it's important to think about what success looks like, when we've achieved our purpose, and how we can give back to others who are following in our footsteps. It's also important to consider when it's time to call it a day and move on to something new.

By focusing on the legacy of what you've created and planning for a successful end, you can avoid losing sight of your purpose and prevent things from spiralling out of control. It's important to aim for a strong finish and take everything you've learned into your next venture.

Our role in this final phase is to help you reflect on the journey, celebrate your successes, and plan for a successful exit. We can also help you leverage your network and connections to find opportunities for giving back and transitioning into something new. By the end of this phase, you'll be able to confidently close this chapter of your life and move on to new endeavours with a clear sense of purpose and direction.

Project archive

Our partner and project cases where we have helped purpose driven people with their digital product strategy design and code

We have been part of over 50 exciting strategy, design and development projects, many of which are subject to an NDA due to the fact they are part of funding rounds or the subject matter must stay confidential due to the competitive industry.

We recommend you start by looking at one of the cases on our website and then reach out to us if you'd like to hear about any more of our projects.

The theory

Our vision

We are striving towards creating better organisations that consciously consider the impact they have on people and their surrounding environment

At Elsewhere, we firmly believe in the power of people-first organisations. We believe that by building, nurturing, and championing people-first organisations we can foster a virtuous cycle of positive outcomes that benefit not only ourselves, but also the organisations we collaborate with, their customers and employees, and the wider community. Ultimately, our humble aim is to enhance the quality of life for the communities around us.

Read the detail

Introduction

It's important that we can explain why we exist and the change we want to make in the world. This page describes why a theory of change and what it is

Background to the theory of change

When Elsewhere was just a spark in the eyes of its founders, they endlessly discussed that there had to be a better way. They envisioned a world where successful organisations leave a positive imprint on society, where design and technology can be harnessed for the greater good, and where tangible progress can be made without stress. They believed that there just had to be a better way.

With this in mind, they coined the phrase "using design and technology to make the world a better place" as Elsewhere's mission. A noble, if somewhat naive, aim. As Elsewhere grew and matured, it became clear that this statement alone was not enough. Questions arose: What does it mean to make the world a better place? Who are we doing it for and why? Why use design and technology to achieve it? What makes us qualified to define a better world?

These are challenging questions that have been tackled by philosophers, religious leaders, futurists, authors, and governments throughout the ages. No one at Elsewhere claims to have all the answers, but we do believe that we can make a difference. We want to enjoy our time on this planet by working to make things better for those around us.

We began our journey by reading, listening, and being inspired by those who have approached ways to make the world a better place. We paired this with 4 years of hard work as a company, working with civil society and impact startups. From this inspiration and experience we have created our own humble definition of positive change, a theory of change, inspired by civil society. It is the best method we have found for defining the change we want to see and working towards it.

Define change, define theory

“No same man ever steps in the same river twice”.

To clarify what a theory of change means to us, here’s our perspective on change, theories and this document:

Change is ubiquitous.

The world we live in is constantly changing whether we do anything or not. We do believe that we can effect - no matter how small - the change that is happening.

It goes without saying (even though we’re saying it), we can only effect change with the best intentions, we won’t always get the effect we wanted, we will learn from that and maybe even change our theory based on what we learned.

Change isn’t always positive, often things are better than we think, the grass is always greener fosters a lot of change, but a lot of regret too.

Be the change you want to be and keep changing what that change is.

A theory is just that, a theory. We don’t know that we are right, this theory is our constantly evolving, measurable description on how we at Elsewhere can try to “use design and technology to make the world a better place”.

The role of this document is to help clarify the change we want to effect, so that as we see change happening we are able to proactively effect it with the best intentions.

People-first organisations

What are people first organisations and why are they important? What the heck does this have to do with digital product strategy, design and code anyway?

In a world where organisations are often focused on money and growth at all costs, the idea of a "people-first" organisation can seem like a utopian dream. But it’s not, such organisations exist, and they're thriving.

At the heart of a people-first organisation is a simple but radical idea: that the well-being and flourishing of the people should be the primary focus of the organisation. This means prioritising not only their physical and financial needs, but also their emotional, psychological, and social well-being. In other words, people could actually enjoy the thing that they spend 34% of their waking hours doing and get paid for it too. We believe that this is something worth dedicating our working life to and it is why elsewhere exists.

Finding the balance between creating impact and generating profit can be challenging, but it's certainly achievable with careful planning, a strategic approach, and the assistance of design and technology. By leveraging these tools, organisations can successfully pursue both goals without sacrificing one for the other.

Below we have outlined the strategies truly people-first organisations follow. To achieve a people-first culture, it's crucial to consistently follow all of these strategies in harmony, with support from those inside the organisation. While people-first organisations may not always execute these strategies perfectly, they strive to do so and are transparent about their successes and failures.

Strategy 1: Honestly focus on purpose

One of the most important ways to balance impact and profit is to ensure that an organisation's purpose and mission are clear and aligned with the stakeholders values. This means identifying what matters most to the organisation and the impact it wants to create, and then designing the business model and operations around those goals. By staying true to the purpose, an organisation can create a sense of shared value that benefits both itself and those around it.

Provides clarity and direction: A clear purpose helps to define the organisation's direction and focus its efforts on what matters most. By setting a purpose that is centred on people, the organisation can create a shared vision that inspires and motivates its employees and stakeholders.
Enhances employee engagement and retention: When employees understand and believe in the organisation's purpose, they are more engaged and committed to their work. This can improve job satisfaction, productivity, and retention rates, which are essential for creating a people-first culture.
Builds a positive reputation: Focusing on purpose can help the organisation to build a positive reputation and brand image that resonates with its customers and stakeholders. This can increase customer loyalty, attract top talent, and create opportunities for collaboration and partnerships.
Encourages innovation and creativity: A purpose-driven organisation that prioritises its people can encourage innovation and creativity by inspiring employees to think outside the box and explore new ideas. This can help the organisation to stay relevant and adapt to changing market conditions.
Fosters social responsibility: A people-first organisation that is focused on purpose is more likely to consider its impact on the community and the environment. This can lead to a more socially responsible business model that prioritises sustainability, diversity, and inclusion.

Strategy 2: Relentlessly do what’s right for people

As the name suggests, people-first organisations prioritise the needs of their people. While many people tend to equate this approach with a customer-first mentality, the reality is that customers are just one part of the equation.

While this may sound like a daunting task, the effort is well worth it. A relentless focus on people creates a more sustainable and successful business overall, and can provide the following specific benefits to each group of people within the organisation.

Employees

Empathising with employees and focusing on their needs and goals can benefit the success of an organisation in several ways:

Increased employee engagement and motivation: When employees feel that their needs and goals are valued by the organisation, they are more likely to be engaged and motivated in their work. This, in turn, can lead to higher productivity, better customer service, and improved business outcomes.
Improved retention rates: When employees feel that their needs and goals are being met, they are more likely to stay with the organisation over the long term. This can help to reduce turnover and the associated costs of recruiting and training new employees.
Enhanced organisational culture: By empathising with employees and focusing on their needs and goals, organisations can create a more positive and supportive culture. This can lead to improved collaboration, better communication, and a stronger sense of shared purpose among employees.
Increased innovation: When employees feel that their ideas and perspectives are valued, they are more likely to contribute innovative solutions to the organisation's challenges. This can help to help the organisation to improve how it operates and its ability to achieve its purpose

Customers

Empathising with customers and focusing on their needs and goals can benefit the success of a people-first organisation in several ways:

Increased customer loyalty and satisfaction: When customers feel that their needs and goals are understood and valued, they are more likely to remain loyal to the organisation and recommend its products or services to others. This enables the organisation to be more profitable and further their work toward their purpose
Improved brand reputation: By prioritising customer needs and goals, organisations can create a positive reputation. This can help to attract new customers and retain existing ones, often without the need for costly sales and marketing efforts
Enhanced customer experience: By empathising with customers and understanding their needs, organisations can create a more personalised and effective customer experience. This can lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as reduce customer complaints and negative feedback.
Increased innovation: When organisations focus on understanding customer needs and goals, they are more likely to develop innovative products or services that meet those needs. This can help to differentiate the organisation from its competitors and progress towards their impact more quickly

Suppliers and other partners

Empathising with suppliers and partners and focusing on their needs and goals can benefit the success of a people-first organisation in several ways:

Improved relationships and collaboration: When organisations prioritise the needs and goals of their suppliers and partners, it can lead to stronger relationships and more effective collaboration. This can help to streamline processes, reduce costs, and improve overall efficiency.
Increased trust and loyalty: By empathising with suppliers and partners and valuing their needs and goals, organisations can build trust and loyalty. This can help to establish long-term partnerships that are mutually beneficial and promote shared success.
Enhanced reputation and brand recognition: When organisations prioritise the needs of their suppliers and partners, it can help to create a positive reputation in the marketplace as a fair and ethical company. This can help to attract new suppliers and partners, as well as improve brand recognition and awareness.

Strategy 3: Pragmatically measure intended impact

To ensure that an organisation is creating a meaningful impact, it's important to measure its progress and outcomes. This means setting clear goals, tracking its performance, and using qualitative and quantitative data to make informed decisions about how to improve your impact over time. Doing this will help in the following ways.

Assessing progress: Measuring impact helps an organisation assess its progress towards achieving its people-first goals. It provides a way to track and analyse the effectiveness of the organisation's efforts in creating a positive impact on people's lives.
Identifying areas for improvement: Measuring impact also helps an organisation identify areas where it can improve its people-first approach. By analysing data, the organisation can identify gaps, weaknesses, and areas of opportunity and take steps to improve its practices.
Enhancing accountability: Measuring impact enhances an organisation's accountability to its stakeholders, including its employees, customers, and the wider community. It demonstrates that the organisation is committed to its people-first values and that it is actively working to achieve its goals.
Encouraging transparency: Measuring impact promotes transparency by providing an open and honest account of an organisation's efforts towards being people first. It shows that the organisation is willing to be transparent about its successes and failures and to learn from them.
Building trust: Finally, measuring impact can help an organisation build trust with its stakeholders. When an organisation can demonstrate that it is making a positive impact on people's lives, it enhances its reputation and helps to build trust with employees, customers, and the wider community.

Strategy 4: Prioritise Sustainability

To achieve both impact and profit over the long term, it's important to prioritise sustainability in your business operations. This means considering the environmental, social, and economic impact of your decisions and taking steps to minimise negative effects. By prioritising sustainability, you can create a more resilient business model that is better equipped to weather changes in the market and society.

Cost savings: Sustainable practices can often lead to cost savings, such as reducing energy and water consumption, minimising waste and material use, and implementing more efficient processes. These cost savings can increase profitability and improve the bottom line of the business.
Positive brand reputation: Customers and stakeholders are increasingly interested in supporting environmentally responsible businesses. By prioritising sustainability, a business can establish a positive brand reputation and attract customers who are willing to pay a premium for eco-friendly products and services.
Employee satisfaction: Prioritising sustainability can also enhance employee satisfaction and motivation. Employees are more likely to feel good about working for a company that prioritises environmental and social responsibility. This can lead to increased employee engagement, retention, and productivity.
Improved regulatory compliance: As sustainability becomes increasingly important, governments and regulatory bodies are implementing more strict regulations and laws related to environmental protection and social responsibility. Prioritising sustainability can help businesses stay ahead of these regulations and ensure compliance, reducing the risk of fines and legal issues.
Risk management: Prioritising sustainability can also help businesses manage and reduce risks associated with environmental and social issues. By identifying and addressing potential environmental or social impacts, businesses can avoid costly lawsuits, reputational damage, and other risks.

Strategy 5: Thoughtful use cutting edge technology

Technology has the potential to solve complex problems, improve processes, and transform industries. It can also create new opportunities for individuals and businesses, and enhance our daily lives. As new technologies are invented they force us to rethink our current ways of doing things and ask, is there a better way?

However it is important for people-first organisations to use technology thoughtfully and considerately, taking into account the potential risks and downsides. This includes being mindful of data privacy, ensuring equitable access to technology, and providing training and support for employees to use technology effectively and safely

We believe that people first technology can improve things in the following ways:

Improve efficiency: Remove boring and repetitive tasks so people can focus on high value tasks like relationship building, creativity and strategic thinking
Increase quality of life: Improve people's quality of life through their mental and physical health, their search to understand their purpose and quest for knowledge
Facilitate equitable value exchange: Enable new ways to share and exchange value and therefore become less reliant on money and have an improved sense of our worth to others
Connect global communities: Connect with people anywhere that share the same purpose, belief and values
Level the playing field: Where societal systems have created imbalances in a person's ability to fulfil their purpose, technology can help them to get past

Strategy 6: Embrace design process and mindset

We are firm believers in the design process as the way to help people to consider what is best and most meaningful for those around them.

Design principles and processes are key to creating a people-first approach. Design encourages the following behaviours

Encourage empathy: Understanding the needs and desires of the people is essential to designing for them. By conducting research and applying empathy to their needs, we can create solutions that are tailored to their needs.
Constant Iteration: Iterative processes allow people first organisations to be more flexible and agile to the needs of their people and external factors. By listening to feedback and testing and iterating on everything with an organisation, you can improve the quality, efficiency, and impact of the organisation.
Increased Inclusivity: People first organisations must consider the diverse needs of their people, including those with disabilities, cultural differences, and different levels of technological proficiency..
Honest feedback and reflection: People first organisations must give and receive feedback to and from their customers, employees and partners, allowing clear communication how behaviours are affecting everyone's work towards their purpose
Visuals Matter: An image is worth a thousand words. Design can help people first organisations to use visual methods to communicate themselves more effectively.

Building, nurturing and championing

How do we go about building, nurturing, and championing people-first organisations? What strategies can we employ? How do we design toward them?

With our vision for people first organisations in mind, this section moves on to explaining how we - as Elsewhere - are working towards our mission. First let’s revisit the statement:

“At Elsewhere, we firmly believe in the power of people-first organisations. We believe that by building, nurturing, and championing people-first organisations we can foster a virtuous cycle of positive outcomes that benefit not only ourselves, but also the organisations we collaborate with, their customers and employees, and the wider community. Ultimately, our humble aim is to enhance the quality of life for the communities around us.”

This section focuses on: “building, nurturing, and championing people-first organisations”.

Building people first organisations

We are committed to taking action and demonstrating that people-first organisations are not only possible, but essential. We believe that there aren’t enough people first organisations and we want to create more of them. We do this by:

First and foremost we want to lead by example by following the strategies we recommend to others. Elsewhere in our eyes strives to be the ultimate people-first organisation that others can learn from.
Secondly we want to create our own people-first organisations. If we see an opportunity to create a new organisation that can benefit the communities around us then we will. Setting that organisation up with all the strategies of people first organisations that we have outlined
Thirdly we want to fund and help funders to channel resources towards people first organisations. We use our knowledge and experience to help guide where and how people first organisations are funded and how that money should be spent, helping to minimise risk and further people-first organisations

Nurturing people first organisations

We want to create more people first organisations, but we also know that there are plenty of people out there already doing it. We want to help them by providing the knowledge and skills necessary to help them further their purpose and impact.

We want to dedicate our employees to working with people first organisations where they have the need for additional resource and knowledge
We want to connect talented organisations, freelancers and contractors in our community with people first organisations that require their expertise
We want to bring together like-minded individuals within our community who share similar aims and knowledge.

Championing people first organisations

As much as we focus on action as the way to demonstrate and learn what people-first organisations are, we also realise the importance of sharing what we are doing and what we have done in order to advocate for more people-first organisations and find others with a similar mindset to use.

Making publicly available the good the bad and the ugly of what we do and how we do it
Promoting and educating on the wider community on people first organisations

The outcomes

A virtuous cycle of outcomes, that help us design and strategise towards a future with more people first organisations that create more impact

We now know what our vision for people first organisations is, and how we want to help them, so that leads lastly on to defining what outcomes we want to achieve for this and for who. Here’s the statement again:

This section focuses on: “ a virtuous cycle of positive outcomes that benefit not only ourselves, but also the organisations we collaborate with, their customers and employees, and the wider community”.

Define organisations we collaborate with

We want to collaborate with people that believe in and work for people first organisations. These organisations can take many legal forms (non profit, foundation, for profit or governmental), follow many purposes and work with many challenging topics. The most important thing for us is that they believe in the people first strategies we’ve outlined no matter how far along with them they are, and believe in putting the effort required in to make them happen.

There are certain organisational purposes that we are potentially more likely to work with due to prior experience, general personal interest or our need to know more about a certain topic to further our own company. These purposes are not a prerequisite for working with us and certainly change over time as the world, our interests and organisational needs change too.

Appreciate Nature

The influence of nature on people's lives can be immensely positive, ranging from spending more time in natural surroundings to gaining inspiration and knowledge from the processes of the natural world. Our goal is to support organisations and solutions that enable people to have easier access to these experiences.

In many ways the current narrative is that technology is removing us from nature, but we believe this doesn’t have to be the case. Technology processes and solutions can learn a lot from the processes of nature. Not only that technical solution can provide us with access and knowledge of nature that can help us appreciate it in new ways.

Enjoy Food

Food is a fundamental requirement for everyone, but many of us are now disconnected from the various stages of food production, sourcing, and preparation. It is our belief that by bringing people closer to the processes involved in making their food and encouraging them to enjoy the experience of cooking and eating with loved ones, people can develop a greater awareness of how their food choices affect the environment. This, in turn, can help people gain a better appreciation for the food they consume.

With this in mind we’d love to collaborate with others trying to help in this space.

Love our homes and shelter

We spend a significant portion of our lives inside buildings, whether it's our home, workplace, or school. However, these spaces should be more than just shelters. They should be environments that we enjoy being in, where we can connect with others and share experiences. After all, the places where we spend most of our time should enhance our well-being and contribute to a positive quality of life.

We are always trying to improve our studio experience to be the best place for our employees and those renting desks, so any chance to learn more about the best way to design indoor experiences would be very interesting to us.

Sustainable clothing

We all need clothes, but do we need so many of them? Do we need to replace them so often? We believe in creating clothing that lasts longer, can be repaired and considers its supply chain. As wearers of clothes (most of the time) ourselves, we’d love to help with solutions that help with more sustainable clothing.

Improve how we learn and educate

Learning and personal growth are continuous processes, our education doesn't end when we finish school. We learn in many different contexts, including in our professional and personal lives. It's essential to recognize that learning is a lifelong journey and that education can take many forms.

We believe that there is a lot more that can be done to enhance our understanding of how people learn best, including how to personalise learning to meet individual needs. Technology has the potential to be a valuable tool in this regard, providing a means to create customised learning experiences that are more accessible to everyone. By leveraging technology in education, we can help more people reach their full potential and foster a love of learning that lasts a lifetime.

Define wider community

The term "community" can have various meanings depending on its context. In this particular case, the term "wider community" refers to the group of people who share a common belief in prioritising people first organisations. This community has no limitations regarding geographical location, race, gender, or other categorizations, as it is based on a particular mindset and a desire to bring about people-first organisational change.

While we have strongly held beliefs about the importance of putting people first in organisations, we don’t believe that people first organisations can solve all of the world's problems or should attempt to do so. We value differing beliefs and encourage them to exist alongside our own, we value hearing them and are thankful for them as without them our own values would not exist.

However, we have chosen to focus its work on providing assistance to those in their community who share their belief in people-first organisations and require support to realise their goals..

Define a virtuous cycle of positive outcomes

When we say a virtuous cycle, we are referring to the interconnected nature of all of the positive outcomes we intended to achieve:

The more successful elsewhere is, the more successful people-first organisations, the more successful the wider community. Not only this but the more successful people first organisation are the more successful elsewhere is, whichever way you flip it, we have a virtuous cycle. All of our respective positive outcomes feed each other, ultimately creating an unstoppable snowball effect.

Defining interrelated outcomes like that is hard, so we have also listed the outcomes we are striving to:

Our outcomes

Elsewhere employee satisfaction is high
Elsewhere customer satisfaction is high
Elsewhere is a profitable organisation
Elsewhere has strong relationships with its partners
Elsewhere is seen as a thought leader of people first organisations
Elsewhere is making progress towards it’s intended impact

Beyond elsewhere outcomes

Employee satisfaction in the organisations Elsewhere works with and those in the wider community improve
Customer satisfaction within the organisations Elsewhere works with and those in the wider community improve
The profitability of people first organisations Elsewhere works with and those in the wider community improve
People first organisations Elsewhere work with and those in the wider community become more effective towards reaching their impact
The wider community starts to implement and improve their existing people first strategies within their organisations without elsewhere help
The wider community displays and communicates higher satisfaction with their lives

The end

Wow, thank you so much for reading, we’re impressed that you read all of this and got to the end. If you skimmed straight to the bottom you’re just a liar and a cheat, you’re only cheating yourself 😏.

To those who did truly read it all, thank you again, and we can say with 100% certainty that we should talk this through together, do set up a time for a coffee and title it “read to the end, we need to talk ☕️”. We guarantee we’ll put people first and make time for that conversation.

Big love, Elsewhere 💛

Our values

Our brand values, how it will feel to working with us. How we try to behave and what we value in others

The values below represent how we approach our lives and the work we do. They are what you can expect from working with us and an idea of what it might feel like to be on a project with us.

Embody Integrity

Integrity is built on a platform of self understanding
Integrity is deeply lived through everything you say and do
Integrity is investing all of you into something because you know it is something you deeply care about

How you might see that manifest working with us

Only partnering with people whose vision and values are similar to our own
Make sure you behave how you wish everyone else to behave
When something unexpected happens, call it out & talk it through

Encourage pragmatism

Principles

Pragmatism is to expend as little energy as possible to create the most positive change
All frameworks, models and processes are wrong but many are useful
Appreciate that every situation is unique and requires its own approach

How you might see that manifest working with us

Before a meeting, sprint or project, make sure you have designed and agreed on the intentions and outcomes
Improve the experience of working with you/team every time you restart a project
At every phase of the project decide what frameworks, processes and tools are required
For every activity do decide what fidelity of output you need
We continuously learn and improve by doing
Use the right tool for the job

Empower people

Principles

People are the central point to any change you want to make
People are complex and ever-changing, continuously take the time to understand their needs and feelings
We believe in the good in people & particularly those who have dedicated their lives to people first organisations
People thrive in an environment where they feel safe, trusted and understood
Be the person you wish to follow

How you might see that manifest working with us

Take the time to talk and understand the people you work with (not just “work”)
Take whatever it is you’re doing, deconstruct it and look at what people really need. Build it back up with a focus on those things. Acknowledge everyone in the room and make them feel safe and valid.
Appreciate everyone’s knowledge level and communication needs
Remember and summarise what others tell you and play it back to them for further clarity
As soon as you realise a mistake, call it out with those that you made it with
Personalised and considerate emails, always specify something personal that you paid attention to

Embrace complexity

Principles

Complexity is something to be celebrated and taken head on
The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing
Nothing is ever done, it’s only as far as you could take it with the knowledge you had at that moment

How you might see that manifest working with us

Don’t pretend to understand, ask all of the questions, especially the stupid ones
You should leave a project satisfied with what you did but knowing there is always more to do
Understand the why together

Enjoy mischief

Principles

It’s not worth doing if you can’t have fun with it
Mischief is a wonderful outlet for difficult times
Reserve your jesters privilege whenever possible
Just because it's purposeful work doesn't mean you can't have fun with it

How you might see that manifest working with us

Using humour as a way to deal with difficult circumstances
Our work is often deep and meaningful but that doesn't mean we won't have fun with it

Subjects that interest us

We love all aspects of digital product strategy, design and code, but these , the are the topics that very interest us the most, especially in relation to people first organisations

Appreciate Nature

Enjoy Food

With this in mind we’d love to collaborate with others trying to help in this space.

Love our homes and shelter

Sustainable clothing

Improve how we learn and educate

Learning and personal growth are continuous processes, our education doesn't end when we finish school. We learn in many different contexts, including in our professional and personal lives. It's essential to recognise that learning is a lifelong journey and that education can take many forms.

The background

Our history

We have quite a lot of history to why, when and who started elsewhere. We haven't had the time to write it yet though so this page is pretty short

Elsewhere was started in 2018, by our 2 founders Luke and Billy.

Our details

If you need digital product strategy, design and code or believe in our people first organisations philosophy, this is how you get in touch to talk

Reach out over email at contact@elsewhere.team

Our organisation

The legal entity that makes up elsewhere so that we can do our best strategy, design and code work, stay in business and get better

We are small by design

Elsewhere is a collection of for profit organisations, that uses its profit to enable more positive change over time.

Elsewhere studio

Purpose: We have elsewhere studio responsible for helping organisations who need design and technology skills

Elsewhere holdings

Purpose: Elsewhere holdings where we own shares in the companies we have the closest relationships with and who we help more closely

Holding companies

Our finances

We don't have a company if we don't make money, you can see our financial health, annual financial reports