In the world of business it’s easy to stick to the ‘hard’ areas, the places we understand and seem to easily control, like balance sheets, flow charts, and job descriptions, yet we end up ignoring the ‘soft’ stuff like relationships, values, and emotions. Like Joe Friday in the hit show, Dragnet we only want the facts Ma’m. I’m not going to do is overreact and say “those hard areas don’t matter at all” – they do. Read the rest of this entry »
My driving routine has shifted somewhat as I find myself increasingly more captivated by talk radio as opposed to music. Specifically, I’ve taken an interest in an outspoken independent political channel on Sirius called IndieTalk. Woven into each of the shows is a rather progressive segment entitled “Blog Updates” which consist of intriging headlines that have been assembled from the top political blogs around the world. Read the rest of this entry »
The web-based proliferation of the buzz-phrase that is “Personal Branding” goes far beyond the HuhCorp-ish hilarity of just another “eCliche,” and in my opinion steps well into the realms of life, business, and the expression of your professional self.
Before Nectar was even a twinkle in its fathers’ eyes, I was sitting in a meeting at my previous job, listening to them discuss the barriers that face people who really want to express themselves on the internet, but lack the technical skills to make it happen. And I briefly thought to myself, “Whoever figures out how to close that gap is going to rule the internet.” Read the rest of this entry »
A common question among those new to the idea of branding is “where did all this branding stuff come from? I feel like people are speaking a language I don’t understand.” The reality is that you probably know the origins of branding but may not have made the connection between that and all the corporate lingo presently used.
Our friend, Chris Brogan has compiled some of his best thoughts on the topic of personal branding and created a free 15-page eBook available for download. Definitely a good read. You can download the file directly from Chris’ site.
If you don’t know Chris, he writes a wildly successful blog focused on the use of social media and often writes specifically about personal branding on the web.
The concept of corporate branding has transitioned from a buzzword in the nineties to the accepted practice of thinking in business today. For those unfamiliar with the term, a corporate brand is a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to a company. So everything from a company’s logo design to the the interaction of it’s sales people with the public, contributes positively or negatively to a brand image. Certain companies are legendary for building and leveraging strong corporate brands. Perhaps the most popular in American culture is Nike, with their “swoosh” logo , tagline of “just do it”, and an army of celebrity athletes endorsing their brand promise. Others that have built iconic brands are companies like Starbucks, Apple, and McDonalds.