Brand(ing):Inside & Outside

Social Business News: Too Many Wrong Messages On Social Media? Try Leadership, Not Control.

December 5, 2011

Tweet In my first contribution to Social Business News, I’m reminding organizations that want to align their social media messages to focus their efforts on leadership. I find it pretty frustrating that so many social media advocates recommend “governance” or “policy” or “control” when an organization finds there are too many voices, not enough voices, […]

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Connecting to the Company Story: Coding is Crafting for Etsy’s Engineers

November 21, 2011

Tweet Every organization has a story. Any group that wants to be an important part of that organization needs to craft a place for itself in that story. The story an organization tells itself and shares with others helps everyone make sense of who the organization is. For members, the organization’s story helps them articulate […]

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Authentic Competitive Distinctiveness — It’s all in the details

May 19, 2011

Tweet There’s a great photo in the New York Times (May 19, 2011) of a whitepaper chart created to manage the Delta-Northwest Merger’s Long and Complex Path. The chart is full of of post-its, probably more than 200 of them. Each post-it reflects a point where the systems and processes of the organizations need to […]

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3 Ways That Employer Branding Can Benefit Current Employees

May 17, 2011

Tweet It’s easy to see how Employer Branding is useful to HR departments and potential job applicants. Employer Branding, the practice of marketing images of your organization as a desirable place to work towards potential job applicants, is a sensible strategy for attracting the right people onto your bus (-iness). Employer Branding works to draw […]

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Action Branding: Using activity streams to authenticate identity claims

March 23, 2011

Tweet Action Branding is the concept that brands are the sum of their actions. — Extending this concept to personal brands and organizational brands, action branding helps individuals and organizations demonstrate, and thus authenticate, the character, values and purpose they claim to have. — Social media creates opportunities for individuals and organizations to track, organize […]

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Beyond Positioning: Establishing Authentic Optimal Distinctiveness

February 23, 2011

Tweet Every organization needs to establish optimal distinctiveness – a competitive position within your field, where you are similar enough to other organizations to be seen as legitimate, but different enough that you’re seen as having something unique to offer.  But, optimal distinctiveness is more than being in a competitive place in your field. Optimal […]

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Personal Branding: It’s Different for Girls

November 12, 2010

Tweet Personal branding is inescapable.¹ A person simply cannot participate in online forums, much less in their full career, without deliberately or unintentionally crafting and framing the way that they are seen by others. However, while personal branding is inescapable, it isn’t easy to make it work in our favor. Personal branding is fraught with […]

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Authentic From the Start-Up: 4 Tips from Cindy Gallop and IfWeRanTheWorld

October 21, 2010

Tweet If you were building an organization from the ground up, how would you “build authenticity in” from the very start? I had the chance to ask this question of Cindy Gallop, an entrepreneur and marketing/advertising/branding guru, who is the CEO of a start-up called IfWeRanTheWorld. IfWeRanTheWorld and Cindy have both been recommended to me […]

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If Women Had Designed Facebook

September 30, 2010

Tweet If women had designed Facebook, maybe it wouldn’t feel … So cold. So rectangular. So static. So emotion-less. So linear. So blue. So hierarchical. So rigid. So ego-centric. So boring. If women had designed Facebook, maybe it would be: Warmer. More welcoming. Flexible. Expressive. Inclusive. Emotional. Aesthetically inviting. Personalizable. Collaborative. Dynamic. Intimate. Engaging. Flow-y. […]

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