Happy Halloween!

It’s amazing what you can do with a couple of cardboard boxe, a sharpie, a box cutter, and just a couple of feet of packing tape. Happy Halloween, everyone! Photo: Ian Curcio, courtesy of Link Magazine.Knight: Sir Ben SchoweCostume Design: Helm and helm styling: F360 Photo+Design. Sword and shield: Ben Schowe

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20 Questions: Is your WOMM campaign ethical?

If you have been reading the BrandBuilder blog for any amount of time, you know that I am a big fan of word-of-mouth (WOM) initiatives when it comes to helping a product or brand flourish. (Who are you more likely to believe when it comes to making a purchasing decision: An advertisement, or a recommendation [...]

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Either commit or stay home.

Commit. Give it everything. Your project. Your job. Your relationship. Your race. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well… and if it’s worth doing well, it’s worth doing exceptionally well. Yeah, it might hurt and it might require a certain measure of sacrifice. Time. Pride. Fun. Sweat. Sleep. But that’s a choice you make. [...]

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Crayon Launches Today

Joseph Jaffe. Neville Hobson. Shel Holtz. CC Chapman. Need I say more? If you haven’t heard about this yet, go here and find out what’s up. This could be the start of something very cool.

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Seth Godin’s five Common Cliches of Marketing

I found this on Seth Godin’s blog today and couldn’t resist putting it in front of a few hundred more pairs of eyes: Five Common Cliches (done wrong): The early adapters will use it.Actually, they’re adopters, not adapters. The mistake in wording represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how most markets work. People don’t adapt to [...]

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Get muddy – Get wise: The ten rules of teamwork.

Being involved in endurance sports teaches you a lot about human behavior. For one, you tend to learn a lot about yourself, especially at mile 22 of a Marathon, or ten hours into an Ironman triathlon, or when the wind chill hits the single digits, it’s three in the morning, you haven’t slept in thirty-two [...]

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Advertising & Expectations

I’ve been a film fanatic ever since my parents took me to see the first Star Wars movie (now known simply as Episode IV). Since I’ve also been a big advertising fan since… well, since I was old enough to watch TV, it stands to reason that movie trailers (the advertising of movies) kind of [...]

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A management lesson from the Navy SEALs.

I was watching a TV show on SEAL/BUDS training this weekend, and caught a fantastic little lesson in management and leadership from one of the demolition instructors who berrated his students when their ordinance detonated several minutes ahead of schedule. What the trainees did wrong was simple: They didn’t do what they were asked to [...]

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Great moments in email marketing – Part #692: "Grand Message. You should to read."

I found this brown paper bag of marketing genius in my mailbox’s bulk/junk bin today (yes, sometimes, I like to read spam just for kicks,) and thought I should share it with you. Before I introduce you to it, I am going to go out on a limb here… and say that this may very [...]

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Away from my desk…

Sorry if the posting has been light these past few days. I’ve been crazy-busy with a few projects and shooting outstanding photos of the Greenville Cycling Classic races this weekend. Postings should resume in a day or two. Thanks for your patience. photo copyright 2006 olivier blanchard/f360 photo+design

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The case for design thinking (as if it still needed to be made)

“One thing I’d like to make clear is that I’m not anti-MBA. Far from it. I value my management education a great deal, and believe that an MBA provides individuals with very useful set of analytical tools, as well as the ability to thin-slice most business situations. However, I do think that the typical MBA [...]

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Let the voting begin!!!

Okay, here’s your mission for today: 1) Go here. No wait!!! Not yet. Hold on. 2) When you get there, read all of the posts that are up for the “Post of the month” award. 3) Vote for your favorite. (Just make sure it’s “Playing It Safe – Part 2.”) Okay, now go here and [...]

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People (not robots) build great brands.

Kathy Sierra strikes (and scores) again with this post on many companies’ dysfunctional hiring and employee management habits. The above illustration (ripped from her post) pretty much say it all, but here’s more: In an earlier post I said, “If you asked the head of a company which employee they’d prefer: the perfect team player [...]

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Death By Innovation?

Informative little piece at Brand Central Station last week on innovation. According to Mike Bawden (BCS), more than 80% of the companies surveyed by Brand Central Station said their businesses were more innovative than they were just one year ago. I’ll just be lazy and pull a little cut & paste again: “It’s the key [...]

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Involve, Empower, and Demonstrate – Nikon shoots and scores.

I’m a Canon shooter, but I have to confess that Nikon just scored some style points with me. Basically, what Nikon did was this: 1) They selected some regular photographers whose photos they found on Flickr. 2) They sent them D80 cameras to play with. 3) They are using some of the photos in their [...]

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Marissa Meyer’s 9 Notions of Innovation redux

Business Week Online recently published Marissa Meyer’s 9 Notions of Innovation, which is a cool little slideshow depicting some of Google’s guidelines when it comes to… well, fostering innovation within their organization. Each little image is followed by the notion, and a quick one-line commentary. In some cases, I have added my two cents (in [...]

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Learning to fight for design and innovation.

“The thing that’s most to be feared is doing the same thing over and over again.” – Paula ScherI read that in my latest issue of Fast Company today (yes, I’m only now getting to it.) Here’s more great stuff from Linda Tischler’s FC article: “Most organizations rely on a system of checks and balances [...]

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Embracing Obstacles

Sometimes, even the best laid plans just go awry. Call them cliche, but those sayings about finding the silver lining and making lemonade when life hands you lemons, they aren’t just hot air. When I was in the French Navy Marines, the unspoken motto, the underlying mission imperative was always “make it work.” The intelligence [...]

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