Right Brain resurgent

So where are the posts, David? Yes friends, I’ve been a little delinquent in my writing, but inspired today by a post written by the awesome Fabeku, I decided to just show up.

Now I don’t want you to think I’ve been idle in my absence. I’ve actually been putting out a fair amount of content, but it has been of a more whimsical and decidedly visual bent. I’ve been a doodling fiend. If you’re interested you can check out the magic marker output (along with the occasional picture shot on the go from my phone) by visiting my posterous at http://davidscohen.posterous.com.

I’ve been enjoying this resurgence of my creativity, and frankly a little nervous about ramping up the degree to which I show the world my soft and silly side, but the fact is I preach authenticity in branding, and by gum I mean to practice it as well. (and how often do you get to say “by gum”?) I expect that the current flood of doodle inspiration will abate a bit over time, but it has been bottled up for a while and it feels good to let the drawings flow and not get too judgmental about them. I’ve picked some fairly humble materials to work with too: basically I’ve been drawing on 4″ x 6″ blank index cards and mostly using Sharpies, pens and highlighters. Sometimes I’ll use nicer art markers too – the highlighter palette is a bit limited. I keep it all on the desk so I can take my doodle breaks, scan them and tweet them to the world. So far, the world hasn’t complained, and I’m grateful for that.

I’m also cooking up a new website for Equation Arts. It’s not quite done yet, but I think it will be a better expression of who I am. Here’s a hint of things to come:
There will also be a lot of the color orange ( I love orange), and some crossover doodles will make their appearance there as well.

I hope that people who connect with me know that I’m a big believer that we all have something special to offer the world and each other, but sometimes we find ourselves framed in the wrong context – that “something special” ends up hidden, muffled, suppressed – unable to shine. So the new website is for me a shift in context toward something more authentic. I hope you’ll stick with me through the transition. Thanks! And remember…

Getting down to fundamentals – making Brand Therapy more accessible

In the last couple of years I’ve found myself steering more of my time, attention and business towards something I’m very passionate about: that is helping people to get a handle on the things that they have to offer that are truly different, special and valuable, and then helping them to connect with a community, a market, an audience that values the very difference they bring. Then we work on how to tell the story so that those who value what you have to offer don’t miss you or overlook you because you haven’t made that story prominent or clear enough. I want everybody to have the opportunity to do more of the work that they are excited about – the work that stirs up their energy, that taps their skills and brings out their best. That also means I’d like to liberate them from having too much of their time filled with the work that they are just adequate at – the stuff you say yes to because you need to pay your bills or because you’re too polite to say no, but it’s not the stuff that gets you jazzed, the stuff that taps into your particular flavor of awesome.

I think that words can help people steer their vehicle away from the merely adequate (or worse yet, the suppressed and oppressed) and get on a course toward the awesome. But the words don’t just drop out of the air. It takes introspection, it takes reflection, it takes a search for patterns, habits, values and often a process of giving yourself permission to change. In my personal branding practice I help people through all of that, and then I capture the words that become the identifier, the entry point to make brand connections. It’s an intensive process, in fact that’s where the term brand therapy came from – I didn’t make that one up, it was one of my clients who said it first, but I loved it – it stuck. And you know what? I LOVE MY JOB! But I can’t work with everybody. There isn’t enough time, and I realize that unlike a big corporation, individuals be they business people, freelancers, artists, entertainers, coaches, consultants, or folks in career transition, aren’t all going to be in a position to enlist the one-on-one attention of their own personal brand therapist.

I’ve decided that this year I want to develop some offerings that are more accessible – entry points, if you will, that will allow more people than I could reach one-on-one to explore the concepts behind branding and learn how they can apply them to their own goals, businesses, and talents. I’ve got a few things in production that I will be releasing over the course of the year, but the first offering is a teleseminar: Personal Branding Fundamentals: Be a Beacon. In this three session class I will explore the fundamentals of personal branding, go over why and how the Internet has changed your opportunities and some of the risks of sitting on the fence, and then we will dive into the Beacon Principles to give you a foundation for effectively restating your personal brand. If you’ve been struggling with how to tell your story, if you know you’ve got something great to offer the world, but aren’t getting recognized for the value you could bring, then I hope you will consider beginning the process of exploring your foundation and clarifying your message. You can’t just aspire to reach your dreams. You’re going to have to perspire too.

And remember, when you shine you make it easier for all those around you to shine too.

I4U Newsletter Ends – Sign of Things to Come or a Last Gasp?

Like many of you out there, I have a bit of technolust. I like gadgets. I own a modest collection of tech gear, and I have a drawer full of retired power cords and adapters, but more to the point, I like to be in the know about the new stuff. The gizmos and thingamajigs that push the envelope or hint at cool features that might just become mainstream. Of course most don’t, but that is part of what makes it interesting. So for these reasons one of the few newsletter that I used to look forward to appearing in my email inbox was the eye-jolting green missive put together by Luigi Lugmayr & company over at I4U. It was a newsletter that did a great job of sticking to their mission – they brought you the new stuff. It felt more informative than sales-y. Like I might actually have the jump on other nerdy friends when it came to discussion of cool new laptops or innovative portable electronics. Well imagine my surprise when instead of their usual array of thumbnails of interesting gadgets I received this note:

Hello I4U News Readers,

This is our last weekly I4U Newsletter. We feel that email newsletters have had there time and are not the preferred way anymore to receive our news.
Thank you for being a subscriber and I hope you will continue to read I4U News for you daily technology news and shopping tips.

Please consider to follow us on Twitter and subscribing to our RSS feed.

I mean what’s going on here? The company is continuing on, but the newsletter is going away? Is this a sign of new marketing truths from a progressive company that has always had it’s eye on the future? Or is this a last gasp of a failed campaign? Perhaps they got the reach, but couldn’t convert the readers, or maybe the readers simply stopped opening it because we’re all so flooded these days with a zillion more newsletters than ever before.

So why do I care, and why should you? It’s not because I thought that this newsletter was cool – that’s too subjective. It’s the mystery that gets me. It doesn’t cost much to put out an e-newsletter, especially if you’re already aggregating the content for other purposes, which is exactly what I4U does. So it’s cheap to produce, and VERY measurable. That’s something we like in the marketing department. That’s why there is such a glut of newsletters heading your way everyday. We get to measure what happens: we know what gets opened, we know if you click, and if we’ve planned our landing pages right we know if that click led to a conversion. These things make a marketer get up early in the morning with a big smile, because what you measure you can tune.

But I4U is throwing in the towel on its newsletter contender. How low does the threshold of response have to dip to make the superior measurement ability not worth the effort? Have they found equal or better measurement through Twitter and RSS? I want to know and unless you’ve got unlimited time and resources for your marketing department, you should want to know too.

Superheroes, a call to arms.

“Superman didn’t become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red ‘S’? That’s the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. THOSE are his clothes. What Kent wears – the glasses, the business suit – that’s the costume.” ~Quentin Tarantino

I love that because I believe that we all have something authentic to offer, something that makes us special, something that can make us a beacon to others if we would just let that light shine for all to see. However we don’t always trust that talent, that passion, that superpower – we hide it behind a job title, we bury it underneath professional conformity. We’re taught to fit in, not stand out, but branding is about standing out.  Branding requires the risk of being noticed, especially when it comes to personal branding. If you’re not noticed then your brand never has that seed from which to grow. You may be awesome, heck I’ll even go out on a not-so-skinny limb and say that you are awesome, but if we don’t know you and don’t know you for your awesomeness, well then we can’t help you and sadly we’re not going to give you the opportunity to help us.

My ambition, my purpose, my superpower if you will, is to help others to identify their difference, to give their powers a name – to accept the mantle of their inner superhero. Yes, I’ve got a soft spot for the mavericks who were born on Krypton, but there are plenty of Earth-born humans who are mutating, who took the super-soldier serum, who’ve been
bitten by radioactive spiders and feel that light burning inside. I see them all around me. I meet them every day, but they haven’t all yet come to recognize their powers or to trust them.

Kryptonite! Poisonous vapor of doubt. Kryptonite! Energy-sapping force of the dont-make wave (believed to emanate from meteorites made during the explosion of planet Me-Too). Admit it, it’s not easy to give yourself permission to stop being a face in the crowd. The life of a superhero can be super-risky, even super-embarrassing.

Have you ever worn a cape? It’s a tough look to pull off. Even Clark Kent can’t work that look because it clashes with the briefcase – it is not part of the costume, but when you dare to shrug off the Clark Kent disguise and reveal your authentic super self that’s when the cape fits – it’s not a costume it is a part of who your are. That’s when you’ll pick the color of that cape, stock your utility belt, build your secret lair… and name your powers.

“Look! Up in the sky… It’s a bird… It’s a plane… It’s you!”  Super.

Kitten up a tree – a guest perspective

My good friend David Bailey shared the following with me.  He begged me to edit it, but I liked it in its raw form:

“Human problems, top and bottom:

Top: call it the ‘kitten syndrome’.

People who find themselves with no path down from where they’ve gotten themselves in life. Even the soft ground below looks like a fatal drop, so they climb higher and higher and the problem gets worse. How to find yourself where you need to be without breaking your neck?

Bottom:

Maybe it’s the tree itself – the tree syndrome.

Your job is to be a tree. That’s pretty daunting, since you’re a seed.

1) What do I need at this stage?

What do I need at this stage? Water is your limiting nutrient. If you don’t soften that outer core and fill yourself with a medium for reactions to take place, you’re going nowhere. So you need water now, but what you need will change.

2) Oh, crap, where did I end up? Which direction now?

There’s no light here. Fortunately in this story, you’re not just one seed, but several.

Repeat.

1) Good. Got water.

2) Got light. Lucky.

Repeat.

1) Need soft soil for roots.

2) Okay, reach down a little to the left.

Repeat.”

live blogging at Ga Technology Summit pt3 – Ron Clark

Still doing the live blog thing at the GTS.  Next up Ron Clark (RC) – if it is like the last time I saw him I might be laughing too much to blog well, so bear with me.

Showing a classroom video.  The energy is impressive.  The podium doesn’t look big enough for RC to stand on, I wonder if he’ll try?

RC – getting kids to love learning – Origin: from North Carolina, taught to use things that were different, was teacher of the year, saw a program on schools in Harlem, and picked up and moved there to find the schools from the TV show.  Telling story of meeting an upset 13 yr old kid, convinced him to try.  1999 got job at that school.  Had kids that were all below grade level – every one of those kids have now graduated high school and most are in college.   Got them technology .   They tested ahead of their class by the end of a year.   Caught the attention of Oprah Winfrey.   Feels that “No Child Left Behind” as turned our approach upside down, we’re teaching to the bottom, and pulling the brightest down, instead of teaching to the top and getting them to raise up the rest.  Doesn’t want to leave anybody behind, but wants to keep the bar high, and keep raising it.   Wrote a song to pop star Rheanna’s music to teach order of operations to his class to learn algebra.  All his students have Zunes with lesson loaded on them – they all have  laptops from Dell.   Got huge growth in testing scores.

RC – 55 rules for setting clear expectations from students – manners, respect, structure — blending respect structure and innovative approaches.  Oprah told him to write a book so he listened,  he wrote it – she made it a book pick – and it sold!  Went to number 2 in nation on that announcement went #1 around the world.  Used funding to start the school here in Atlanta.  Teaching kids here and teaching teachers his approach.   Found a warehouse in run-down part of town, surrounded by crack houses, and prostitution.  Fought for that building because he felt it in his heart.  19 break-ins during construction – lots of theft of copper pipe.  Need to get the community involved – went to every house over 4 months and told everyone what he was doing – he was often scared. Often asked if he was Mormon.   Told people he was building the most innovative school in the world – got the community behind him – no more break-ins.   Ran out of money – got sponsors from the community, Veizon, Delta, Intercontinental Hotels.  Students can text message him live during class for nstant feedback.  Using Active Expressions, Dell sponsors laptops, got Definition 6 helping them to figure out what to do with all that technology.

RC – building world leaders -school of tomorrow. 3000 superintendants, teachers, principals from around the country visiting to observe and learn tools and techniques.   Congressmen and world leaders visiting to learn too.  Students are webcasting with kids around the world – traveling with the kids to make in-person connections – Delta is sponsoring travel.  Going around the world on spring field trips. Live video conferencing – virtual reality version of school.

RC – students take a test by running a gauntlet.  Made an online gauntlet so other schools can use the concept .

RC – non-profit – need donations – offering tours and visits. Warning every visitor has to go down the 2-story slide in the middle of the school and get “Slide – certified” – the slide is a symbol for how innovative they want to be. The model for innovation in education.

One down – many to go

Well it was a great morning – we had a full house for the kick-off meeting of TAG‘s newest society, Enterprise 2.0.  Our society chair and vision leader, Sherry Heyl, did a great job acting as emcee and blog-journalist.  Check out her blow-by-blow report written live during the event.  And our featured speaker, Puneet Gupta, CEO of Connectbeam, gave a great summary and product demonstration, which I think helped to open our audience’s eyes to the advantages of well-managed social bookmarking in a corporate context.

The point I keep coming back to when it comes to Enterprise 2.0 is the idea that the trend toward adoption of social computing tools is already widespread – the people in your corporation are already using these tools and operating on different paradigms of communication.  The younger the employee the more likely they are to be “infected” with a web 2.0/social media mindset.  These are the people being hired by companies big and small every day.  Whether you choose to put an Enterprise 2.0 strategy in place for your organization, there is already a strong contingent of users who know from direct experience that there are other choices for communication and collaboration than those that may be already blessed by your IT department.  Progressive companies will recognize this and do what is necessary to keep apace of this wave of innovation and cultural change.  They’ll do it because they know that the young upstarts – the ones with no baggage are already there – and they are moving nimbly forward, unfettered by old-school command and control driven approaches.  The people know the tools, and like ‘em and knowing the taste of transparent collaboration it is hard to go back to restricted access and cumbersome methods.  Today policies of restriction and banned IP addresses may be met with grumbling compliance – tomorrow the response might be rebellion and defection.

The Connectbeam offering was a great focal point for our first session because the concept of bookmarking is so well understood by virtually anyone who has used a browser in the last decade or so.  Shared bookmarking doesn’t require learning new and complicated skills, but through relevance algorithms and intelligent use of meta-data the social bookmarker gains advantages over the older tool.   Data becomes more meaningful and portable.  Communities of shared interest grow organically from the clustering of bookmarks and knowledge centers are exposed throughout the organization.  Now who wouldn’t want that power working for their corporation?

Social Media is Already Inside Your Organization…

….you just might not know it. Sherry Heyl writes an insightful post, Social Media Affects Every Department Within Your Organization, which points to the ever-broadening reach of social media and its power as a resource for all disciplines within the modern corporation. I think this is an important observation, but the post also implies an issue that I think should be stated overtly: the social media contagion has already infiltrated your organization. Chances are, even in the most buttoned-down and security conscious corporate culture, that social media is gaining a foothold. Why? Because the vector for this infection is people. People recognizing the power of communication on their own terms, people increasingly aligning themselves to transparency and authenticity in their choice of community. People like the Generation Ys/Millennials who have made distributed communication their natural mode of interaction. You can try to shutdown the blogs, vlogs and podcasts, you can ban the IP addresses of every wiki, but you can’t change the fact that every day the people you hire, the people who are already in your organization, are becoming acclimated to a new set of communication tools and are hitting the reset button on their cultural expectations for integrity, immediacy and empowerment. I think the call for smart companies is to embrace this new connected, community-oriented, and empowered corporate citizen and do what is necessary to learn from the best of their skills, to nurture environments that will attract and retain the top talents, the most effective distributed thinkers. The challenge will be to adjust the top-down management styles and to educate this new employee on the ethics of corporate communication in a world where information is permanent.

mmmm Melty

Anyone who uses a grilled cheese sandwich as a metaphor is OK in my book.  Ed Van Herik does just that in his recent post entitled “Who Melted my Cheese?”  Ed gives us a nice reminder that social media web 2.0 is not really , about predictable algorithms, but about reinserting the the mutable (and powerful) human element.  No tool can substitute for having something interesting to say, nor can any program yet effectively substitute for the very human mission of building a community.  It is our idiosyncrasies and adaptability that are our best assets in this changing media landscape. We must put them to practice however, to sharpen our skills, yes, but also to nurture our own social web (social safety net?).  Much as I love a melty cheese sandwich, I like the metaphor of a garden:  you can’t expect to plant a single seed and grow a prize-winning bloom.  Nor can you control the weather.  What you can do is tend to your little patch of land, nurture it, plant seeds, feed it, weed it, and encourage a little cross-pollination.  Because it is a process not of automation, but of attention that will be resilient and adaptable as the seasons (and the fads) change.