Where Ideas Collide: 20 Years of Impact

Imagination

By age 5, I was already an entrepreneur.  

At an early age, I invented a few ways to earn extra money by running various ventures (if you could call them that) out of my parents garage, channeling my young charisma into conceptual ideas for running a business.   

By 8, I was channeling those ideas in other ways, imagining running my own business. I would “play” retail store and design my own products to sell, and would build LEGO cities with intricate businesses in each building. Later, I would “play” running a law office or a print shop — and as I got older, this concept looked like something on an ’80s sitcom or part of a cool loft workspace featured on MTV in the early ’90s. Whatever the idea was, it was a big part of my thinking, dreaming, and growing as long as I can remember. And I’ve turned that dream into reality, into my everyday life with the launch of Ideas Collide, one of my proudest accomplishments.  

And 20 years in, I can look back and see all the moments, milestones, and experiences that shaped not only the drive and courage to go and build something on my own but also to inspire incredibly talented individuals and partners to join me on the journey.   

Inspiration

Launching March 1, 2005, and deciding to take that big leap with just a couple of handshake client agreements doesn’t seem too long ago.   

This is most likely because the vision and inspiration from the start has remained the same: “Dream big, achieve big” for our team, clients, and community.  

We turned that first $150 project into a $75 million entity in capitalized billings with priceless experiences and big risk payoffs. That first day in business (while sitting on my office floor), I grabbed a flipchart and wrote a mantra that we still say daily in meetings and discussions: “All things possible!” This mantra was largely inspired by Pixar Studios and toys that came to life to think to “infinity and beyond!”    

And since the beginning, we have always known that the most captivating brands give back. The phrase “you can’t love your life if you don’t love your work” was the catalyst to start building an organization where we would first invest and care for our team and people. In return, they would give more to set clients and projects up for great success. From that success, we could then give back further to our team while also giving back meaningful support to the community where we live, play, and work. It’s why, in our first year, we set aside investment in giving and time to help nonprofit and community organizations. Since 2005, we have given back more than $3 million through our IC Gives initiative.   

Another significant element of our launch — that remains a key mantra with us today — is always to take a different path and find a unique approach to delivering marketing and brand impact. Embracing this philosophy has led to working with Fortune 100 global enterprises, launching new and exciting brands, and being central to digital marketing and emerging marketing technology. 

This meant clients constantly pushed us to seek new approaches, leading to more inspiration and impact. At the launch of our firm, there was no real brand engagement within social media: MySpace was the only real social entity, YouTube was just about to be created, and Facebook was emerging on college campuses. In 2005, the iPod was still dominant, but we carried BlackBerries, flip phones, digital point-and-shoot cameras, CDs, and video travel players with us everywhere. The iPhone, and its consequent cultural disruption, was still two years away. Still, we were constantly inspired to seek ways to tell the story through unique, compelling, different approaches.  

Though the shape of marketing and advertising was very different in those days, we urgently and with precision jumped full-force into social media creation, developing websites and apps for the iPhone, and much more. This led to us building one of the first-ever brand engagement campaigns through special first-to-market funding selected by Facebook. This led to growing and expanding brand content for hundreds of organizations through thousands and thousands of posts, engagement campaigns, and more for numerous local, national, and global brands.    

Innovation

Ten years into our run, we applied this same level of ingenuity to identify where the future of marketing was heading. This helped us identify important investment in business intelligence, marketing automation, media + content, and artificial intelligence. We crafted and built a disciplined practice across these forward-thinking areas of marketing. Now with 20 years under our belts, we constantly see the value and importance of these disciplines in the current marketing mix — and we foresee even more need and change toward these elements in the years to come.    

Ignite the Future

Looking back, I see how connected my childhood truly is to what Ideas Collide has become. When imagination is backed by confident, talented, and caring individuals with a shared commitment to excellence, it opens the door to so many other possibilities that were once hoped for but never fully imagined — and that’s what I want to ignite as we charge ahead.  

The market is more challenging than ever before. The speed to market and the ongoing disruption of technology and systems will continue to test businesses and brands. However, I believe and have seen firsthand that technology is meant to enhance and drive more human connection. And in that is the opportunity to continue our brand mission as we invent custom marketing solutions to any business or organization challenge, then integrating each solution through data + insight and content + media to drive meaningful impact.  

In 2025, as we enter our third decade in business, our current invitation to clients, teammates, and communities is what we will ignite and inspire for the future — we’re already imagining and embracing what those changes, opportunities, and more will bring. Here’s to igniting the ideas that will collide for positive impact in the future.    

The phrase “you can’t love your life if you don’t love your work” was the catalyst to start building an organization where we would first invest and care for our team and people.