That’s why we wrote it into our business model.

Happy is more.

Happy people love their work. They’re healthier, more productive, more motivated, more creative, more collaborative, and more open to information. The idea is nothing if not practical: Work is exponentially smarter when joy is a creative coefficient. To us, it doesn’t matter if it’s an analytics implementation, a rebrand, or a point-of-sale integration; we fundamentally believe that joy at work matters, and cultivating a happy culture lifts everyone. While we tailor our process to the unique needs of every engagement, we do our best work through co-generative, open, and inclusive dialogue, and we encourage our clients to embed themselves in our teams as deeply as possible.

To those future clients: We can’t wait to meet you.

Happy people make better stuff.

It’s science.

No, it’s not the suffering, broody, mysterious types who do it best.

A wealth of research agrees that people in happier moods have improved cognitive abilities, achieve better performance, feel more engaged with their work, build stronger social bonds, and communicate better than their less positive peers.

This kind of happiness isn’t totally an inside job. At Happy Cog, we avoid common pitfalls by promoting active listening, thoughtful experimentation, open communication and autonomy—natural supports for entrepreneurship, proficiency, and inter-disciplinary collaboration.

We invest in people.

We want our people to stick around.

Happy Cog was so named in 1999 out of the conviction that work and happiness were not mutually exclusive concepts. A lot’s changed since we first set out to prove it, but we’ve never wavered in our commitment to the simple, radical idea that smart, kind, creative, and capable people should be able to do meaningful work without frustrating the talent, energy, and passion that brought them to it in the first place. Stoking that fire is important to us, and we encourage everyone take time away from work to cultivate personal interests or pursue professional development and continuing education opportunities.

Additionally, we hold a week-long, in-person retreat every September to give our fully distributed team a chance to interact face-to-face. (Actual height vs. assumed height is a popular topic.)

The secret sauce we put in everything.

  • 1)
    Be kind

    Kind listens.

    Kind is listened to.

  • 2)
    Look downstream

    Somebody’s counting on a job well done. We do it right — and we do it on time.

  • 3)
    1+1=3

    A cog without a partner is just spinning its wheel. Groups are creative coefficients.

  • 4)
    Use what's at hand

    We do what the situation demands. Not everything has to be made out of gold. Brass tacks, for instance.

  • 5)
    Go big: Think small

    Small jobs can create big opportunities. Some of our most recognizable work had modest beginnings.

  • 6)
    Pencil down

    Turn off, tune out, recharge. What happens outside work is the stuff that makes your mind interesting.

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