ZINC began as a man selling insurance out of a small office in 2008. Today, it’s an agency building a new way to work with and for people. It’s sort of rooted in art and chemistry—which is what we’re about.
The Art in Everything
Most agree that their first visit to our agency is typically disorienting. The combo of product and environment doesn’t initially make sense. That feeling may be a result of the perhaps even stranger combination of product and people. Many of the folks here are accidental to the industry, and it shows.
Fast forward: Something happened over the past year or so as we’ve been developing an important partnership in connection with our artist insurance program (announcement forthcoming). In this process we mused over where business and art intersect, why and how they should—and we came to an important realization: art is not simply a part of what we do; it’s everything that we are. It both defines and distinguishes us. And it’s a big part of what makes us atomic. (subscribe to get the full story on this in a future post).
Practical Chemistry
As defined (and to refresh), chemistry is about substances; the way they interact, combine, and change—and the use of these processes to form new substances.
The application: Our core substances are our employees, partners, and customers. We’re looking at how these interact, combine, and change—and then using those processes to form a new way of serving insurance. This new ‘substance’ thrives in the space between people and technology.
It's well established that tech has the potential to improve products and services. But it’s important to use it with eyes wide open to its vital dependency: it needs people. And presently, people need it. So our substance lies between the two, working to optimize the chemistry of that space.
Practically, it comes down to this: we are sharply focused on customer experience, the people and technology required to make it great, and developing it in a way that is artfully human. We are customer-coded, for life.
Atomic Particles
This gets to the bottom line. All of the above requires a proper degree of confidence, courage, and corresponding self-awareness. Without the latter, the former are liabilities.
Nosce te ipsum. Socrates said that people make themselves appear ridiculous when they are trying to know obscure things before they know themselves. We’re not beyond appearing ridiculous quite yet—but in order to have genuine success in all of this endeavor we are tethered to his maxim in this way:
We are true to our core and refuse to conform; we accept risk, explore the uncharted, challenge assumptions and are unapologetically us. We are ZINC. We are ATOMIC.
