All about Authenticity

Company Character Grows From Place Identity

February 16, 2012

What do start-ups and coffee beans have in common? For both, the place they grow shapes who they become. We don’t talk much about the role of place in shaping organizational identity, but the physical circumstance of where we are located as we do our work together helps to determine who we become as a [...]

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

November 21, 2011

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 their [...]

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Don’t Tell Esty That Authenticity Is Getting “Old” — The Social Dynamic Between Crafters and Buyers is Timeless

October 27, 2011

“A deluge of vintage and artisanal products is now available online and through mass-market retailers. Has authenticity become just another fad?”   Here’s a quick response to today’s New York Times article by Emily Weinstein, All That Authenticity May Be Getting Old, about the flood of ‘authentic’, handmade and one-of-a-kind-ish items on the home decor [...]

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5 Ways That Systems of Engagement Bring Out Our Full Social Selves

June 22, 2011

Technology has a way of sucking the humanity right out of us. Consider how we describe, design and deploy ‘enterprise 2.0′ and work system technologies in our organizations: – When we talk about technology systems, we talk about machines, platforms, inputs and outputs.  We forget about values, emotion, flourishing, meaning and purpose. – When we [...]

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Social Intranet Design and Organizational Identity: Design for functionality and character

June 15, 2011

In a social organization, the design of digital social tools like intranets should reflect the organizational features that define the organization. These design features, no matter how subtle, can ‘auto-communicate’ and make salient the characteristics that matter most, and help organizations stay authentic. Especially in the digital workplace, our digital tools create an important shared [...]

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Why Should Organizations be Authentic? The Competing Logics of Trust & Uniqueness

June 1, 2011

Everyone agrees: It’s a good thing for organizations to be authentic. Where folks disagree, though, is why organizations should be authentic. Deep down, we know that authenticity is valuable. But when we try to talk about “why our organization should be more authentic” and convince others to pursue authenticity, our conversations can get pretty confusing. [...]

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Authentic Corporate Reputations: The Real PR Challenge

May 27, 2011

To craft a corporate reputation that seems authentic, claims about the organization’s character must be anchored in real features of the organization. It’s the organization’s job to demonstrate a link between reputation claims and real features, and it’s the PR professional’s job to explain a link between claims and real features. (This post is drawn [...]

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Authentic Competitive Distinctiveness — It’s all in the details

May 19, 2011

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 be [...]

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3 Ways That Employer Branding Can Benefit Current Employees

May 17, 2011

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 to [...]

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