It is great if, after a long journey with ups and downs, you know what your company really stands for. Of course, it all starts with your own idea. In the following phases, you concretise that idea into a first prototype and constantly improve it until you have a concrete product. It is essential that behind your idea is a vision with ambition, a vision that adds value for others, a vision that makes you and your target group happy. This is how you create a brand, a brand that radiates authenticity and is recognisable. And that attracts customers who want your product. In this article you can read how we established SixBlocks solution as a unique brand with a powerful visualisation. We stand behind this 100% and are very proud of it. You can use the story behind it to create and visualise your own unique brand with 100% conviction.
SixBlocks solution
The idea and the improvement
Behind every good idea there is a core that really matters. That is also the case for your idea. It is very likely that this core is the result of insights gained in practice in the real world. When you discuss these insights with others, they usually indicate the need to change the current situation as well, but they do not know how to start and/or they do not dare to do so. That offers opportunities for the core of your idea. Get to work on it, prove it in small ways and then work it out in big ways. If you communicate openly and transparently with your target group about your idea and your underlying plan, they will believe in you and your idea.
The core idea behind SixBlocks solution is the sustainable and extreme simplification of business processes. It originated from the pattern of six blocks that founder Joost de Wit discovered and developed during his consultancy period prior to founding SixBlocks solution. The needs of all the different departments and the coherence between them, as well as the associated management, can always be summarised in a meta-model of six blocks. The proof has already been delivered during consultancy assignments in practice at insurers, pension funds and administration offices.
The pattern of the six blocks was further developed into the Business Rules Canvas after the consultancy period, through the Brightlands Campus and other sources of inspiration. The Business Rules Canvas is thus the result of years of senior practical experience, plus an intensive study to make the comparison with the Business Model Canvas concrete. The depth, detail and impact of the Business Rules Canvas are enormous. Read the article “The Business Rules Canvas, how it started at Watersley and the Brightlands Campus” for the story behind it.
In addition to our own development, the idea of the SixBlocks solution and the Business Rules Canvas has been fully validated in the market with potential clients. In our contacts with several administrative organisations and various consultancy firms, we have been very transparent and open about what we are doing. This is how we came into contact with the HR, automotive, interrogation and accountancy sectors. Here, we focus on setting up an ecosystem around the Business Rules Canvas. By talking to multiple parties/people from different perspectives, we gain a lot of information and new insights. We use all the feedback to improve our idea, and we continue to do so. That is very instructive and above all very interesting to do. It makes the idea more and more powerful, much easier to explain and with this we can actually put our idea on the market. Read the article “From idea to product and market roll-out, these are the 6 steps” to get inspiration for bringing your idea to the market.
Mission and Vision
By constantly improving your idea and its core, a clear mission and vision emerge that you can support 100%. They are the thread that explains your idea in a very simple way so that everyone understands it immediately. You leave out a lot of ballast and only mention what it is really about. Moreover, your mission and vision are inspiring for others, as you will notice in practice when you are in contact with your target group.
We have also experienced this. Developing the above mission and vision is a process of learning and improving. It runs separately from constantly improving the idea and putting it on the market. Read the article “The road to an inspiring mission and vision” to see how the process went for us to get this as clear as possible.
The unique brand and the powerful visualisation
Constantly improving your product, explaining it and being open to feedback will bring you a lot. By constantly zooming in on the core of your idea, a corresponding powerful visualisation arises, which can be used as a matter of course in your own storytelling.
In our case, this is how the visualisation of the image brands of the Business Rules Canvas and the Business Rules Engine were created.
On the left-hand side of the text Business Rules Canvas is the floor plan and on the right-hand side is the canvas visualised with the six blocks. The plan and the six blocks have deliberately not yet been coloured. The administrative organisations of our customers do that themselves, exactly as it suits them. Their subject matter experts model their own business processes in business rules, without the aid of IT experts and therefore without technical communication noise. Once the details have also been modelled, they are given colour. The result of the detailed business rules is the Business Rules Engine.
In this logo, the six blocks are coloured. On the left side of the text Business Rules Engine, the six blocks are visualised as separate elements and on the right side the six blocks are visualised as an integral solution: the SixBlocks solution.
The solution in the Business Rules Engine is dynamic. Depending on the details coloured in the Business Rules Canvas, all aspects of all business processes are solved. This applies to the processes of all departments of an administrative organisation in the HR, automotive, rental and accountancy sectors and the environment around them. The solution thus not only unburdens the administrative user, the marketer, the salesman, the specialist and the manager, but also the end customer. We visualise the flexibility and dynamism of the SixBlocks solution in the moving unique logo:
This unique logo looks great, we hear that everywhere. The funny thing is that initially we were not at all giving attention to this dynamic visualisation of our SixBlocks solution logo. This grew through our own storytelling and the enthusiasm of our discussion partners. By constantly improving the idea, emphasising the core, marketing it and involving interested parties, the dynamic visualisation emerged naturally. It radiates a mechanism whereby creativity always finds a solution. That is why we call our movement trademark “Fix all changes!”.
What is even better is that a movement trademark is already unique. Only 6 out of 1,000 registered trademarks in the Benelux concern a movement trademark, which is only 0.6% of all companies that register their trademark. SixBlocks solution belongs to this exceptional group. We are proud of that. Together with AOMB Intellectual Property we have registered our movement trademark as a unique identification. In the Dutch interview with Floor Stijns of AOMB Intellectual Property the ideas of our unique trademark are explained.
Explaining the dynamics of our platform by placing the six blocks in the logo each time in a different way gives positive energy. Not only us, but also our discussion partners suddenly see many more possibilities and advantages of the platform. You inspire each other by simply paying attention to the core and being creative. We find this fascinating.
The static logo of SixBlocks solution was and is very well prepared for the dynamics and thus the fantastic, unique and powerful movement brand “The creative engine” was born. Well, coincidence is logical! That quote by Johan Cruijff also applies in this case. Talking about quotes and Johan Cruijff, read the article “14 Cruijffianish sayings about SixBlocks” which we identify with.
Inspiration and proud
Hopefully, like we do, you too will experience inspiration and creativity in everything you do. Then you will have fun and be proud of what you do.
Apart from the fact that what you do is fun, it also gives everyone a wonderful feeling. In this way, the energy is present and the ideas, the elaborations and the subsequent solutions flow naturally. In this way, you and your discussion partners exceed their own expectations. This is something they, and certainly you, will be enormously proud of.
Hopefully, you too will get inspiration from the way we came to visualise our brand. In any case, we are constantly inspired. It’s in our system. Read an example in the article “What do Bob Ross and the Business Rules Canvas have in common?“.
