What's Your Connection Strategy?

Beyond brand and symbolic identity, you need to understand the technology that will be used to deliver your message and enable engagement with your stakeholders. The technology you choose creates structures that both enable and constrict future communication. Five years ago, we didn't think about gesture technology or a robust web browser on our phone. Five years from now, what will we have available? User experience and design elements will be challenged as we continue to move away from the standard keyboard, monitor, mouse framework.

Lying & Symbolic Identity

Hillary misspeaking...er, lying. about what happened in Bosnia 12 years ago may be her Howard Dean scream, the Quayle "potatoe" moment, Dukakis in an ill-fitting helmet riding in a tank, or a George Allen "macaca." One that reminds voters of what they might fear about the candidate and lets that dominate the media. Dean (crazy), Quayle (dumb), Dukakis (weak on military), and Allen (racist) become hard to shake when the candidate themeselves provide the ammo to "ground" a negative idenity. This nearly innoculates them from success as they reinforce a negative dramatic vision of their personae. Maybe Hillary can ask hubby Bubba how one should tell the truth. I did not have sexual relations with... Oh wait, he did.

Remember kids, you want a sane person on the other end of that red phone, not one that thinks she's under attack.



Take aways:
1. Meaning is co-created -- just because you say it doesn't make it so, your audience participates in the construction of a symbolic reality.
2. Today's technology and media cycles make it harder for you to try and recreate your image, especially when you leave behind such easy targets.


Gotta run, I'm under fire...head down, zig zag.

TED - Ideas Worth Spreading

I was recently turned onto TED by a coworker. TED stands for technology, entertainment, design. There's a lot of good, in depth content. In this nerd's opinion, Wow! What a great site. As a sampling, here's a video of Larry Lessig (Stanford prof and digital copyright authority). "TEDTalks" are also available via podcasts.

Yikes

Saw this on the 37 Signals blog. Crikey!! Cool, nightmare-inspiring, and all around sublime.

Spitzer Swallows…Hard

Happy St. Patrick’s Day and congratulations and best wishes to New York Governor David Patterson. Patterson takes over after a week of sordid and titillating news about Eliot Spitzer.

As the stories of Spitzer continue to come out, I wanted to highlight two symbolic identity elements involving the former gov and the now (in)famous Emperors’ Club.

First with Spitzer, he (and his political advisers) created a symbolic persona of one that fights crime and more specifically government corruption. This key element is now lost as he moved money around to hide the fact that he was spending thousands on prostitutes. His symbolic identity has imploded. All symbolic dramas have the seeds of their destruction sewn in there “genesis” story. When those items are no longer grounded in reality the vision collapses. Cheating one one’s spouse is not illegal, prostitution is. So, now the one wanting to stop corruption and crime, especially in government, becomes the criminal. From brand perspective, we need to be diligent about protecting and grounding an authentic persona with our constituents.

Now, a bit more lighthearted example with The Emperors’ Club. Part of the club’s appeal was to be highly educated, sophisticated women. Clearly, not the main value prop, but part of the identity. I liked seeing screen shots of the site (which has been disabled) with no apostrophe on the site design and what appears to be one of the product/services with a prison-yard tat on her hand. I suppose if you pay enough, you can stick the apostrophe anywhere you want.

(Hat tip to Andrew for the insight on the apostrophe.)

Take-aways:
Your symbolic identity already contains the seeds for its destruction.
When you can’t ground the vision, the vision declines (some more rapidly than others)

Social Not-Working

Last night I was at a MIMA event regarding branding in the “age of participation.” Interesting presentation by Rachel Marret of MRM Worldwide. Rachel talked about Mark Burnett (Survivor producer) saying that “9 – 5 is the new prime time” as more and more people use computers at work to update Facebook, go to spoiler sites, etc. Someone in the crowd (oh, the wisdom of crowds), referred to this phenomenon as social not-working. Good stuff.

Electric Kool Aid Reebok Test?

Reeboks that smell like Kool Aid? More at BrandWeek.

Pick your preferred glib comment:

1. I just hope the converse isn't true. (Pun intended)
2. I'm not drinking the Reebok Kool Aid
3. Where's my wallet?

Compact Disc (1982 – 2007)

R.I.P. Compact Disc. From today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Once praised for its clear, crisp audio quality but panned for its susceptibility to scratches and smudges, the compact disc passed away in 2007 after a quick but painful illness. It was 25 years old.

You can read the entire obit here.

I’m guessing that the AP has the obit for appointment television already prepared.

(Thanks to Bret for the article.)