Twenty years of Jos, celebrated with a large crowd and a new name
An inspirational breakfast with our clients on Tuesday. A celebration with friends, colleagues, partners, and fans on Friday. And in between: the launch of our new story. We celebrated twenty years of Josworld just as it all began here: by bringing people together.
First, coffee and new insights
On Tuesday, October 13, our clients joined us at the table for coffee, rolls, and a dose of inspiration. Taha Riani kicked off the conversation with “Can I Still Say That?”, a discussion about polarization, behavior, and communication.
How do you reach people when opinions seem to be drifting further and further apart? What impact do your words have? These are questions that also come up in our daily work. We help organizations tell their story clearly, but above all, we want to understand what people need to connect with that story.
Breakfast was a lovely opportunity to reflect on this together, and to meet with our clients outside the context of a briefing, planning session, or feedback round.
Friday was all about a little more Jostalgia
Three days later, it was time for our friends, colleagues, partners, and fans from the very beginning. And there were a lot of them. A whole lot.
We found a spot on Lakensestraat, two buildings away from our current office and four buildings away from our very first space. A rather fitting location to celebrate twenty years of Jos.
There were local seasonal dishes, delicious drinks, and an installation where you could pull a string to win a small prize. There was a certain vibe in the air reminiscent of the art openings and happenings from our early years. People saw each other again after years apart or simply picked up a conversation that apparently hadn’t quite ended yet.
A gallery, a collective, and a hundred plans
Anyone who knows Jos today as a creative agency for social impact might not realize that we once also ran an art gallery. That we organized concerts, played VJ sets, went on road trips, and ran art bars.
The first ideas took shape in 2004, during late-night conversations in Brussels about creating our own design space. But “design” soon felt too narrow for everything we wanted to do. So it became Josworld.
In February 2006, it was official. We started as a creative collective with a hundred plans and a lot of enthusiasm for making things. Commissions for Pukkelpop and the Beursschouwburg, among others, set everything in motion. New people joined, new projects emerged, and we had more and more reasons to organize ourselves better.
Many of the people who came to celebrate with us on Friday played a role somewhere in that story, as a colleague, illustrator, intern, freelancer, partner, or sounding board. Together, they made Josworld a place where ideas could take shape and people could grow.
From many possibilities to a clear direction
Starting in 2016, we fully committed to Josworld. That also meant making choices about how we operate. How do you organize a growing team? Which projects are a good fit for us? And how do you ensure that everyone is moving in the same direction?
We experimented with roles and shared responsibility, became a cooperative, and learned along the way to make difficult decisions. Not every year was easy. But those experiences helped us gain a clearer understanding of what we’re good at and what we want to achieve.
Strategy took on a greater role in our work. First, we seek to understand what an organization wants to achieve, who it wants to reach, and what can inspire people to take action. From there, we create a story, campaign, website, or service that works.
That’s how we grew into the agency we are today: a team that helps governments, organizations, and entrepreneurs with a social mission to truly engage people.
Josworld becomes Jos
During our celebration week, we also unveiled our new name and our new story. After twenty years as Josworld, we’re moving forward as Jos.
Many people were already using that name. It fits the personal way we work together and our belief that communication starts with people: the people on our team, our clients, and everyone they want to reach.
Over the past twenty years, we’ve learned to channel our creativity. We ask better questions, make more conscious choices, and have a clearer sense of what we want to stand for. The curiosity and the desire to create something together are still very much alive.
You could see that during our celebration week, too. On Tuesday, we brought people together to share insights. On Friday, to celebrate, catch up, and reconnect. Bringing people together has been a constant thread running through our work for twenty years. Today, we know better than ever what we want to achieve with it.
Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate and to everyone who has helped shape Jos along the way.