Category: branding
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Branding Your Federal Agency
“I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” It’s an old joke that belies a common frustration among Federal communicators: We are indeed passionate about serving the public, and though our work is far from perfect, negative stereotypes about government agencies, as well as Federal employees, are commonplace. Worse yet, it sometimes seems that…
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Help The Organization Make A Rational Decision
In the era of “fake news,” people are prone to make decisions according to mob consciousness. Those who succeed in such an environment pull themselves away from the emotional craze of the moment using what Chris Argyris called “double-loop learning,” questioning their own assumptions even as they consider the topic at hand. Core Group Theory: The fundamental…
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Becoming Brand-Driven: A Cure For What Ails You
The key difference between the terms “brand management” and “management” is the term “brand.” Here, we use it to refer to the intangible value added by the customer’s feelings toward the organization–a combination of awareness, trust, loyalty and positive identification. While visual and verbal symbols matter (the logo and the tagline), they are only a limited expression of…
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Notes & Planned Talking Points – GovExec #CXSummit, Nov. 2, 2017
Background Yesterday, November 2, 2017 I participated in an event called “The Customer Experience Summit: Building Trust In Government,” on a panel about branding and trust, in a personal capacity. The discussion was sponsored by GovExec.com in Washington, D.C. and included Chuck Young, Managing Director of Public Affairs at GAO, and Jeremy Zilar, Director of…
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The Audience Was Not Happy
What is not measured is not managed.I attended a training session a couple of days ago that was sponsored by another office at work.The subject matter was the Baldridge method of quality control and how we apply it to our organization. This topic and all related topics is incredibly interesting to me. It should be…
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How Project Management Affects Your Brand
Agile or waterfall or MS Project or Excel, or even a plain old Sharpie used to scrawl out notes on a random set of Post-Its, you somehow have to manage your work. And most of what we do in our daily lives, if we are in a professional setting, involves a series of projects. Project…
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The Truth Has A Way Of Not Going Away
Traditionally the way I get hired for jobs is that people want to somehow game the system through branding. They think I know something magical, because I’ve studied it, and they want to “push” some sort of message. The first thing to know is that I haven’t served as a brand manager, ever in my…
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Branding & The Office Of Enterprise Risk
Branding and reputation are integrally related. The one is built on the other. And when your organization operates in an “at risk” way for an extended period of time, you can be sure that both will falter. How can you prevent such a crisis from occurring? Thinking from a branding point of view, you want…
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Branding is for Bubblebrains
Have you heard about this new term of art in branding? “Brandcuffs.” It sounds like some sort of adult toy. I had to look this up. Turns out that “brandcuffs” are a restrictive style guide, so strict they don’t allow any wiggle room when it comes to conveying the brand. The point of course is…
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brand transparency (2002) by Chris Macrae: open source, full text [recovered]
For many years I was despondent that this text, posted more than a decade ago by me on Chris’ behalf for public consumption, had apparently been lost. It originally appeared at the (now-defunct) Institute For Brand Leadership website, where I served as director from 2001–2003. Fortunately, I found it on the Internet Wayback Machine. All…
Management Excellence 