You can tell a lot about how Bryan Meszaros \u201900 runs his digital design agency just by reading his business card. It doesn\u2019t identify Meszaros as the founder or president or CEO of OpenEye Global. Instead, he\u2019s the \u201cBig Cheese.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cheeky title is a reminder of the let\u2019s-not-take-our-selves-too-seriously culture that Meszaros has cultivated at OpenEye, where the controller is known as \u201cThe Bean Counter,\u201d the chief strategist as \u201cThe Scribe,\u201d and the creative director as \u201cThe Dude\u201d (yes, from The Big Lebowski).<\/p>\n
You get the idea. Meszaros and his team of 10 employees do take their work seriously \u2014 we\u2019re talking about $2.2 million in annual revenues, after all \u2014 but themselves, not so.<\/p>\n
\\That company culture has evolved even without the advantage of a company headquarters. Meszaros works out of his home in South Amboy, N.J., and his staff is scattered across the country, from Staten Island, N.Y., to Bainbridge Island, Wash. With just two exceptions, he\u2019s known (and worked with) each of his employees for more than 10 years, and when he speaks of them collectively, he refers to them as \u201cfamily.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all invested in this, in OpenEye,\u201d Meszaros says. \u201cThere are no individual egos. Everyone pulls together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meszaros started the company in 2002, just two years after graduating from Seton Hall and he ran it solo for much of the next decade. The firm began by helping businesses design their digital signage, such as the kiosks that help travelers navigate their way through airports. But in recent years OpenEye has expanded its services so dramatically that Meszaros sometimes has trouble explaining his company to the uninitiated. That\u2019s because OpenEye\u2019s work has gone beyond mere design, he says, to developing a fuller digital experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s basically helping people that have known spaces \u2014 whether it\u2019s retailers, museums, public spaces \u2014 to identify what\u2019s happening in their space, what are they struggling to do, and how do they use digital and interactive technology to solve that problem,\u201d Meszaros says.<\/p>\n
In 2013, OpenEye won a multimillion-dollar contract with Santander Bank, a deal that raised eyebrows throughout the digital signage industry. \u201cWe competed for that project against agencies that should have crushed us,\u201d Meszaros says. \u201cThey liked us because we were noncontroversial. We never complain. We just do our job. We\u2019re like a blue-collar agency.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the time, OpenEye consisted of Meszaros and a single employee, but the Santander deal enabled him to beef up his staff. Today OpenEye handles the digital signage at more than 700 Santander branches across the country, and the bank remains OpenEye\u2019s largest client.<\/p>\n
Chris Whalen worked closely with Meszaros as the creative director in the marketing department at Sovereign Bank, an OpenEye client, and continued to collaborate after Sovereign was bought by Santander. After OpenEye won the Santander contract, Meszaros convinced Whalen to come work for him. \u201cOne of things that impressed me about Bryan originally was that I could tell he was willing to go the extra mile,\u201d Whalen says. \u201cThey really wanted to see any program they work with succeed. He was excited about the prospects of it, and he was always coming in with new ideas and better ways of doing things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Within the industry, OpenEye\u2019s work has not gone unnoticed. In 2009 the American Association of Museums presented OpenEye with a MUSE award for a digital navigation system the firm built for the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Design:Retail has named Meszaros one of its 40 under 40, a roster of what the magazine called \u201cthe next generation of talented stars driving the future of retail design.\u201d Last year, Smart CEO magazine honored OpenEye with a Corporate Culture Award.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, OpenEye continues to redefine itself. Last year, at Madame Tussauds in New York City, the firm helped create the \u201cGhostbusters Experience,\u201d based on the popular film, which the wax sculpture museum described as \u201ca fully immersive, authentic and multisensory space\u201d in which visitors encountered digital reproductions of, among other venues, a crowded New York subway car and the neon-lit mayhem of Times Square. For Meszaros, the project expanded his perception of the digital services that OpenEye can provide.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve kind of set ourselves up,\u201d he says, \u201cfor really venturing more into the unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n
Written by Chris Hann<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bryan Meszaros, founder of OpenEye Global, helps companies around the world develop inviting digital experiences.<\/p>\n