Branding as Commodity Finding Connection Through Leadership

Umair Haque, Director of the Havas Media Lab, wrote in the early part of this year on The Shrinking Advantage of Brands in Harvard Business Publishing. His definition is not universally accepted, as can be determined from the comments section of the piece, but it does give me some ideas regarding social media and collaboration.

His definition: What is a brand? It’s a promise: information from a firm promising you a set of costs and benefits from the consumption of a good or service. Brands shape your expected value.

As I posted in my other blog, I have been having an ongoing discussion of leveraging social media on behalf of the Millennium Development Goals in one of the End POVERTY / Fim POBREZA forums. What the discussion comes down to in my mind is, does one both lead and empower through social media in raising consciousness about a social cause and how? Branding a social cause can either be an empowering exercise or a form of propaganda.

What is different from Haque's definition of branding compared to others is that he seems to see it, at least orthodox branding, as an iconic devise used to synthesis the costs and benefits into one object, phrase or idea. The interaction costs are so inexpensive with Google or other online tools, it makes it easier for consumers to find the information that they seek, especially from each other. "The cheaper interaction gets, the more connected consumers can talk to each other – and the less time they have to spend listening to the often empty promises of firms." Haque's point is that information about expected costs and benefits doesn’t have to be compressed into orthodox branding logos, or slogans because your audience can debate and discuss their expected values in detail. The trouble is that for social causes most don't, they only connect passively.

Seth's Blog also had a post on the rapid growth (and destruction) and growth of marketing back in October of this year. Seth realizes something that Haque left out in his article which is that brands can also provide a vehicle for social emotion and connection, but it is a vehicle in to which the audience can imbue social emotion and connection rather than depending upon someone else to "feed" it to them.

Social media, it turns out, isn't about aggregating audiences so you can yell at them about the junk you want to sell. Social media, in fact, is a basic human need, revealed digitally online. We want to be connected, to make a difference, to matter, to be missed. We want to belong, and yes, we want to be led.

The next day Seth's Blog had a post on Leadership is now the strongest marketing strategy. He again "markets" his new book on leadership called Tribes from the post the day before. He thinks of his leadership book as actually being a marketing book and vice-a-versa. According to Seth, "The next frontier of marketing is in leading groups of people who are working together to get somewhere."

What works is leading. Leading a (relatively) small group of people. Taking them somewhere they'd like to go. Connecting them to one another. It's enough if the tribe you lead knows about you and cares about you and wants to follow you. It's enough if your leadership changes things, galvanizes the audience and puts the status quo under stress. And it's enough if the leadership you provide makes a difference.

It is easier to be merely broadcasters, putting together a list of iconic branding devises and hurtling it out at hoped for followers. Louder is easier not better. According to Seth, "People want to connect. They want you to do the connecting. Now we're leaders." It is not, however, the definition of leader in the orthodox sense. Claiming leadership regarding the branding of a cause can be a matter of hazardous hubris, both the branding and leadership require a high degree of authenticity.

It seems to be to be a matter of encouraging collaboration by first providing information, education and then following with avenues of action, but realizing that everybody else can and at least a small group should be doing the same thing. How to encourage them to do so around a specific branded cause may be the true role of leadership. How to specifically do that is still a matter to be further explored .

Little Ideas Are The Pathway To Big Sucess

Big Ideas (Meatball Mondae 11) via Seth's Blog 12/3/07 gives me an excuse to bring up another article that I posted but never dealt with to the extent that I wanted.

Seth points out that in a factory-based organization, "little ideas are the key to success".

"Small improvements in efficiency or design can improve productivity and make a product just a bit more appealing. New Marketing, which exists in the noisy marketplace, demands something bigger. It demands ideas that force people to sit up and take notice."

"Today, the advertiser's big idea doesn't travel very well. Instead, the idea must be embedded into the experience of the product itself. Once again, what we used to think of as advertising or marketing is pushed deeper into the organization. Let the brilliant ad guys hang out with your R&D team and watch what happens. Yes, there are big ideas. They're just not advertising-based."

This is a pretty profound statement from a marketer. He does not say it explicitly, but the noisy marketplace of New Marketing seems to break out of the Henry Ford industrial assembly model. Regardless, it involves innovation and Seth is asserting that innovation belongs in all components of the organization at a fundamentally deep level. The whole Seth Godin meatball series is here.

This supporting article from the Christian Science Monitor is on, "How companies can encourage innovation."

"We're moving from an industrial economy to a creative economy," says Richard Florida, author of "The Rise of the Creative Class,"

In a new survey, the Innovation Institute, "finds a "creativity gap" in the workplace – a disparity between the creative resources available and those being used. While a vast majority of American workers (88 percent) consider themselves creative, fewer than 2 in 3 think they are tapping their creative capacities on the job. Nearly 30 percent say they would take a lower salary to work for a company that valued their creative input. And 1 in 5 say they would move to a different city to work for such a company."

Two other factors – a rise in entrepreneurship and more women in business – also promote innovation, says Vicki Donlan, author of "Her Turn: Why It's Time for Women to Lead in America." Many women tell her they left a corporate job because they lacked opportunities to use their creativity.

The More We Know, The More We Know That Fools and Facts Don't Mix

Seth's Blog had the Fools, facts and the more we know post on 12/5/07. Something I have noticed during this web 2.0 experience is that a good deal of the information found on the web and especially among blogs is derived and repeated from other source. Not that this is necessarily bad but it does raise some issues.

Seth points us to Neal who in turen points us to: Saying more by saying less. Then according to Seth, this post then leads to an extraordinary blog post.

At least that's what Seth tells us but it seems to get away from the point of the first link or at least takes a long road around (truth is that I have not read it all the way through yet). The point of the first link is.

"Certainly the more information we get, the higher the level of ignorance seems to be."

This concept of information glut has been dealt with particularly with regards to e-mails but this seems to be a bit more basic. Easy access to information lets everybody be an expert or at least claim to be one on their blog or website. That means we need to be careful about who we listen to and how we present ourselves. It was probably best said, if I can believe BrainyQuote, by Abraham Lincoln,

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

No, Not The Right Person But Still A Great Job

Seth's Blog: Great job for the right person

Seth Godin's post for November 15 this year was about Acumen and a great job being offered. According to Seth, "it just might be the most important job you ever do."

"This individual would join the Portfolio Strategies team which focuses on sharing knowledge and influencing how the world tackles poverty. The associate would be primarily responsible for using the internet, video, and a range of tools available for building community to share what Acumen Fund is learning about effective ways to bring critical goods and services to people living in the developing word who make less than $3 per day. "

A review of their website quickly demonstrates that the applicant is going to have to be experienced and talented.

Seth does marketing and this sounds like a marketing position. A viable and important endeavor but there is still the questions floating around the back of my mind as to whether this is the best means of addressing these issues. This has been raised before with the posts on malaria nets usually with me supporting the efforts of Jacqueline Novogratz and other working in this field, but I still have not resolved all questions in my mind. Especially, those raised by Vivian Hoffman whose study had more impact on me than the New York Times article cited by Marginal Revolution. I used a del.icio.us link above for some of the sites I have saved. Here is a link to sites saved by others with a far wider range of views. There are many more trying to make a difference who can be found in Social and Economic Paradigms. It is not that I am turning away from my former perspective, rather it is obtaining enough knowledge to answer these concerns and being able to be open to new ideas and letting old ones go when they no longer work.

Is What You Do Who You Are?

Seth's Blog: End your tasks, end your job?

"It's no wonder, then, that groupthink and politics and natural defenses kick in every time strategy is discussed."

One means of defining ourselves is by our job and the means of defining our job is what we do, what are our tasks? Sometimes that is hard to define. Certain tasks can be essential when working in a multi-discipline organization, however explaining how they relate to the overall enterprise can be a challenge. Especially, if they focus on organizational cohesion to move projects forward rather than direct application of a certain discipline.

As Seth asks, if your tasks, that which you do day in and out, ends does that end your job. If that job and those tasks have defined you, how do you then define yourself? As Seth points out, organizations often do a bad job at responding to this, depending on all too often on worn out paradigms. I am less optimistic about his ideas about creating change within the organization. Most upper management would not go for it and neither would most of the line staff. I believe it is something one will have to do for oneself.

Starbuck Wisdom

Seth Godin has a rather simple post on the following great story. This sounds like a personal paradigm shift to me. I am not able to judge how well Starbucks instills this set of paradigms into its employees. Behind the story are the perspectives of Branding Guru John Moore who has some rather interesting insights from his time at Starbucks.

This site's scope does try to reach the philosophical even spiritual wisdom but the practical lessons of effective business practices are still to be learned and respected. Especially when implementing them results in the very objectives this site seeks to obtain, paradigm shifts that benefit both the individual and the organization.

Change agents by their nature have a message that they need to get out. Both to convince others of the need for change and to have them participate actively in that change. Other interesting bits from John Moore.

Espresso Shots of Business Wisdom

Tribal Knowledge

BizDev for the Non-Biz Too

If the concepts of partnerships, traffic exchanges, joint ventures and co-promotions live in a netherworld for businesses then it is be suspected that it does even more so for change organizations as well. If Non-governmental Organizations (aka change organizations) begin as I predict start take a more forward role in initiating change without the connection to governmental entities then they will need to learn not only the social aspects of working together but the legal and often times regulatory roles as well. More on Bizdev by Seth.

Seth's Blog: Business development. Found under Paradigm Pathways Business & Economic Development