The Engaging Brand

Why the Internet is your idea...

and mine, and everyone else's!

When people talk about the Internet, they make is sound like something distinct, something at arms length. When I am delivering training sessions, people will ask how to approach THE internet, what is THE internet about, how is THE internet changing the business world...

But to me it isn't something distinct, something impersonal which is held in a cloud...the internet is an expression of ideas - and nothing is more personal than ideas! 

The web is yours, its mine, its everybody's back garden, shopping mall, university, town hall.....

When you see it as an extension of you, then I think 'what you do with the internet' becomes a lot easier....the difficult bit is not the technology, it is really understanding, really expressing who YOU really are....

If social media, if the web is not working for you.....then maybe, maybe you are referring to it as THE internet rather than a personal expression of your brand?

 

3 Tips to Ensure You NEVER Have to Change

I hate the word change with a passion, because change tells me that the company, the person, the brand...the whatever is not evolving.

Change programs are a testimony to poor leadership. Sure there will be times when things happen, maybe a change in legislation or a change in ownership etc...but none of these events should need change.

It is much better to evolve, it is much better to build into your brand a continuous, evolutionary process. (Check out Patrick Howie podcast for more on this idea) But how do you do this?

Here are 3 methods of keep moving forward

• Don't spend time in meetings looking back. Take 5 minutes to review the result and then the rest of the time asking how can we improve this, address this, maximise this? ( I am an accountant by trade - trust me value is not created historically!)
• Ensure a good mix of people in your team. A mix of action people who need structure and who need to know what you want them to do, and enhance this with people who like to explore, like to think. Thinking is not being lazy, it is NOT dreaming that is lazy!
• Spend 70% of your time thinking outwards. Of course you need time to think about about your internal workings but far too much time is spent looking inwards. Get people out and about, not just Executives. Send customer service groups out with £100 for a day to look in their locality for great customer service ideas.....send designers on trips to flower shows, art museums, architectural wonders...send production people to a Formula 1 team to see how to quicken processes etc

Most importantly, you must create the dream. People need to engage with the future. People need to be excited with what you are trying to achieve. People need to understand that this dream is personal....personal to you, personal to the customer, personal to them.

Why Google is not the real value....

I spend most of my day on the web, I love the web...but more and more I see people relying on Google for an answer. The web is fabulous, it is a network of knowledge and connection that we could have only dreamed of.....but the web is USELESS without human beings.

• I believe you must be human savvy before web savvy.

• I believe you need to concentrate on what to do with all this knowledge to make the web powerful...not just read it.

• I believe that the web should inspire, the web should plant seeds of ideas...then get off the web and allow your brain to bring those ideas to life. You need thinking time as well as googling time.

• I believe that value is not in the information, data or connection but in whether a human being can filter than knowledge to provide social value.

 

Google is brilliant but never underestimate it was human beings in the first place which invented the web, created Google....and continue to make all the data valuable.

Show 327 - innovation is a social process

Show 327 of The Engaging Brand leadership and marketing podcast is ready just for you. To subscribe or listen for free, you don't need to download anything and all explained at the end of the post.

With all the democratic surges around the world I invited Patrick Howie to join me,  Anna Farmery on The Engaging Brand podcast to talk about evolutionary thinking. 

Patrick  has written a fascinating new book THE EVOLUTION OF REVOLUTIONS and is creator of a new social prediction website, www.ABetterGuess.com, which calculates the probability that a specific individual can accurately predict a sequence of future events by answering a few questions.

Patrick has spent two decades studying the social process of innovation as an economist and I wanted to talk about

• How democracy is evolving through the revolutions in the Middle East
• Does innovation come from a tension between two ideas?
• Does democracy need a competitor to evolve?
• Are we making the most of democratisation?
• How evolution comes from one initial revolutionary idea which breeds other ideas.
• Is innovation a fusion of two ideas?
• How innovation is a social process
• Do you need a different way of thinking to make the revolutionary steps?
• What is chunking and how marketing can benefit from this idea?

Don't forget to subscribe to the show in iTunes or on the Blubrry site.

If you have feedback for me on the show or topics that you would like me to cover then e-mail me at anna@theengagingbrand.com or join me on twitter.

How you can listen to the Engaging Brand

1) You can listen on your PC now without downloading any software just click hear to listen to the latest marketing podcast

2) You can subscribe to the show via iTunes or

3) If you use a different podcatcher then you can subscribe using the following RSS Feed

What links cement, a boat and my destiny...?

Dad used to say to me...

"if you think like anybody, you will have the destiny of anybody. Thinking is what differentiates humans from machines, thinking of the customer differentiates you from the competition, thinking of others separates you from other colleagues"

One cement company in Qater could not decide where to build a factory as so many sites to serve...solution build it on a ship and make the factory mobile.

Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest, sometimes the best ideas don't need meetings  - just thinking time.

5 Pitfalls of Democratisation

Democratising seems to be a word which is used all over the web, yet often not within the internal structures of businesses. The more I see people 'democratising' the more I believe that a misunderstanding of its meaning is rife within leaders of the business world

• Democratising is not abdicating.
• Democratising is not opening up a little, hoping that people won't realise what you still keep to yourself.
• Democratising does not mean you have no role, it just means your role changes from the controller to the facilitator
• Democratising does not mean that everyone can cope with every piece of information. Filtering is not censoring, filtering is creating value
• Democratising does not mean less control, it means more engagement if done correctly

Show 326 - Ideas that mean business

Show 326 of The Engaging Brand leadership and marketing podcast is ready just for you. To subscribe or listen for free, you don't need to download anything and all explained at the end of the post.

Jack Nadel is one of those rare people who has retained the passion for business for over 65 years - that's right over 65 years!  Jack is now late into his 80's and has just written a book to share his business wisdom called Use what you have to get what you want. Now I hope that I am embracing the latest technology and sharing when I am almost 90! I invited him to join me,  Anna Farmery on The Engaging Brand podcast to talk about the wonderful business lessons and business anecdotes he tells in the book, it was a true honour and if you want to know more check out Ideas That Mean Business. We talk about

• How business is emotive and how you need to absorb business lessons in your 'gut'
• How you turn learning into action
• Idea - find a need and fill it
• How business concepts have changed -or not - over 70 years
• Idea of selling it before you can make the product
• Idea of NOT falling in love with your product
• How perceived value is what sells but real value is what repeats
• Idea - your decision will not change the course of history, lighten up!
• How your business life is not work but a learning experience
• How naivety can give you your entrepreneurial freedom

 

Don't forget to subscribe to the show in iTunes or on the Blubrry site.

If you have feedback for me on the show or topics that you would like me to cover then e-mail me at anna@theengagingbrand.com or join me on twitter.

How you can listen to the Engaging Brand

1) You can listen on your PC now without downloading any software just click hear to listen to the latest marketing podcast

2) You can subscribe to the show via iTunes or

3) If you use a different podcatcher then you can subscribe using the following RSS Feed

Be scary, be inspiring...or why bother!

Emotions are strange. Emotions can restrict us, yet emotions are what creates action.

A friend of mine often states how they would just love to have a 'normal' day, for me that seems strange.

My dad always taught me that if you are not scared or not inspired then you are just going through the motions. He also made me think that it can be a selfish act. Selfish because you are affecting the people around you.

Humans interact and if you are going through the motions at work (or in your personal life) then you are not inspiring or emoting for other people to feel.....You are a catalyst.

Its so true in social media, its so true in marketing. Often fear stops people from having a go on social media, but its from that fear that you will focus and create real value.....In this context I don't mean fear in terms of negative emotion, but a positive driver wanting ....not to be without it, or feeling that value may be lost if I don't buy into the brand.

Scary or inspiring ? If neither, ask why anyone will care?

Why its impossible to monetise obscurity

"It's very hard to monetise fame, but it's impossible to monetise obscurity." 

A quote from a BBC DRM article  Cory Doctorow: How free translates to business survival. It really struck me this quote because when I help businesses with social media, the idea of control is still an issue. 

They want immediate success, they want a 'viral hit' yet they want control of want people see, comment about and who indeed see their content.

The phrase for me is not about money, it is about awareness...its about putting your value out there and seeing whether what you call value...is what others see as value! If not then tweek, if not then listen and find out why.....

So there seems to be a decision to make for companies

Do you want to 'think' you are in control and not be talked about? Or

Do you want to be in control by being part of the conversation?

Don't compromise it, hybrid it!

When you succeed in finding a hybrid of competing ideas - that can be innovation

When you weaken two competing ideas you compromise.

Too often we compromise instead of taking that little extra step, those extra strides, that slightly extra risk....to create something....wow!

When we start to see past the present, when we start to see through the present solutions....then we can look towards a new concept, a hybrid bringing together the best of two worlds.

When we do that, we create value....

When we do that, people value you...