Uncategorized

I’m guest blog posting again. This time with The Redhead, Erika Napoletano. One of my favorite people on the social web because she’s herself to the end. Without apologies. Love her style or hate it, you know what’cher gettin. She builds trust, proving that authenticity rules in today’s world.

What better place, I figured, to write a bit more about personal branding. Because what Erika does can be called Personal Branding, but it might be something more.

You can check out my post here. And by all means: add Readhead Writing to your RSS feed. Rants writing and musings that will make your day better. And maybe make you re-think about what authenticity really means. I know she did for me.

It was my pleasure to write a guest post for a fairly new and very cool blog called Sundayed.com. You can check out my post here.

The post is a reflection of my ongoing interest in bridging the left and right-directed minds. I try to use the trumpet and improvisation as a way to illustrate how even in creative pursuits, we all deal with context and in fact it can create greatness. This is something the creative mind understands very deeply. But sometimes when context is presented in a business setting, creatives find the constraints instead of the inspiration. Or least mine did for long time.

Thanks for checking it out. Consider adding Sundayed to your RSS feed: a good site to feed the brain.

I guest blogged on the website Please Feed The Animals this week. It’s worth clicking over for no other reason than to check out Erik Proulx and his work in inspiring people to turn lemons into lemonade. He’s a great guy with a great story and an even better passion.

Thanks, Erik.

AT school with the Marcus Roberts Trio*.

This is a long post. But if you’re in the mood for talking a little music and getting some groove and swing up in in your approach to branding, then I appreciate you settling in.

The Marcus Roberts trio has been together for some fifteen years. They occupy a place in American music that combines the maintenance of tradition and honoring the past with a highly innovative interplay of harmony, space, and rhythm.

And they’re heavy pros. Serious technique. If you haven’t heard Marcus walk a bass line with his left hand while improvising with his right you’re missing out on some joy in your life. I’ve shared a playlist on iTunes with a sample. Check it out.

But technique is just the start. They’re professionals with a steadfast dedication to the gig at hand regardless of their mood, the audience size, or a parent refusing to remove a fussy child from the auditorium. (Which happened recently. I witnessed it with hair raised. They played on, and blew us all away.)

And the gig at hand is larger than entertainment for them. It’s even larger than themselves. They have lessons to spread. Lessons in collaboration, flexibility, alignment, and dialog.

continue

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.

continue

If you’ve ever been the person at a trade show booth or behind an event table, you could really feel for the exhibitors in the basement of Club 303. The event organizers of Summer Toast, Denver’s big social event for marketing people, had no idea it would get so hot and stuffy downstairs last night, doubtless. But it did.

Heather Florence was behind one of the tables. Her company is places2network.com, and I asked what I could do for her (from a network perspective, as in, who can I introduce you to). She said “you could bring me a fan.”

Which I did. A big one. One of those industrial beasts, six feet tall if it was an inch.

I found a bartender to help me move it. People were watching, people I knew asked if I was officially a part of the event and when I said no, exchanged looks. The fan put a nice grease stain on my shirt (my wife was happy about that).

I didn’t care. I was adding value. At all costs. My ego started inflating, I imagined conversations – what a helpful guy. He’s adding value at all costs.

The row of exhibitors literally applauded when I brought the fan over. I was Caesar returning to Rome.

One problem. I couldn’t find an outlet at the new location. I found an extension cord, but no outlet. As I searched it became stuffier downstairs. And stuffier. And stuffier.

Then I lost the bartender. So I couldn’t move the fan back. People turned on me, started complaining. (Et tu, Brute?) I slinked away.

So a public apology to everyone downstairs at the Summer Toast event of 2009. Lesson learned: make doubly sure you can add value before you begin the execution process.

And thanks to everyone for a fun event last night, and to the sponsors like Heather and places2network.com.

I promise to not touch anything next year.

You won’t read this post. If I’m lucky, you might skim it. I’m good with that. But please: don’t read it well.

There’s a book called How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read. I haven’t read all of it. And I think it’s excellent. So excellent, in fact, that I can take its principles and apply it to a blog post. continue