Archive for September, 2009

If we practiced what we preached, we’d stop calling it brand.

The center of what branding is has been completely lost with all the ideas and thoughts and opinions about what we all think a brand is. We keep putting new layers around it, on top of the latest thought,  hardly ever listening to what came before it. We’ve created a giant rubber brand ball.

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This video is a slide from social media and personal branding presentations I give.

It supports points I make about social media being new tools that require the same fundamental strategy and approach we all know how to do in traditional networking spheres. Namely (and simply):

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I keep reading Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind. It helps me keep many things in mind, including the concept of “whole.” As in complete. Balanced.

I spent some time yesterday with an artist. Gwen Laine has some amazing work and has recently gifted an installment to the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. (If you’re in the Springs or passing through, take a minute to swing by and check it out. Or click here to see the work online.)

Gwen’s art is often installed without any kind of trial run. The installation is the final expression of the vision. Gwen’s latest work wasn’t even installed by her. She provided the FAC detailed instructions and then let it go.

I asked Gwen what it was like to create something that she doesn’t see complete until it’s installed. Does it typically match her vision or not? Her answer was enlightening. She doesn’t have a clear picture of the final outcome. She told me you have to be comfortable with letting the materials and the process inform the outcome. You can’t be constrained by a static end vision.

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The agency world is full of cheeky jokes, posts, and cartoons about the Dumb and Difficult Client. Another post popped up in my RSS feed today (although it was written in 2002): If Architects Had to Work Like Web Designers.

The post is funny enough, but I remain flummoxed at the unending willingness of agencies to publically air what should be in-shop rants. And the lack of participation by agencies in trolling sites and mitigate it. It hurts their industry brand in a time when they can ill afford it.

So instead of getting serious about it again, allow me pull out my broad brush and take a crack at this kind of thing from the other side.

Herewith: an e-mail to a web designer, if a web designer was an architect.

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