Beloved,

We’re gaining speed – only 110 days since our last newsletter!

So, what happened in the meantime? 

Unfortunately, first of all, we are facing new horrors on a global scale that make us question humanity and leave us feeling powerless and frustrated. While we can’t stop the war in Gaza, the least we can do is stay informed and help where we can.

• Some accounts that helped us broaden our horizon are the ones of Emilia Zenzile Roig, Yaelissima, Melina Borčak, Şeyda Kurt and Tomer Dotan Dreyfus.

• For direct relief in Gaza, consider donating to Doctors without Borders or Medico International – or check out this list to find more organisations to support.

• A Podcasts we found very helpful: Feuer & Brot on Palestinians and Jews for Peace (mainly EN, with some DE sections)

Next, while the news cycle’s attention is shifting elsewhere, Putin’s war against Ukraine has been going on for 692 days now. Please keep looking and consider donating here or here! 

Finally, things aren’t looking too friendly here in Germany either – the far right (#fckafd) is polling record highs and, at the same time, is holding not-so-secret talks about ethnic deportation plans. Of course, we couldn’t bear this and took to the streets last weekend (along with 25,000 others in Berlin). We also try to take action by supporting regional initiatives such as Polylux, Miteinander and AKuBiZ or petitions like this one. Join us if you can!

But now, on to less sombre news …

2023 – the good stuff

With 2023, we wrapped up our second complete business year as a GmbH; our 3rd anniversary is coming up in May. And maybe we should celebrate that? Send us a quick reply, and we’ll keep you posted on any party plans.

When we reflected on the year as a team, two things prevailed:

• 2023 felt like we reached a certain level of professionalism around our whole “backend” as a company. Finances, taxes, lawyers, tooling, employer paperwork, etc. – significantly fewer “first-time occurrences.” Things started working smoothly in the background, letting us focus on actual work. That’s progress!

• 2023 also felt like a giant leap forward in our client list. With organisations like the UN Development Programme and DIE GRÜNEN, we are happy to work with some well-known progressive partners. But it’s also the smaller, more local players like The League or rahrah (more on both coming soon) that feel very rewarding since the impact is often much more tangible and direct in their case. 

Speaking of the UN – we finally published our very first ✨full project case study ✨ on our website, so if you want to learn more about how we enabled data-informed policy-making in low and middle-income countries, go check it out!

2023 – the “meh” stuff

So yes, many things moved in the right direction last year. Still, since we are committed to promoting transparency and honesty in our industry, we also want to share some things that went less smoothly, where we outright failed, and where we are struggling:

• Like probably everyone else, we haven’t found the holy grail of hybrid work yet. Finding the right balance of flexibility and structure between over- and under-communicating – 90% seem to work great, but the last 10% are harrrrd. 

• The classic “either too much or too little” agency dilemma is no stranger to us. Balancing the workload can be challenging sometimes, especially in a tiny team like ours. We’re still exploring the Ponder way of dealing with it.

• We had to accept that sometimes, the “right” way of doing things comes with too many downsides and finally turns out to be a net negative. This is why we are moving our digital infrastructure (calendar, file sharing and email) from our ethically self-hosted solution to an established player.💔 We have much to say on this topic, so if that interests you, let us know, and we might share some learnings soon!

Wait, there’s more.

So, since there is no common thread in this newsletter anyway, here are some random Ponder insights that we deemed mildly interesting – at least they have a common theme: Learning!

• We were recently attending the Ethical Design Masterclass with Trine Falbe. There were loads of learnings and loads of like-minded people. We highly recommend it!

• We are currently attending a series of workshops around accessibility testing – nerdy much, but very eye-opening and very much needed. 

• Even nerdier but equally important: We joined a session around the Web Sustainability Guidelines initiative – which, in short, is attempting to weave sustainable practices into the official W3C guidelines (that’s the technical rulebook for everything on the web). It’s a great initiative we’ll keep following and supporting!

• We rediscovered the Creative Mornings events and joined the talk by Thuli Wolf at Ecosia’s main office. These free events exist in 238 cities and 69 countries – highly recommended if you find one nearby!

And with this, we leave you for now!

Expect the following newsletter in less than 110 days, and if you miss us in the meantime, find us on the Socials (see links in footer) – or ping us for a coffee in Berlin!

Take care, and be kind to others!

Peter