After working as the Experience Design Lead for a financial services client for 16 months, I am rolling off the team. Even though I have prepared for this transition with ample documentation and an excellent successor, I have mixed feelings – the excitement of new projects and new challenges, and the bittersweet feeling of leaving the client I have served so diligently for over a year.

Here at Molecular, we work for clients, and those clients change. It’s the nature of our business. But are we just mercenaries? On the surface, it may seem that way:

• We are specially-trained professionals.
• We are not members of our clients’ companies.
• Our loyalty is based on a contract with the client – the contract is sacred and it defines our relationship.
• We work for pay.
• To the client, we are generally more expensive (per hour) than their own employees. (The cost savings come in the flexibility of being able to add/subtract members from the team as necessary, and in the value of our experience.)
• We serve the client in their conflict with competitor companies.

However, as is so often the case, the surface analysis misses something.

We are not just serving our clients. We are also serving their customers. We are consumer advocates. Being consumer advocates serves our clients best. Our highest goal is to find the path where there is no conflict between the client and the consumer – where their needs blend into the symbiotic relationship that the free market is supposed to foster. In a way, one could say that we partner with our clients to serve their customers together. The side effect, the value add, is that this process helps our clients succeed where their competitors might fail.

So we serve. Transitioning from one client to another is like serving consumers on a different front in the constant struggle against imperfect usability, unimaginative user experiences, and technologically weak websites. I will miss working with many of my client contacts. We accomplished a lot together. Bonds were formed. True, my service to a client is defined by a contract, but it is governed by the core values of authenticity, client intimacy, and exceptional execution. My service to consumers is governed by a similar moral imperative. The two go hand in hand and give me purpose.

What gives you purpose?

(Bushido defined)