How Nora Herting Draws Inspiration To Innovate at ImageThink

By: Nora Herting, Co-Founder and CEO, ImageThink nora

Innovative thinking is at the core of ImageThink, from our inception, to our organizational structure, to the ways we collaborate with our client base.

When I co-founded ImageThink 10 years ago, graphic recording was just starting to become more widely recognized as the valuable tool for strategic thinking that it is. And while in the early 2000s, several graphic recorders were working on a freelance basis, ImageThink was one of the first dedicated graphic recording firms to offer 360-degree support to clients from both a management and execution perspective. That in itself was quite an innovation in the graphic recording field, and we are still growing and developing the ways we collaborate with our clients today.

One thing that inspires me to stay innovative is the passionate, intelligent, and collaborative team I’m privileged to work with. As a small company, each individual has the ability to leverage multiple modes of thinking at once—from project managing to executing—that always keeps us on our toes and keeps us collaborating.  

But if innovative thinking was the impetus for ImageThink, it’s also the reason our clients choose to continue working with us. Our clients turn to us to infuse their strategy sessions and brainstorms with a creative approach to difficult problems. One of our core values is ‘curiosity’ – which I believe is the catalyst for all creativity. Being curious about our clients, their challenges and our own processes ensures that we stay at pace with our marquee clients, who are consistently making breakthroughs. We owe our success to this clientele base of curious and exploratory thinkers. Our earliest adopters, technology companies like Google and marketing firms like Ogilvy, were part of industries where staying ahead of trends is key to survival and growth.

From 2009 to today, our roster of clients has grown to include many Fortune 500 companies across industries, from technology and pharmaceuticals, to marketing and advertising, to education and retail. I’m very grateful to the support of our clients and to have the opportunity to be in the room with some truly incredible entrepreneurial minds. With every meeting we support, we learn something new from our clients and bring those new insights and inspirations back to the team. It’s an incredible feeling to know that as we help our clients achieve their strategic goals, we are also gaining new knowledge and insights in return.

*Please Note: All statements are the opinion of the author and may not necessarily represent the views of The ADVERTISING Club of New York.