Brand Autopsy

Blog, Blog, Blog, Blog, Blog

Okay … this is a blog about blogs and blogging. (Maybe a blog on frogs and flogging would get more trackbacks, but that’s another blog for another day.)

Douglas Rushkoff, writer, commentator, and all-around cultural clairvoyant, made some interesting comments in his smartly written blog about the Real Threat of Blogs.

"I believe that the most dangerous thing about blogs to the status quo is that so many of them exist for reasons other than to make money. A thriving community of people who are engaged for free, to me, have a certain authority that people doing things for money don't."

He goes on to write,

“… I believe the greatest power of the blog is not just its ability to distribute alternative information - a great power, indeed - but its power to demonstrate a mode of engagement that is not based on the profit principle.”

Be sure to read the 20+ comments from readers/bloggers as the arguments on blogs becoming a profit center (i.e. blogs with paid advertising) make for a great debate.

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Since we are on the topic of blogs and blogging, I can relate to this far more than I care to admit ..

From Hugh at gapingvoid.

Blog Bobbin’

Hugh, over at gapingvoid, riffs off The Cluetrain Manifesto with The Hughtrain Manifesto. I hope Hugh further explores his manifesto because he makes some chewy statements within the Hughtrain:

It’s all about smarter conversations. It doesn’t matter what the industry is.

It’s all about thriving in markets that are smarter and faster than you are. It’s all about being utterly f*cked if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

A brand is a place, not a thing.

The future of advertising is internal -- selling the company to the general public is a piece of cake compared to selling it to the actual people who work for it.

Great advertising has far more to do with how great your company is than which ad agency you hire.

A main tenant within the Hughtrain is the concept of kinetic interaction between customers and companies/brands. Or as Tom Asacker writes … it's about Customer Stimulation.

Recently, Seth Godin blogged about how the big and the small are colliding in business and confusing customers in the process. This big/small conversation reminds me of a poignant paradox:

The smaller you are, the bigger you must look.
The bigger you are, the smaller you must get.

Did you notice Laura Ries has started blogging? On her companion blog to the recently published book, The Origin of Brands, expect conversation about how divergence trumps convergence in the development of brands. For a primer on the “Origin of Brands,” read the PDF summary.

You’ve been Blogged!

Methinks I’m getting carried away with blogging.

Recently, in an email to a friend, I found myself replying in 100% BLOG-MODE. Somewhere innocently in the email was the question, “Is being visionary a good thing?” Like Pavlov’s blogging dog, I attacked the question with literary force and riffed back with a quick, logical, and well-reasoned answer.

It was a darn good blog. Problem was … it wasn’t supposed to be a blog, it was supposed to be a casual email conversation.

Unfortunately, my friend was bludgeoned by a blog. She was blogeoned! Fortunately, she suffered no serious injuries after being blogeoned except for a few minor scrapes and bruises.

(BLOGEONED ... take that Brand Examiner Paul … you term-coining idiom savant you!)

For the curious, below is my email reply turned blog on “Is being visionary a good thing?”

Being visionary is a double-edged sword. Sometimes you can be so visionary that others can't relate, understand, or even care. The Segway Human Transporter is a great example. Everyone will agree that the Segway is inventive and visionary. But this visionary "scooter" is so visionary that people can't relate to it, understand it, or even care about it. On the other hand, a simple visionary device like the iPod is an invention people can relate to, understand, and care about.

Whole Foods Market was/is visionary in the natural/organic foods arena. For many years, people outside of the core wellness audience couldn't relate, understand, or care about Whole Foods vision of changing the way the world eats by selling only natural and organic goods. But that has changed as more and more people can relate to, understand, and care about living a more authentic, tastier, and healthier life.

Now, Whole Foods is about to embark on another VISIONARY goal ... Animal Compassionate standards that go WAY BEYOND their currently high standards for how they require farmers and ranchers to raise their pigs, cattle, chickens, etc for human consumption. Fast Company's profile of WFM in their July issue touched upon this visionary animal compassionate goal. The double-edge sword for WFM is ... this visionary goal will come at a cost to consumers. The beef, chicken, pork sold under these animal compassionate standards will be HIGHER in retail cost. Will customers relate, understand, and care enough about this visionary goal to pay a higher price for their protein?

Many times people are too comfortable with their own box to think outside of it. That is the double-edge sword of being visionary.

Blog Club

Today a peer in my local American Marketing Association mentioned getting a good list of books to use as suggestions for the marketing book club.

I thought "what about a marketing blog club?" Instead of picking a book and reading it as a group, choose a few blog sites, read them and discuss as a group. (And if they wanted, they could still drink wine).

While books are great, their content becomes firm once it’s printed. But a blog site can address the same topics and continue to grow and evolve. What’s even better, you can interact with the authors of the site as well as other readers.

View the Brand Autopsy Blog Log on the ABOUT ME page of our site to see some of the blog sites we visit.

Executives ARE Blogging

While researching information for a future blog on “Why Companies Don’t Blog”, I came across a NY Times article on executives that do blog. (Yesterday I wrote about Why Executives Don't Blog.)

The article briefly mentioned that blogging can be a minefield because corporate execs may expose trade secrets and get caught up in disclosure rules.

But that hasn’t stopped these executives from blogging:

Alan Meckler, ceo JuniperMedia (technology research firm)

James Horton, senior director at Robert Martson & Associates (public relations agency)

Tim O’Reilly, president of O’Reilly & Associates (technology book production company)

Christopher Ireland, ceo of Cheskin (marketing consultant firm)

John Palfrey, executive director at Harvard Law School

Ray Ozzie, ceo Groove Networks (software company)
In this post, Ray offers blog guidelines for employees of his company who choose to identify themselves as an employee of Groove Networks. An interesting read.

Why Executives Don't Blog...

A blog I wrote for FC Now got pinged and I got intrigued and stumbled across the topic of "Why Don't Executives Blog?"

In a recent blog, Robert Scoble expressed his dismay that executives are not blogging. When he asks execs when they are going to start a blog the usual answer he recieves is that they're too busy.

Sure, lack of time is an issue, but maybe this could be solved by "audblogging" -- an idea proposed by Phil Wolff.

Besides the lack of time, I see the following as major reasons why execs don't blog:

1. UNAWARE. Most execs outside of high-tech are unaware of blogs.

2. HUGE RISK FACTOR. Due to the viral nature of blogs, any comment from an exec could spread so far/so wide/so fast and if that comment was contrary or damaging to their company, then they would have some explaining to do. The potential for bad PR would scare off most execs from blogging.

3. TEMPTATION TO OVER-SHARE. Execs are fearful that they may over-share proprietary and confidential company information and with the wide reach of the web… competitors could be reading.

4. DON'T APPRECIATE THE VALUE. Execs do not appreciate the value of blogging. They have not learned that by engaging in conversation with the blog community, that they might learn something new or might gain inspiration for news ideas and new solutions.

5. BEHAVIOR NOT BECOMING. I bet that many execs would prefer not to engage in blogging simply because they would perceive blogging to be for underlings and not for senior leadership types.

I would classify myself as an executive and in the very short time that I have been blogging, I have been amazed at how much more I am on my game and engaged at work. In my marketing role I do not interact with a lot thinkers. Instead, I interact with a lot of "doers". So, blogging is filling my void for creative inspiration and creative thinking.

Welcome to Brand Autopsy

Paul and I began the conversation as guest hosts for the Fast Company blog (FC Now) during the week of December 8th. We had so much fun that we decided to continue the conversation on our own blog.

Paul and I go back to 1997 when we were both field marketers for Starbucks Coffee. I was in Dallas and Paul was in New York City. Two years later, we were both recruited to infuse some field marketing perspective into the corporate Starbucks marketing department. At the beginning of this year I left Starbucks to be the national marketing director at Whole Foods Market and Paul transitioned into a new position at Starbucks, customer care manager - focusing on increasing customer satisfaction.

I’m a bit of a marketing goad and some might even say gadfly while Paul’s approach is focused on creative thinking and designing marketing strategies that deliver great customer experiences. So expect some lively and thought-provoking discussion on all things marketing from two marketers with extensive experience in managing lifestyle brands.

Now, our opinions are not necessarily those of Starbucks Coffee Company or Whole Foods Market. Our discussions will represent our own take and what we've learned and experienced through our marketing careers. Void where prohibited. Not valid with other offers. No cash value. No purchase necessary.

Let's get to blogging!