The 'inside outers' are a London design firm changing the world of business

Publishing their thoughts, notes and projects online at every step of the way, they have been dubbed the "inside-outers".

Weeknotes, a weekly online digest of work, and even show-and-tell sessions posted online are the keys to the new way of working that has infiltrated offices from the East End's dotcom firms to the BBC.

At the forefront of the inside-out movement is Berg London, a Shoreditch design firm which has become one of the best in the world in just 24 months.

At first glance, it seems like any other dotcom firm - a trendy office in Shoreditch, with iPads and Moleskine notebooks on almost every desk.

However, Berg London's 11 employees have made a reputation for being the company that really does invent the future - and which credits its success to the schoolroom show-and-tell.

"Externally, we publish 'weeknotes' on our site, which tell people what we are up to, and what interesting links we've seen on the web," says Matt Webb, a partner in the company. "We give each week a number, and take turns in writing them. Internally, on Tuesdays, we get together and tell each other what we are doing, and on Fridays we have demos of each project.

"I think this is key, and the idea of the critique is important. Unsurprisingly, lot of our work practices come from the design world, and that's very different from Silicon Valley or a lot of other creative businesses. Staying small has meant we have the attention of everyone who works here."

The approach has worked well for Berg. Although you've almost certainly never heard of the firm, its success is such that it has just been named among the top five design firms in the world by Fast Company magazine.

Berg's track record is astonishing, ranging from the first iPad magazine, lauded by Apple boss Steve Jobs, to developing interactive maps for the BBC, and even an entirely new art form called "light painting".

The company has also taken the inside-out approach into local pubs, running a successful series of evenings to which the brightest minds are invited. "London has such a strong design heritage - we're really lucky," says Webb.

"There is an amazing group of people working in Shoreditch, and we try to take advantage of that.

Every few months we take over a pub and just hear what our friends are up to, it's an incredibly powerful thing."

Experts say Berg's approach has infected dozens of other firms. Even the BBC has embraced weeknotes, with its R&D teams publishing them online.

"They really have had a huge influence on London," says Mike Butcher, a journalist who covers London's dotcom firms.

He says the key to Berg's success is its Apple-like obsession with detail. "They're great standard-bearers for product design. They come at it in a different way to almost every other firm.

They are obsessed with how things work, and that has really lifted them above the parapet. They've pushed new media to the limit."

One of the firms Berg has worked with is Dentsu London, and the pair have collaborated on conceptual products including a light painting application for the iPad and Suwappu, a range of children's toys that use augmented reality and Twitter to communicate with each other. Dentsu has also used the inside-out approach, blogging projects and using Twitter to share its processes.

"The way they work is different, they are about working in a practical way and getting the whole team working together," says Beeker Northam of Dentsu London. "Their work processes are interesting - just playing with things until stuff gets made."