Bright Corner Merges with Geniant
Tuesday January 17, 2006 / 20 CommentsSomething a while in the making has finally come to fruition. Bright Corner has merged with Geniant, one of the fastest growing and most respected technology consultancies in Dallas. For those of you that went on over to check out Geniant’s web site, you might be wondering about their design, IA, and web standards capabilities. Well, that’s why we’re a good match.
While Bright Corner isn’t exactly weak in the technology department, Geniant is an extremely strong technology company, and with Bright Corner’s focus on user experience, the combined company has an opportunity to be amazing. While Bright Corner’s client list and opportunities have been growing, Geniant already has quite a portfolio of really exciting clients and opportunities such as Bank of America, The Federal Reserve, Verizon, ExxonMobil, and many more.
It’s always exciting when a company anchored as heavily in technology as Geniant with such a strong reputation among its clients makes this kind of investment in user experience. We’re expecting really exciting things, and couldn’t be happier about this move. Oh yeah, we’ll be getting on that redesign of Geniant’s site soon so that it more accurately reflects the future direction of the company.
And We’re Hiring
Not coincidentally, with the acquisition, we’ve got some pretty agressive hiring goals as well. Right now, we’re looking primarily for information architects/interface designers. We need junior people looking to dive right in as well as senior people with a few years of experience under their belt.
So if you can create wireframes, are obsessed with usability, interested in rapid prototyping, like the idea of designing custom application interfaces for Fortune 500 companies, and like working in the middle of a company that has every intention of creating the world’s best interfaces, then we might have a job for you. Send your detailed resume as a Word document to Human Resources via “hr at Geniant dot com”.
Summary
A lot of times it’s hard for a smaller company to be excited about an acquisition as things change and there are growing pains, but that’s clearly not the case around here. The two companies compliment each other extremely well, and we definitely have a one plus one equals three situation. We’ve got an exciting year ahead of us, and we’d love to get some more people involved.
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congrats guys! What name will the combined company be taking?
Brian BreslinDude, you sell-out! Congrats, by the way. It’s great to see when big-businesses start to take usability / accessibility / standards into account, and make them a priority. Best of luck in all your new endeavors!
Nathan SmithThat’s great man! Congrats!
MikeCurious Garrett, I can kinda tell from some of your recent posts lately that you’ve been getting more into Ruby On Rails, so with the move/merge with Geniant, will Ruby/Rails play more of a significant part in their development? Will you be evangelizing ROR to the guys over at Geniant? Or perhaps they’re already on board with Rails development… Just curious.
Nick Dominguezcongrats. What will your role in the new combined company be?
Kelsey RugerThat’s great news for Bright Corner (and Geniant, since they are lacking in the usability/standards department). Congratulations!
Justin PerkinsBrian – We’ll be keeping the Geniant name and, I believe, refreshing the identity and brand to reflect the focus on user experience.
Nick – There’s definitely some interest in Rails, however, so far it’s mainly superficial. Most of Geniant’s clients are already exposed to preferred technologies, and there’s not a lot of room to convince them otherwise.
Kelsey – My role shouldn’t be changing too much. I’ll be doing IA and the occassional stint in site development.
GarrettGarrett,
Congratulations! I’ve been familiar with Geniant for a while as I am friends with one of their former directors, a guy by the name of Bob Jansen. He spoke very highly of Geniant and I’m sure you will find it to be an intelligent and energetic group. Good luck!
Matt DeanWill you be staying at the Plano office (actually just two blocks from my office at Parkwood & Tennyson) or moving down to the Geniant office?
JAbbottWe’ll be here at the Plano office for now, but will probably be moving sometime this year.
GarrettCongrats and looking forward to see the new Geniant website very soon!
pixeledenI’ve never had a good experience working for a “big” company. They are always hamstrung by people that just don’t “get it” even when they claim they do.
Just be careful, i’ve been in situations before where situations like this happened and everything initially looked like it was going to turn out great… until the merger and transition period was over and you realize things aren’t as great as you thought.
If you have never worked for a traditional technology company that truely doesn’t care about good UI or IA… you might be in for a rude awakening.
The real question is this:
Bright Corner is debt-free, employee-owned, and has grown by a minimum of 25% annually since its inception. Over 75% of annual revenues come from existing customers and Bright Corner has never failed to deliver a project in our entire history.
Why would you ever want to stray from being in that situation?
CarlI’ll miss Bright Corner, but I’m glad you guys work so well together. Will you keep the old Bright Corner identity at all, or is it gone?
Gordowow. heavy stuff! I’ll be interested to see what unfolds over the next few months.
Referring to Carl’s point about big companies and technology – that is a good point, Carl. Hopefully the existing BC guys will have enough sway to influence philosophy and processes or they wouldn’t have gone in this direction in the first place.
Good luck with everything, Garrett!
chuckChuck & Carl – Yes, that definitely is not the case here. We’ve already started the work on the mark and messaging to communicate what the new company will be offering, and they are extremely committed to providing their clients with improved interface design. As for a large traditional company, we now make up almost 1/3 of Geniant, so we’ll have plenty of say in how things unfold.
GarrettWith my comments earlier I forgot to mention that they were based on personal experiences with larger IT companies. Every situation is different, and I hope things work out for you at Geniant!
CarlAre all the BC employees making the move or did they trim you any?
Jeff AdamsJeff – They want us all. :)
GarrettGarrett – what I find interesting is that you’ve called it a merger, but the Geniant web site refers to the transaction as the acquisition of Bright Corner.
I guess I’m not surprised, but I thought it was kind of funny.
Derek FeatherstoneI was at Aldus during the “merger” with Adobe, and the joke around the office was, “The equity of this partnership will be reflected in the company’s new name, which combines the ‘A’ from Aldus, and the ‘dobe’ from Adobe.”
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