After attending Brand ManageCamp  last year, I suggested in my blog that companies should not only prepare employees to deliver great branded customer experiences, but also make it easy for customers to embrace experiences.  
 
This point has generated some interesting discussion, and so, as I’m preparing to attend Brand ManageCamp 2010 (Las Vegas, September 21-22), I decided to share here some perspectives on how you can get the most value and fun out of this -or any- conference visit, and even create great experiences for the other attendees.
 
Like being a great employee at work, the key is deciding to be intellectually and emotionally engaged in the experience.  This means committing yourself to actively (not passively) creating value for yourself and others, and then directly involving yourself in the experience.
 
Yes, it means some work, and maybe stepping outside your comfort zone, but you will get more out of the experience than you ever expected.  I promise, and here’s why:
 
In the past, I was the guy who used to listen passively for ideas and regularly run off to read and write emails or focus on other stuff back at the office.  Yes, I heard great ideas, but I was missing out on what was all around me.  I didn’t let it become the rich experience it was waiting to become.  I would leave conferences with some cushy ideas, with having barely spoken to anyone and not consciously planning to make changes back at the office.  My bad.
 
Today, I actively engage myself in the experiences.  In advance, I commit myself to preparing.  I think about what I’d say if I were on stage presenting that day, and I think about what I want to learn and apply back at the office.  Now I’m ready to speak easily about ideas I care about, and I have a context to apply the new things I learn back at work.  When you share your ideas with others, you now have a platform for fresh feedback that you didn’t have before.  When smart and varied people are all around you, don’t waste the opportunity to chat.
 
At the conference, I get involved in the presentations by asking questions during and after.  I introduce myself to others and share what I’ve learned.  I do my part to keep discussions moving.  After all, this is not a webinar.  In the age of virtual interaction, personal connections become all the more special.  
 
I learn something from every conversation, especially the folks who might look or talk a little crazy.  It’s the viewpoints that challenge our own that lead to new thinking.  And you know what?  It’s fun! Let down your guard and talk to others like they were your best friend from college; you may be surprised at how well it goes.  Sometimes, we just need a little nudge…
 
When I was a green 18, I had an eccentric American History professor that would stretch our brains with conspiracy theories and fling his head violently to the side as he would cough to punctuate his points.  Rather than passively listening, we were forced to speculate and draw new connections between events that may or may not have been real, and we’d leave his class too frustrated and exhausted to even kick around the hacky sack.  
 
One day, after sensing our frustration, that professor said something in a grave, yet kindly tone that made me take notice:  “True learning only occurs when you immerse yourself and swim so deeply in the content that you come up gasping for air.”  I didn’t quite get it then, but it stuck, and I learned with time that the more deeply you make yourself accountable for applying and sharing information, the more “a-ha!” moments you’ll have.  Nearly 20 years later, I remember parts of that class quite vividly.
 
Back in the present, Brand ManageCamp 2010 is only two weeks away, and you’ve got your own fresh thinking to share.  In addition to being a customer looking forward to be inspired, energized, and exposed to new ideas, you can also be the star of the show for everyone you meet.  Be prepared to interact and share, just like the professional luminaries you’ll see on stage.
 
Get the most value out your experience and take back real change to your role at work.  Expect to be tired, but a good tired. Don’t worry; the spark in the conversations will energize you and keep you going.  The happenings at the office can wait until you return. You’re set to do some work, have some memorable fun, and you’ll have some tangible results. 

PLAN AHEAD: A PRE-CONFERENCE CHECKLIST

 
·    First, make a real 6-page ppt presentation on your current big challenge at work, with one page for each item below.  On each page, include a symbolic image or story.  Make it pretty.  You should be able to cover each page in less than two minutes.  You are now ready to verbally share your ideas and collect the right insights you need to address your real-world challenge.

   o Presentation title and brief bio page
   o The nature of the challenge and the business need
   o Background facts and competitor actions
   o The desired end state
   o A timeline and action items to achieve the end state, noting dilemmas and lessons learned
   o A list of ideas or inspiration areas you need to address your dilemmas

·    Watch the videos and read the captions and bios for each speaker on the Brand ManageCamp website.  Pick three speakers you’d most like to get feedback from to help you address pages 5 and 6, and plan what you will ask them. Also plan to share some idea that you think might be useful to each of them.

·    Scan Las Vegas websites for restaurants and attractions that you think exemplify interesting branding practices and be ready to invite others to attend and discuss these locations.

·    Read “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” by Hunter Thompson, not watch the movie.  Hunter is (was) the father of “gonzo journalism,” where the actual (often overlooked) point is to no longer passively observe and dispassionately report the story, but intentionally get actively and emotionally involved in the story and present a viewpoint you are passionate about.  I propose that this is the way we all should approach learning and applying it at work.

 
AT THE CONFERENCE
 
·    Get to the event early each day and introduce yourself to the other early birds, based on the most relevant parts of your bio (page 1).  Talk about your ideas and challenges from your presentation (pages 2-4). Talk to others like old friends.  Quote movies.  Tell jokes. Step outside your comfort zone.  It will be great.  Do the same at receptions.

·    Attend every presentation and ask at least one question each day.

·    For each presentation, find at least one idea that could be applied to the presentation you created.

·    Approach at least three speakers with ideas and questions you already created for them.

·    Attend every meal and sit with a different group each time.  Introduce yourself to everyone at the table and personally stir up conversation about the speakers and topics that most interest you.  Really listen to others and give them ideas.

·    Take advantage of dinner sign-ups or invite others to dinner and walkabouts. Talk about the examples of branding that surround you.

·    Don’t do anything alone except use the restroom, and turn off email, chat, and other distractions.  If someone calls you, say “Not now chief, I’m in the zone” and hang up.  It can wait.  You’re on a mission, and they will surely call you back and ask what you’ve been up to.

·    Sleep no more than 6 hours per night, and don’t waste a minute on something you can do back at the office.

 
AFTER THE CONFERENCE
 
·    Take all your best new ideas and try to find common threads or ways of combining multiple ideas into single actions.

·    Share your best ideas on your blog and send them to people you want to make connections with.

·    Incorporate your best ideas into your presentation, and present it internally. You’ve just demonstrated the ROI of attending a conference:  real insights relevant to your challenges, planning next steps, and taking action.  


Get your ideas together, listen and think carefully, and most of all, have fun talking with others.  I look forward to meeting you and energizing each other in Las Vegas!

-Ed Zuber

www.humanbrandsources.com

Inspiring Brand Advocates

By Ed Zuber 



I first visited St. Paul, Minnesota in the fall of 2009.  The weather was warm and pleasant, and I happily explored the streets and shops in my free time.  By the time I’d left, I’d formed some pretty solid opinions about what it might be like to live in St. Paul. 

When I returned to Minneapolis’ twin this winter, something quite unexpected happened.  As I stepped confidently from the doors of the airport terminal, taking a deep breath of the fresh, sunlit Minnesota air, something hit me in the chest.  As one might guess, I was a little disoriented.  I looked around, but I didn’t see anything that might have hit me.  Eventually I realized what was happening.  Something was hitting me inside my chest.

As it turns out, the fresh Minnesota air was quite a bit fresher than I expected, and working out on my lungs.  It was COLD.  It was 2°F, roughly 40° colder than when I departed the Appalachian mountains of northeast Pennsylvania, just a few hours ago.  How was this possible?  For drama, I compared my boarding pass to the airport signage.  I was indeed in the right place.

It’s not as though I haven’t been in cold weather before.  I’ve happily chased snow and cold into northern Vermont, but that was for a good, recreational reason.  More importantly, I’d drive gradually into the cold, mentally prepared to slide down cold and windy mountains strapped to a board, and physically prepared with the proper gear.  This was different.  I was just wearing a business suit and not at all expecting such a swing in temperature.  It had caught me off guard, and my attention was drawn directly to it.

The tagline, prominently displayed on the official website of the city of St. Paul, suggests that St. Paul is “the most livable city in America.”  As a marketer, I should have been suspicious from the start.  That’s not a strong claim that says there is something authentic, different, and great about St. Paul.  “Livable” sounds a lot like “tolerable” and suggests that they know it’s cold there in the winter and would prefer if newcomers didn’t know that fact.  In fact, St. Paul’s climate has one of the greatest ranges of temperature on earth, with a record high of 105°F and a record low of -32°F.  That’s a 137° swing!

For the remainder of the trip, I made copious use of the indoor walkways, which connect St. Paul’s vital commercial organs with free-flowing arteries.  When I did go outside, it was a constant exercise in not allowing too much skin exposure.  By the time I was leaving town, my opinions about what it might be like to live in St. Paul had been challenged and summarily reset.  My cab driver, a seasoned and informed gentleman, told me that he had moved to St. Paul from Los Angeles some 30 years prior.  When I asked him what he thought about the cold compared to what he was used to, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “You get used to it.  You should have been here on Monday when it didn’t get above zero.”

This statement represents an inspirational side and a simultaneously depressing side to our humanity.  On one hand, individuals and groups have challenged and endured all manner of conditions to achieve a dream.  On the other hand, humans get used to living with conditions that we either simply don’t like or are, in fact, objectively bad for us.

Think about your job.  Do you do things you enjoy and support what you want to be as a person, or are you coasting?  Is there a positive culture or climate at your organization?  What’s the state of morale?  Are you having any fun or just enduring?  Is it easy to interact with your coworkers; do they “get” you?  Participants in a merger are painfully aware of culture differences.  From the outside, what do two sets of mission and vision statements look like when they are reworked or simply summed?  What kind of experience will customers expect when they interact with this new company or brand?  While Minneapolis and St. Paul are lumped together as the “Twin Cities,” locals will tell you that they are quite different.

Look carefully around you.  Take your time.  How many stains or messes on your desk or walls were you once aware of, and now you no longer notice?  When workers return to a windowless cube after a week’s vacation, they are painfully reminded of their environment.  Sometimes these conditions disappear to us because we’ve gotten used to them, but the way we cope with these situations remain, and those coping mechanisms are quite visible to others.  When people ask you about work, what do you tell them?  What content do you post on social media sites?  When people visit your workplace, what things will they notice that you no longer notice?  What opinions are they forming about your organization, and is that good or bad news for your organization?

Organizational climate is powerful, especially for those who suddenly step into that climate.  Everyone in an organization shapes that culture, and we can collectively control how enjoyable and productive it is to be there.  Taken a step further, with some coordination, an organization can create and support a culture that not only enables an engaged workforce, but an environment and a functionality that tells all its visitors what is authentic, different, and great about the organization.  Customers, prospects, and all manner of influencers will like that.  Will you be a brand advocate and shape a positive and relevant culture around you at work, or will you let the climate shape who you are?

www.humanbrandsources.com 

By Ed Zuber



Earlier this month, I went camping in Las Vegas.  Stories were told, rich in allegory, bringing life to the messages behind the stories.  Music was played, songs were sung.  Meals were eaten.  Friendships were made.  There was hiking amid architecture and designed environments that approached the topographical and exotic.  There was even wildlife.  This was at Brand Manage Camp 2009.

I love camping in the traditional sense and all the stuff that comes with it.  Exploration.  Camaraderie.  Immersion in the unknown/unfamiliar.  Taking time to think.  Good conferences can be like that too.  I’d been to an earlier installation of Brand Manage Camp a few years ago in Denver, and my high expectations were not disappointed.  Engaging speakers highlighted important trends and shared insights animated by interesting stories.  Conference music was chosen by an expert in sonic branding.  The MGM Grand, with its ample and modern conference space even had lions that one could observe from inches away, even underneath, through a sheet of glass.  (It occurs to me that if businesses managed their transparency in the same manner and intent as observing lions at the MGM, there would be fewer problems in business.)  Even to the passive conference attendee, this is all great.  But if you embrace the experience, it becomes all the richer.

If you arrive early to breakfast and other meals, rather than eating alone or managing emails or voicemails, you’ll meet some interesting people.  You’ll discover connections in networks and ideas you hadn’t seen before.  You’ll make friends.  You might even find yourself demonstrating the difference between Axel F and Rockit and making others laugh.  (Yes, this actually happened, and I had a surreal moment a week later when this same obscure conversation appeared on a new TV sitcom.)  If you participate in activities, you’ll not only have a deeper experience, your participation will help others to do the same.  If you take the time to explore the streets and buildings of a conference city and see what people are doing and saying, you’ll get to know the character of a city and understand it a little better.  You might even start thinking more creatively.

Marketing often talks about creating great experiences for customers, and when customers are prepared to embrace the experience, it’s a win for everyone.  I wonder how often companies are thinking beyond experience design and figuring out how to make it easy for customers to embrace experiences and easy for employees to deliver great experiences.

For those of you who couldn’t go brand camping this year, I took away the following themes from the 12 sessions.  We are in the midst of change, joined not only by crises in the economy and employment, but crises in our relationships with business.  Many brands are suffering from trust and relevance issues.  There is a very strong call to act immediately for survival and growth of our businesses.  Innovation is required, which is supported by thinking creatively and ahead of process curves.  At the same time, we need to measure against objectives and assess what is working to make better decisions.  Experimentation is a powerful tool to explore new ideas, link actions to results, and make better business decisions.  Here’s the brand evolution:  our brands are becoming more about our character, based on how we behave, connect with customers, and provide value for their needs.  To do so, we need to understand our customers better and connect more deeply, past the rational to the emotional and spiritual needs.  Organizational values and culture are a powerful way to connect with employees, customers, and several other groups that matter.  Brands and culture need to be authentic, and they will guide decision making.  Lead by example.  Successful brands will develop more organically and honestly.  Web 3.0 means that people can find out the truth and share it.  There are many widely-used web tools we can use to connect with each other and customers, to collaborate for work, and to learn.  These tools are evolving; we need to participate wisely and not get lost.  Act now.

There were many great conference quotes I’d love to list, but my favorite comes from Jeremy Gutsche, trend hunter: Culture eats strategy for breakfast.  My runner up is from Guy Kawasaki:  Don’t let the bozos grind you down.  I submit that embracing just these two inspirational philosophies will get you a long way.

In closing, here are two more quotes that I’ve found myself returning to over the past weeks.  Charlene Li speaks wisely of social technologies:  Prepare to let go of the control you never had.  And here is a final one from Jonathan Salem Baskin that I don’t take literally but I enjoy ruminating because it provokes deeper thought on a brand’s character and also creates some amusing images:  Kill your mascot.

By Ed Zuber

Last week, our President was representing our country as the UN assembled in Manhattan, and I was there.  Well, I was in Manhattan, but attending Advertising Week proceedings.  Slightly less glamorous perhaps, but more relevant to my profession.  The UN did, in a manner of speaking, detain me and make my conference experience all the more interesting.

With even greater demand placed on Manhattan hotels last week, I decided to stay across the Hudson and take NJ transit into Manhattan.  The UN also happens to draw more attention to Manhattan, and my first experience with the 165 line was capped by an evacuation from the Port Authority bus terminal.  Evacuations are always good for getting the heart pumping, but everyone was surprisingly calm, so I played along.  After being funneled outdoors and away from the subway, I undertook a long and unplanned walk to my first Ad Week event, making me later and more perspired than I had planned.  So that’s the story of how the UN indirectly detained me, but heightened my senses and prepared me to fully engage with the Advertising Research Foundation’s Council sessions.

First, kudos to the ARF for making industry learning accessible to everyone by providing free sessions where experts discuss marketing’s current challenges and solutions.  After listening to all four council sessions, I heard a core message that we need to better understand our customers, whose demographics, attitudes, motives and media habits are continually evolving and diversifying.  Only by understanding customers can we effectively engage and communicate with them, using relevant messages and context. 

Social media and online communities were noted as a particularly useful way of building customer relationships to accomplish both understanding and communication.  Such forums offer the opportunity for an authentic experience, where participants are empowered to co-create and hopefully develop as brand advocates, not brand detractors.  The “virtual” degree of separation should not, however, tempt community hosts to take these relationships less seriously.  Just like in person, any violation of social norms for interacting and conversing places the relationship at risk.  Emotional dissatisfaction is at least as potent as emotionally-driven satisfaction.

In fact, one representative from a well-known company noted how her company would not hire a vendor to host and moderate an online community; the client relationships were simply too valuable to place in the hands of someone outside the company.  Whether you agree or not with that stance, it is a philosophy that walks the talk of customer importance and customer care.  (Furthermore, her overall presentation and responses to audience questions served to demonstrate what her company culture is actually like, and in fact elevated my opinion of her company’s brand.)  Participants in a community expect that if they are providing their time and opinions, someone is actively listening and prepared to provide support.  Not reacting to stated customer concerns is a violation of the trust customers place in businesses.