HOW WE WORK

A FOUNDATION OF TRUST

We understand the nature of our work requires a degree of professional intimacy. Our stories are central to our identity, so whom we share them with depends on our level of trust in those people and our confidence in knowing that we are truly being heard and understood, rather than judged or used. When partnering with clients, we establish trust through alignment of our interests, values and goals and reinforce them through a working relationship that is transparent, respectful and friendly.  

RESEARCH, RESEARCH, AND MORE RESEARCH

Our destination cannot be clear if we don’t understand where we have been, yet most attempts at assessing our own histories are riddled with convenience biases and comforting narratives that cloud objective reality. The first step in our work is to conduct preliminary research—landscape analysis, in-depth interviews, focus groups, surveys and media monitoring—aimed at grasping the realities of your organisation from all angles and from the inside out. Through rigorous qualitative and quantitative analysis, we distil a narrative that is true to your organisation’s identity, clearly articulates your value proposition, and resonates with both internal stakeholders and external audiences.

FORMULATING YOUR NARRATIVE

The world is made up of infinite facts which the human mind is incapable of processing in their totality. Stories serve as psychological paths that allow people to navigate and experience this infinitely complex reality in a coherent way. Thus, your organisational narrative must answer three critical questions about your path: “Where have you been? Where are you now? Where are you going?” Articulating this narrative positions you as a coherent agent inside people’s minds. But that’s not enough. Your target audiences need to understand how your path is interconnected with theirs. This is the foremost prerequisite for the establishment of organisational trust and bringing people along with you.

SELECTIVE MESSAGING

As much as your organisation’s overarching narrative must confidently communicate your unique identity, it must also be flexible enough to be adaptable for diverse, global demographics. In practice, this entails selectively pulling micro messages from your grander narrative and tailoring them to specific audiences based on their different interests, values and goals—whether those are individual, familial, organisational or national. Our rigorous, data-driven approach identifies the key traits and sociocultural circumstances of your target audiences and helps you communicate with them in terms that resonate most.

DISCOVERING YOUR AUTHENTIC VOICE(S)

The modern information environment is saturated with useless noise: clickbait, AI slop, cringey corporate ads and bland, politically correct language that talks and talks but says nothing. Voices that sound real and human have become rare, and audiences are thirsting for authenticity. Grounded in deep, interpersonal understanding of your organisation and its story, our advisors will work with your executives to discover their authentic communications style and hone their public speaking and interviewing skills, while our writers and producers will create engaging content for your owned channels in your own unique voice.

NAVIGATING COMPLEXITY

The emerging multipolar world is a hyperdynamic geographic, financial and ideological space where competing powers, interests and narratives clash, interact, and change each other—constantly oscillating between conflict and harmony. The irony of it is that the more we observe and the more we learn, the more unpredictable those processes become. At Topouria Group, we view chaos and uncertainty as sacred states. We understand that the human nature is imperfect and fallible, and thus we’re not afraid to say, “I don’t know.” This intellectual humility makes us more diligent when looking for blind spots, knowledge gaps, and vulnerabilities while opening us up to connections and opportunities in unexpected places.

MULTI-VECTOR STRATEGIES

The most adaptive, productive and resilient organizations in the emerging global order will be those that can assemble dynamic coalitions across borders, industries, disciplines and issues. These complex networks must bring together business and government partners, media and educational institutions, entrepreneurs and innovators, along with communities of citizens, in order to solve problems through synthesis. Your organization must be a hub with as many spokes reaching outward as possible. Our team will advise you on formulating a multi-vector strategy directed a holistic, integrated and long-term objectives that reach across segments, rather than simplistic, singular goals such as wider media coverage, more customers or higher profits. These strategies require careful planning, but they must also allow for quick improvisations when circumstances change and new opportunities emerge.

IDENTIFYING RISKS, UNDERSTANDING TIMING

There are times that call for steady gradualism and times that call for spontaneous revolutionary activity. These two modes of operation exist in dynamic tension and continuously feed each other. Anchored in history and understanding the nature of change, our advisors have a finely tuned sense for timing and know when it is wiser to be cautious and deliberative and when conditions are ripe for being aggressive and taking intelligent risks. Whether those risks are related to geopolitical uncertainty, market volatility or reputational threats, we lean on data-driven models to identify and analyse them well before they demand action. 

TACTICAL EXECUTION

The nitty gritty details of implementation depend on your specific target audiences and your business objectives. Based on our strategic framework, our team will leverage different physical and digital tools to actualise your organisational narrative into the world, turning abstract ideas into concrete realities. Our basket of tools includes 1) tried and true PR instruments, such as pitches and press releases, for generating earned media, 2) content creation and distribution through owned channels, including social media, Substack and Medium blogs, podcasts, short-form videos, and others; 3) interpersonal tactics such as event coordination, speaker and interview coaching, moderating panels and personally advocating on your behalf within our network; 4) AI and data-powered models that help us predict, analyse and act on opportunities; and 5) improvised and spontaneous tactics that cut across a range of strategic segments and amplify the impact of our other tactics.

ASSESSMENT, EVALUATION, AND PREDICTION

Pretty words and nice stories may make us feel good, but without tangible, measurable results they hold little value in today’s age. We integrate data analytics into our workflow evert step of the way and strive to further develop out predictive capabilities through advanced machine learning models. We are improving our analytical capabilities so that we may better evaluate consumer habits, brand sentiments and trust, market volatility, geospatial information, salience of political issues, financial risks, public opinion polls, media engagement, etc.

SCALABLE LEARNING

One of the greatest organisational blind spots is the problem of incomplete knowledge and overconfidence. We believe that successful theories and enduring models are those rooted in lived experience and reinforced with continuous practice—built from the ground-up, through trial and error, rather than intellectually imposed from the top-down. Experience is the supreme form of learning. We approach every project both with confident determination to succeed and open-minded humility to learn, improve and apply our knowledge to increasingly ambitious endeavours.

NETWORK DEVELOPMENT

The more neural connections a brain develops, the more intelligent and resilient it becomes. The same goes for organisations. The more connections we create in the world, the more antifragile we become. Strong relationships amplify success during times of abundance and protect us from damage in times of crisis. We believe that people are what matter most. This is why we are constantly growing our network among business, government, media and educational institutions, so that we can keep delivering superior, more impactful and wider-reaching results for our client and shaping the world for the better—together.