Ep. 79 – Larry Brangwyn – The Ethical Design Edge

Podcast Interview with Larry Brangwyn

[00:06:40] Mich Bondesio:

So welcome, Larry. It’s lovely to have you on the show, and I’m looking forward to our conversation.

[00:06:44] Larry Brangwyn:

Thank you very much. It’s great to be here.

[00:06:45] Mich Bondesio:

So, a quick recap on how we first met. We are both members of the same coworking space, Society1 in Preston. And although we’d crossed paths a few times, we didn’t really know each other until I heard you speak as part of a panel discussion earlier this year.

And that was a talk about sustainability in tech for the monthly Preston Tech Connection session, which is an event hosted at Society1 and sponsored by Neon Mountain. It was only then though that I discovered how deeply focused you and your company are on sustainable and ethical digital and web design practices, and that you also embrace a hybrid working model as part of your core business values.

And given that the season is all about flexible working and sustainable business, I knew you’d be a great fit to talk about these topics.

[00:07:25] Larry Brangwyn:

Yeah, lovely. It’s usually when I get up on a soapbox that people start going, oh, I either want to talk to him or don’t want to talk to him any, any further.

[00:07:33] Mich Bondesio:

So I’m really interested to find out more about how you approach these elements in your business, and also to learn more about these core values that drive you. But before we get there, let’s find out more about you. Tell us about your current life and work context. Where do you find yourself at the present moment?

[00:07:47] Larry Brangwyn:

Right. So I am the Managing Director of Ethical Pixels, this business I founded six years ago. And we describe it as an award-winning website and user experience consultancy that creates amazing online experiences with an ethical focus, specifically as you, as you mentioned.

You know, for me, I cut my teeth in an agency setting as a UX designer for financial services and progressed through ‘Lead’, “Head of”, “Director” and then weirdly took a brief detour through running a a VR studio for a couple of years, mainly to, to learn a little bit more about the practical aspects of running a business, ’cause you can specialise in an area, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you can run a business around it.

So it’s always a good idea to get that perspective. And here we are, six years later, we’re doing okay, which is nice. But outside of that my wife and I are adopting a little boy very, very soon, which is a amazing and, and stressful and all of the things that go with it. You know, I suppose every new parent has that sort of feeling.

You know, in a work context, unfortunately that means that I’m facing the mental challenge of stepping back from the day-to-day of the business for a little while, which you know, as a self-confessed control freak or recovering control freak is quite difficult. But it’s an unnatural place to be letting go of the reins to that extent.

But, yeah, but it’s still an, it’s another interesting challenge in the journey. Other than that, what can I say? I, I volunteer with the scouts and I’m an avid photographer who’s recently moved to the Fuji Film Ecosystem and finding that fun.

[00:09:05] Mich Bondesio:

Oh, interesting. Very exciting news about your future or the impending adoption becoming a dad. That’s super, super exciting and I wish you all the best with that.

[00:09:13] Larry Brangwyn: Thank you.

[00:09:14] Mich Bondesio:

Alright, so I always ask my guests to share a little bit about their wellbeing and productivity practices because this is what supports us to be better in how we work.

And these are basically the habits and activities that people engage in to support themselves better. What do you do to manage your stress, build your resilience, and be more focused in your work? And what challenges do you experience in trying to maintain those habits?

[00:09:34] Larry Brangwyn:

See, it’s a big, it’s a big question, isn’t it? Because I mean, I’ll preface the entire answer by saying I’ve had my struggles with mental health as I think a lot of people probably do to some extent, and maybe it’s not as openly talked about as it could be. I think it’s a lot better than it used to be, but there’s still a certain stigma around it.

So the first thing I like to do is say, yes, I’ve had these struggles and I want people to be able to feel comfortable sharing that as well, ’cause it’s important. We all feel stressed one time or another in, in the work environment and in our lives.

So I think that’s given me an awareness of the precursors of stress and the little signals that your body is sending, because it is very, very easy to ignore them. And it’s very, very easy to slip back into counterproductive habits, if you’re not mindful of the signs. And that can be different for everyone, but usually it’s the body’s telling you something and the mind is you know, trying to catch up or trying to block it out.

For me. I just try and maintain a bit of separation, which is, you know, the ultimate challenge for anyone who runs their own business, isn’t it?

It’s ’cause even if you can get physical separation you don’t always get that mental separation. It’s very difficult to switch off and not think about it. But I find that oddly, having physical habits actually reinforces the mental habits quite nicely.

So for example, I keep all of my business activity on separate technology, different laptop, different phone, different, different bits that can go in a drawer at the end of the day, and you can say, right, I finished that.

[00:10:51] Mich Bondesio: A great idea.

[00:10:52] Larry Brangwyn:

It is, it is, especially when you work from home and it’s difficult to get that physical separation otherwise, because you know, some people work from their bedrooms or their living rooms, and that’s a space that you know, really should be for, to relax and enjoy your private time in.

I did have an office down the bottom of the garden for a while, but it’s gone all mouldy. So I need to get that, get that redone. Yeah. But think things like that to, to sort of separate. So, I like to block bits of my calendar out nicely as well to make sure that there is time to focus on different things.

And also to minimise the stress of any work that you, you have going on in the moment. So people, if, if you’ve ever studied productivity specifically, which I’m sure you have, and quite a few people listening might’ve done this, that context switching is actually really, really harmful for your productivity.

‘Cause you, you get in a mindset. And you’re doing your certain task, you could be very efficient at it if you’ve gotten into the zone. But moving out of that and constantly switching backward and forward between different things means it takes time to get established again. So I try wherever possible to keep those similar things together in order that you don’t have to restart.

[00:11:52] Mich Bondesio:

That’s a great suggestion, you know, and that attention residue from switching all the time is, as you say, really damaging and very unproductive for us in terms of our output over the long term. So where we are in a situation where we have control over our calendars, I think it’s really important for us to experiment with those time blocking activities.

I personally also engage in them ’cause I’ve understood and come to know how effective they are. So. Thank you for sharing that.

Alright, let’s talk a little bit more about your business, Ethical Pixels. Tell us more about the journey towards building a more ethical business that promotes more sustainable digital marketing and design practices, and which also advocates for better ways of working.

What started you down this path and what does that look like in terms of your business?

[00:12:32] Larry Brangwyn:

So I suppose, yeah, it’s, it’s two things really. I mean what got me in the mindset of starting my own business in the first place was, you know, working for other people or working for other clients and realising that some of the things you’re asked to do, or you know, which are that people have decided this is the way and we’re gonna do this.

And you can look at it and think, well actually, I’m not really sure that’s the right way to go about it, that might actually be counterproductive to, to the goal you’re trying to achieve. And I think a lot of people, you know, in whatever role they’re in, probably look at it and think, oh, there must be a better way of doing this.

It must be a different way. So that was part of it. And it sort of snowballed because we actually started out originally as Noble Digital. We had a different name and it was literally just about bringing the benefits of usability to the smaller end of the market.

‘Cause at the time usability, so building things with your users in mind, should, should be a good thing, ultimately. But it was something that mainly was applied at, you know, the larger end of the market. And, you know, smaller businesses thought they either didn’t need it or couldn’t afford it, but actually the gains that could be made there are very significant. But we came to realise over time that it was a more complicated landscape than that. there were other things.

So we, we started off with this idea about usability, but actually, it turned out to be one very small part of a bigger equation in terms of, as you say, digital marketing or technology sustainability, or technology sourcing.

You know, this has now, very recently, become a very big topic, the idea of where does your technology solution come from and who are the people who own it, and what happens to the data. So it, it sort of started branching out into, into more of a a statement about how we wanted to operate.

And then we had to sort of sit down and define what those ethical principles were going to be. So things like positivity, we want to see technology used for good. Which makes a lot of sense. Sustainability both inside and outside our business. And I suppose that’s a big topic we can expand upon.

Things like accessibility, making sure that solutions you build are actually accessible to the widest range of people possible. That actually, actually breeds long-term sustainability as well. ’cause the audience is, is sort of able to access and the product can last longer. And the final one, weirdly, is.

Honesty and, and integrity, which is a good principle, but also something that you almost have to take our word for until you work with us, which is sort of a, a very weird concept to get your head around. But we still think it’s an important thing ’cause we very firmly believe that why we do things is just as important, if not more so as what we’re doing.

[00:14:52] Mich Bondesio: Absolutely. You’re leading by example.

[00:14:53] Larry Brangwyn:

Yeah. And if we don’t live by those principles ourselves, then why should anyone believe us on anything else? So, Hmmn, yeah.

[00:15:01] Mich Bondesio:

Super interesting. So let’s talk a little bit more about that sustainability element, both inside and outside of your business. What all does that encompass in terms of, you know, environmental impact, growth strategy the employment practices that you engage in, and the kind of the various offerings that you have for your clients as well?

[00:15:17] Larry Brangwyn:

Yeah. So it’s, it’s come to mean a lot of different things to us actually, sustainability.

So, as you said, there’s the carbon and energy sustainability aspect. So we were looking at this and what the market was, was doing, for one. And one of the first things we did in this was to proactively move all of our website clients onto fully sustainable hosting that’s powered by renewable energy that’s independently verified by the Green Web Foundation.

So it’s, it’s an excellent way of you know, making sure that we are reducing the impact to our clients, for, for their hosting and anything they’re running with us. But it’s also a great opportunity to spread the word about it because with this, you get a little badge that says this site is powered sustainably.

And everyone who visits that site sees that and says why isn’t our site powered sustainably? We really should be. So it’s a good, it’s a good grassroots sort of movement. And that sort of spiralled out into, you know, promoting more energy efficient technology alternatives.

So there’s not just hosting, there’s the overhead of using different technologies. I mean, one of the hot button items at the moment is the energy of ahead of AI technologies, which is massive. So we can, we can look at that and recommend good alternatives.

And you can go down a rabbit hole with sustainable design principles as well.

Everything from materials, if you’re doing print and packaging through to online design principles, it’s, it’s one of those little ones that uh using darker colors, darker shades, activates fewer pixels, uses less energy. I mean, we’re talking minute amounts here, but it every little does go toward better things.

And then it started to mean things to us internally about how we worked from an energy sustainability perspective.

So at the start, it was just me. It was all remote working. We didn’t have money for an office or a point for one. And then as we started growing, we saw no reason to then get one anyway, because, you know, we’d already established all of the remote working practices and, you know well versed in them.

So it led to a, a distributed workforce. So it got staff here in Preston and Birmingham and we have partners in London and the South. So it’s cut down our own emissions to the point where, you know, we can do most of our work without having to travel. Or have the overheads of a business.

And then that, that started to lead into the more sustainable business practice as well. So we continued remote operation using the flexible and reasonably-priced solutions at Society1 in Preston, has been wonderful ’cause it’s meant that we can sort of take some of what we would’ve otherwise spent on office space and collaboration space and reinvest that into our staff or other initiatives which really we wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.

So that’s been a massive factor. And then it branched out further into the long term effects for sustainable business.

So treating customers fairly. Now, we’ve always tried to do that, and that’s a subjective claim, but one of the things we’ve seen in specifically the web design industry is that web designers often offer a site for a very low amount of money, but then bake in the cost into an ongoing support contract where, you know, it’s very nebulous what you actually get for that.

We’re not really sure it builds in value to the client. it’s much better for your monthly recurring revenues, but it doesn’t seem as fair. It doesn’t allow as much choice. So we want really people to stay with us, because they want to, not because they feel like they have to or they’re locked in, ‘ cause we, we do see a lot with people who move to us. They feel very trapped sometimes by their existing sort of web people. And really it shouldn’t have to feel like that.

And then furthermore, we started applying that same principle to the staff. We want them to stay because they want to, not ’cause they feel like they have to.

So the, the most recent development in that is we did become accredited with the Living Wage Foundation to pay a, to pay a real living wage. Rather than the, the government branded. Living wage, which doesn’t quite account for, you know, living costs. And we started to implement more practices around that flexible working.

So we’re not coming to an office every day anyway. But we started to encourage flexible working around location. I really don’t mind where my team is as long as they’re working. So if they could be in a cafe in Manchester or a cafe in Germany, I don’t really mind. As long as everything’s getting done.

And we also started shifting working patterns around life events, the stresses, and, you know, specifically the black swan events that can crop up because we really do, I do believe that, you know, anyone who can make their job work around their life, that should be the priority order is, you know, they find this a very powerful, albeit intangible benefit.

[00:19:25] Mich Bondesio:

A hundred percent. I agree with you, and I think, for me, I believe flexible working is the way forward. And that isn’t just about whether it’s a four-day week or you know, these are all individual things based on a company and an individual’s needs. But, what I love about how you’ve applied it there is that, for you, it isn’t about where the work gets done, it’s about how the work gets done and not when the work gets done either. And what I love is that you’ve utilise a coworking space as an opportunity to come together when you need to physically. And it’s good for mental health, that’s one of the reasons why I cowork as an individual, but.

The rest of the time, people can fit that around their life, as you say. And so it’s a very liberating way of approaching work. It’s very counterintuitive. A lot of people who are stuck in the traditional mould find this really hard to implement in the beginning. They find it a really difficult thing to get their head around, but once they have the opportunity to experience it, they can see how much it tends to align more with what’s important for us and helps us navigate life and work far more easily. I think.

[00:20:26] Larry Brangwyn:

Yes. I’d agree. And it’s, it’s one of those things that, one of the pieces of advice, I suppose is that we, as business owners, one of our biggest costs will be staff. It’s just a realistic thing. So there’s this tendency to want to know that you’re using every moment of their time productively, but it’s not really how it works.

Again, we can forget and become a little bit distant from the times when we were just, you know, employees doing the nine to five. But, it takes a little bit of a leap of faith. You know, it is just like the interview process is, it should be as much for your potential staff member to interview you as the other way around. ‘Cause they’re coming to work for you, they’re coming to spend time and and effort for you. So it’s this bums on seats mentality that really has to go.

[00:21:04] Mich Bondesio:

Mm, I agree. And talking a little bit more about the offering that you have for clients, you’ve got a really interesting website and you’ve got lots of resources on there as well, including something called the Ethical Tech Directory. So tell us a little bit more about that.

[00:21:18] Larry Brangwyn:

So, when we started out, with sort of really pivoting towards the ethical model. We find that the difficulty is often that the easiest solution is not the most ethical solution. And that probably could be said, you know, historically going back as, as, as, as old as time, really. But.

What, what is easy is not always good. It it can be, but it’s not always. And what, what we found is that there’s this acceptance, this general acceptance that we don’t necessarily need to know. We don’t want to know, you know, what’s happening as long as it fulfils our needs and ticks our boxes. And, I think it’s nice to see that is changing slightly, but it’s really hard and really time consuming to actually work out what’s going on in the tech sector.

You know, one, one of the conversations I have day in, day out with people is, why aren’t you on WhatsApp? And then trying to explain to them that WhatsApp’s owned by Meta and Facebook, that that whole conglomerate, and actually there’s, you know, problems with this because of how the data can be used and interpreted. And, to be fair, understandably, it’s a big headache and a bit too much of a headache for people.

I think back to the Good Place, wonderful television show where they go into detail at one point, go and visit someone who has lived their life as, as good as possible. And it’s a nightmare because, you know, he’s worried about treading on a snail or everything is bad. So he’s, he’s worked himself into a frenzy, just because it’s become too complicated to live well.

So the tech directory in a lot of the, the offering and research we’ve done has been born out of trying to raise a little bit of awareness about this and to make it easier for people to actually understand these concepts to say, here’s an alternative. Here’s a viable, assertive, we’ve done the work, we’ve tested it, and this is why it’s good. This is why it’s better than the alternative, because I mean, on the one hand, it’s efficiency. I was having the same conversation day in, day out, so it’s easier to have a resource you could send someone to.

But it, it also sort of helps to position us as, I don’t wanna say the word experts ’cause it’s so complicated and so changing, but knowledgeable in this field. So the tech directory was a way to say if you’ve got worries about, well we used Google Analytics as a good example, ’cause you know, on a website you want to know what people are doing. You want to know how they’re using your site. The problem is, it’s not GDPR compliant out the box. It transmits a lot of personally identifiable information to Google. Therefore, you should be you know, asking for consent before you do it.

But a lot of websites fall out of this and they’re tracking people anyway, mainly. ’cause you know, again, Google aren’t jumping up and down to say, oh, you’ve got to do all these complicated things. They’re saying here’s a free product, and by the way, we get the benefits of, of that data. So we researched and now recommend I.

EU based alternatives that do not collect personally identifiable information. You can track a hundred percent of your user base. You don’t need cookie policies, you don’t need cookie notices. So much better. But of course it’s a paid product, because you know, if the product is free, you are the product one way or or another.

So, and that, and other technologies that we’ve found. There’s dozens in there at the moment, but it’s a way for people to go in and search by category and find alternatives for the things they’re using now. And furthermore, you know, we’re now seeing this, I think I mentioned earlier a little bit about, where your technology is sourced. There’s a very strong feeling that American technology companies are no longer as reliable as they were once perceived to be due to the political situation.

So we’re seeing some requests from people to sort of divest from American technology, which honestly, I thought we’d be the ones pushing that, but people are asking about it.

So…

[00:24:31] Mich Bondesio: oh, that’s interesting.

[00:24:32] Larry Brangwyn:

Yeah, it’s another thing which will end up in, in the directory, I think the source of the technology so people can make an informed decision, ’cause there is a knock on effect to every decision you make, unfortunately.

[00:24:42] Mich Bondesio: This is really interesting and particularly relevant in my business situation at the moment because I’m on a B Corp journey or towards B Corp certification. It’s a long journey for me, but part of that is reviewing all of my digital suppliers, my digital processes, et cetera, and discovering with horror that my website carbon is ridiculously high.

And so all of these things are things I’m gonna need to change and implement. So I’ve been looking at your tech directory. I find it very helpful. I’ll definitely be using some of the resources you’ve suggested, and we will share a link to those in the show notes as well. So thank you so much from me personally for creating that resource.

[00:25:16] Larry Brangwyn: Well, I’m glad someone’s using it. Yeah.

[00:25:18] Mich Bondesio:

Indeed. Now the podcast is called Creating Cadence because one of the core themes is about how we build better rhythm, pace, or flow in our work, our life, and our businesses, so we can keep moving forward despite the challenges or uncertainties that we may face. So how does what you do help your customers to build or maintain momentum in what they do?

[00:25:37] Larry Brangwyn:

So I think the key thing that we do is we don’t take anything at face value. We do more than just accept the brief and building a solution. We actually like to take a step back from it and or there’s two sides we can challenge based on our knowledge of the market.

I mean, I think I said earlier, sometimes people set out with the goal in mind. They know what they want to achieve, and they’ve also decided how they want to achieve it. Which could be a good idea. But often it’s taking a look at how the rest of the market operates and saying, I wanna do what they’re doing, you know, without actually thinking about whether that’s going to have the desired effect or even a counterproductive effect.

So we can bring that challenge and say, have you thought about this? Have you thought about that?

The other side is, we could actually provide this useful ignorance. We’re not afraid to say we do not know. I think, again, I’ve lost quite a few contracts, sadly, to people who say, well, you don’t have intimate knowledge of this very specific sector, whereas this company over here claims to, so we’re gonna go with them, which is fine.

But we do think that, what I call useful “ignorance” can be quite helpful. You know, ’cause we will be asking the questions that their users or they’re less informed or sophisticated users might be asking. And that’s actually often the challenge in making things work properly is, is actually catering to their needs rather than catering to what you think their needs are.

[00:26:51] Mich Bondesio:

Hundred percent. And often clients, they think they know what they need, but actually it might be something completely different. And that exploratory, discovery phase is so important, for both you and for them, you know, and very often that’s how you find what the solution’s gonna be through the ‘not knowing’.

[00:27:07] Larry Brangwyn:

And one of one of my sound bites has become, and you kinda get a good sense for who you’re working with, when you say this as well, they’re saying to a client, you are not the user. I’m not the user, but you are also not the user. The user is the user and we really need to invite them into the discussion one way or another.

So that I think that has really helped people, you know, where they’re receptive to it, to understand and change some of the preconceptions around the work we’re doing. And you know, it’s interesting to try and get people to the point where you, especially with the user experience, we promise a, a direction.

We’re not in a position to say, we’ll get you a thousand leads. ‘Cause we could go off and get you a thousand leads. But again, marketers, for example, might be incentivised to get you leads by the, the shortest route possible, which is numbers. So they’ll use every tactic in the book to get the email addresses.

Doesn’t matter if it’s, you know, useful, or quality, or ethical. Yes, they hit their target. Whereas, we sort of follow this, if you do these things, you should see an upward trend, but anyone who’s promising you numbers is probably lying to you, to be honest.

So yeah, that’s one way we’ve gone.

The other way of course is this research we’re putting out. So again, it’s, it’s not all the time, but whenever we come up against an interesting problem we like to, to put our money where our mouth is and spend some time and effort on it, and then make that available to everyone, ’cause it’s a useful resource.

So, the most recent example is newsletter subscription popups, those things that appears like, subscribe to our newsletter on the homepage, first thing you see, and you’ve gotta get rid of it. Now, our instinct and you know, best practice knowledge says that’s wrong. But we also got a lot of questions.

When we said this, people would say, okay, but do you have any data to back that up? No. It just seems wrong. So we, we decided to go and do the research. And yes, it was very strongly you know, proven that people hate these things.

[00:28:52] Mich Bondesio:

Yes, me included. That’s why I don’t have one on my website.

[00:28:55] Larry Brangwyn:

Good. You see? Yeah. There we go. And, and there are better ways to do it and we’ve explored those as well. So you know, things like this help us to help other people to do these things better and they will see better results for them.

[00:29:06] Mich Bondesio:

Yes. Wonderful. Well is there a link to that research that you’ve done that we can also share?

[00:29:11] Larry Brangwyn: There is, yeah. I’ll, I’ll send you the link.

[00:29:13] Mich Bondesio:

There is. Okay. Fantastic. That’s good. Alright, so this brings us to the final question, Larry, which is all about sharing wisdom. Do you have any words of advice or key takeaways that you want to share with my listeners based on your experience of life and work so far?

[00:29:26] Larry Brangwyn: Oh gosh, it’s quite a thing, the word wisdom, but I’ll do my best.

[00:29:30] Mich Bondesio: Mistakes that you’ve learned from?

[00:29:32] Larry Brangwyn: That’s probably more accurate.

[00:29:34] Mich Bondesio: Okay.

[00:29:35] Larry Brangwyn:

I think, I always come back to that, again business owners, entrepreneurs specifically, we take on incredible stresses and we choose to do this. And it can lead us to feeling quite isolated and misunderstood and very much if we grow our teams, that the other people working for us don’t actually appreciate the stress we’re under.

And that’s fair. You know, we’ve got to remember that they haven’t made that choice and they’re not being compensated enough to care to that level. And I think we need to be as aware and flexible as possible in, in that mindset, ’cause it’s, it’s so easy to think I’m under stress, so everyone else has to be under stress. You know, ’cause it, it’s sort of misery loves company to a certain extent. But I think, I think the more we can do to, to insulate some of that and maintain a fair practice in inside and outside our business, the better.

And, and the external one, of course is I suppose the more philosophical one.

You know, we, we live, work and operate in a system which measures one type of success above all others. And that’s financial success. Now the market and the world, in general, could be a better place if we collectively stepped back and asked ourselves whether something was the right thing to do or just the, you know profitable thing to do.

And this is it. I think business owners and, you know, former managers of mine in the past might say, well, you’re not making the most of your business. You know, ’cause we could, we could increase revenues very quickly. We could get more money on the books very quickly, but the things we’d have to do to get there don’t feel right and they don’t feel aligned with our values. So we don’t do them.

As such, we can build a more, I think, a sustainable future for the business as well. I mean, a lots of businesses, when they do that and they get a lot of money in and they start growing rapidly, is they, they grow faster than they know how to maintain that identity. People come on board, the personality of the business changes ’cause no one thought to document your values or your processes.

You just quickly money, money, money. And therefore you become the same as everyone else. So it’s, you know, one of the things that I have learned is, for myself at least, is that we want to hire sustainably as well. We want to hire where we can afford it. And only when it’s right to do so. So we’re not going to jerk anyone around.

They feel in it for the long run and that we’ll forego meteoric growth for sustainable growth. ’cause it, it aligns better. I dunno if that answers your question actually, but.

[00:31:49] Mich Bondesio:

It does and, and I think it’s important as though you’re talking about a good cultural fit. So you know, understanding first of all that yes, your culture and values may change as you bring on more people, but also if those culture and that culture and values is really important to you, that you are hiring for somebody who’s going to ascribe to something that aligns with that. Because then obviously if not, there’s a disconnect. And all of what you said ties in with that phrase that I use a lot in my work around the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit. It’s also about building a purpose-driven business.

It isn’t all about profit. It is important so that you have a sustainable business, but it’s, it shouldn’t be the be all and end all, particularly given where we’re heading with our future of work and business. So I think those are really important points that you’ve raised. Thank you so much.

All right, Larry. So where can people find you online?

[00:32:34] Larry Brangwyn:

So very simply, we are at ethicalpixels.com. It’s all one word. We’re also on BlueSky. I’ll include a link for you because it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s long to read.

But another thing we’ve done is obviously make the switch to more ethical social media alternatives, now that some of our favourites are not necessarily great places to be anymore.

But, I would really love it, ’cause I think weirdly, our, our site does a lot to market our service and products and, and that sort of thing. But I feel like the most valuable page on our website is actually our ethical statement, which is, which, it’s a living sort of promise. It gets updated, but it is a promise to, to everyone we work with, whether that’s clients or suppliers of how we are going to operate.

And, because it’s a, it’s sort of like the keystone for me of everything. It’s probably more important to me than everyone else, but in terms of how that ripples out, I think it’s an important page and I, if anyone does happen to read it, I would love to know what they think.

[00:33:23] Mich Bondesio:

Absolutely. Well, we’ll definitely share that as well. Larry, thank you so much for your time and sharing so generously about what you do with your work and more about your flexible working practices. And, I’m sure, as you become a dad very soon, that’s going to be put to the test as well and you probably will need to adapt slightly different flexible working practices to take account of dad duties.

[00:33:45] Larry Brangwyn: Absolutely. Yes. I’ll, I’ll let you know how that goes.

[00:33:47] Mich Bondesio: That’s great. Well, thank you so much for being on the show, Larry.

[00:33:50] Larry Brangwyn: Thank you. It’s been really lovely to chat. 

[00:33:52] Mich Bondesio:

Wow. We need more companies like this out in the world. Setting the example for what good business practice looks like in the world. Larry shared so many helpful and simple to implement tips and insights, and I hope that this conversation inspires you to think about how you can make positive change in your organisation too.

So thanks for listening.

I’ll be back in a few weeks with the next episode, which is an interview with Deborah Smith, the co-owner of a planning company that have implemented a four-day working policy in their business.

Until then, keep moving forwards with courage, curiosity, and cadence.