I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of reputation and the potential it has to have a disruptive effect on marketing. The fluid reputation marketplaces, like ebay and Amazon, have certainly challenged the power of branding.

Because reputation can play such an important role in the way people relate to brands and companies, it’s important to think about how to make sure you stay engaged in managing your reputation in this bottom-up economy.

Here are some things to think about:

Research Your Reputation – Think about what kind of reputation your company has. Is the internal view of your company consistent with the external view?

Understand Your Reputation – Who really owns your products and brands: you or your customers? Is your company ready to acknowledge the illusion of control and start to listen to what people really have to say about you and your products?

Tap Into the Conversation – There is a current conversation going on in the world about your company. It’s hard to really listen to the conversations that are happening in the marketplace unless you get out of your office and seek them out.

Let Go – The idea that you can completely control your reputation is another illusion. While it can be valuable in the long term, try to let go now and then and focus on the relationship with your customers in the context of the journey. Enjoy the day-to-day experience.

Participate in Improving Your Reputation – The best way to start participating is to ensure that the actions of your company are consistent with your philosophy. Do you do what you say you’re going to do?

Last week, when I was on the road I read Seth Godin’s glowing post on Tom Peter’s crazy schedule. Here’s what Tom had to say about his trip:

So I've been consciously working on a new (for me) approach, with at least a smidgeon of success. Either at day's end or dawn's early light, I have a little meditation and self-counseling session on making the day count, rather than devoting the day to eager anticipation of the moment I can cross it off the calendar. Professionally, that first means looking anew and in depth at the forthcoming lecture to be sure that it clearly encompasses (as best I can) an ennobling purpose, challenges participants' minds and engages their souls. (Will it at least aspire to the JFK idea that no speechifier should utter a word unless she "aims to change the world"?) Also professionally, I "work on" my attitude. This may be day 45 and mile 76,000 for me, but for the Client it is D-Day for an Important Event (often their year's #1 event, for God's sake); hence my exhaustion and accompanying short temper must be thrust aside ... and downright cheeriness and spirited engagement must become the invariant orders of the day. Besides, such cheeriness, even if feigned, cheers me up first and foremost! Next, and in a way most important, even though I have little trouble infusing my lecture with meaning, I must thoroughly convince myself that this is a day every hour of which is worth savoring! Hackneyed though it is to write, 25 October 2005 ain't gonna come around again and this 62-year-old is gonna be a day older and closer to checkout time when it's done.

While I think it’s great that Tom has such a good attitude and I admire both Seth and Tom, something struck me as odd. It could have been that I was tired from being on the road, as well. There is, however, an underlying assumption in the post that no matter how tired you are, you can still give the best performance, every time. I disagree.

As an athlete most of my life, I’ve tried several times to push back standards. In the mid 90’s a friend and I went to Africa to set the world record running up Kilimanjaro. We trained for months, running up and down the mountains in Colorado for up to 10 hours at a time. When we got to Kenya, we spent a week on Kilimanjaro acclimatizing and studying the route. Only after all of this preparation were we ready to make an attempt. We waited for the right day and got lucky. We set the record.

That day I recognized that our peak performance was an alchemy of many things some that we could control, like our training, and others we couldn’t, like conditions on the mountain. I certainly would have never deceived myself that I could have pulled off the record on Kilimanjaro after traveling 76,000 miles over 45 days. I would have given a sub par performance.

The ability to have a truly peak performance in business is similar. My company, Radar Communications, has only hurt long-tem relationships with clients when we accept a job knowing that we are too worn out to do the very best for our client, exceeding their expectations. In today’s business you get only one chance to perform at your peak. If you don’t, you will lose a customer.

Likewise, brands have a habit of communicating their ability to always be on. To be there, waiting to give you the very best performance. Most of the time the “peak performance” message is quickly diluted when the customer starts interacting with the brand by such things as calling to place an order and having to wait too long on the phone or by getting a delivery only to find out half of the items are back-ordered with no communications.

The only way to solve this dilemma of promising a peak performance and delivering something less is to practice the art of saying no. It’s hard to do. Yet, I’ve lost too many clients over the years by trying to stretch our capabilities at Radar too far. I hadn’t trained enough.

I’ve learned that by saying no I can create satisfied non-customers. And, I’d rather have satisfied non-customers than dissatisfied customers, any day.

How much more satisfied would Tom’s customers have been if he had said no once or twice and traveled only 33,000 miles?

We’ve heard so much over the last few years about developing your own personal brand, yet so many people are unaware of how their day-to-day actions effect the brands they work for.

A recent experience only highlighted the issue. I was flying to Los Angeles last week, sitting in an isle seat. As the door was closing, a woman got on the plane with three carry-ons, her lunch from McDonalds and magazines under her arm all the while talking loudly on her cell phone.

Instead of hanging up the phone and taking her seat, she tried to throw the magazines and McDonalds’ bag onto her seat while yelling at her assistant on the phone. Not surprisingly, the magazines and the Big Mac ended up on my lap! And, she wasn’t even aware of anything that was happening because she was so focused on her call.

While the woman took her seat, the stewardess had to remind her twice to turn off her phone.

Just when I thought things would mellow out, she turned to me and launched into a diatribe about how she was overworked and underappreciated, while eating her Big Mac and flipping through her magazines.

The only thing I could think about was my loss of respect for the Fortune 500 Company she worked for. The company had just lost a potential customer because of one executive’s unrelated actions.

Whether we like it or not, everything we do reflects on the companies we work for and either attracts repels customers.

Not to my surprise, as the plane landed, my neighbor once again was on the phone yelling at her assistant!

Jennifer Rice has a nice post about buzzwords on her blog. The post made me think about marketing buzzwords that get under my skin me. One of them is ‘metrosexuals.’ Here's what I wrote in Beyond the Brand:

It’s human nature to use words as a way to classify other people’s actions or behaviors. Whether its right or wrong, we all categorize people at times. Companies, and especially their marketing departments, do the same thing. A recent popular example of how words can be appropriated is the term ‘metrosexual.’ Marketers now use this term to describe sensitive, image-conscious guys.

“Their heightened sense of aesthetics is very, very pronounced,” Marian Salzman, chief strategy officer at Euro RSCG(now at JWT), said of ‘metrosexuals.’ “They are the style makers. It doesn’t mean your average Joe American is going to copy everything they do,” she added. “But unless you study these guys you don’t know where Joe American is heading.”

It is somewhat ironic that gay writer Mark Simpson originally coined the term ‘metrosexual’ to mock everything marketers stood for. In the mid-1990’s, Simpson used the word to satirize the way that brands and consumer culture promoted the idea of a sensitive guy: one who shopped, used products for his personal appearance, and read magazines like Men’s Health.

Simpson felt that consumerism had taken its toll on traditional masculinity. From his point of view, men really didn’t go to shopping malls, use personal-care products or read self-help magazines. It was all a fantasy propagated by marketers.

A couple of days ago Salzman told the New York Tmes that her promotion of 'metrosexuals' was all a ruse to sell books:

While identifying a tribe of ‘metrosexuals’ ostensibly helped marketers reach that market, Ms. Salzman said her purpose was to sell her book. When the three authors' previous book, "Buzz: Harness the Power of Influence and Create Demand," was published in spring 2003, "we wanted to prove our own hypothesis, that you could buzz something around the world without paying for advertising."

The authors state that unlike metrosexuals, "übersexuals don't invite questions about their sexuality." They also produced a list of the "top 10 übersexuals," including Bono, George Clooney and Bill Clinton.

Ahhhh....I'm so confused! Who am I supposed to be? A metrosexual or an ubersexual? How about if I'm just me?

Companies should be hesitant to ascribe general classifications to their customers. While many times a label does a fair job of describing its target population, individual characteristics are completely subject to interpretation. Relying on a simplistic descriptive tool to give life to someone as important as a customer, or potential customer, is dangerous.

If you really want to know your customers; stop using labels and get out of your office and spend time in the context of their lives. Once you start understanding your customers as people, you can avoid the need to develop or depend on such generalized labels that seem to change in the whims of fashion.

I was intrigued when I opened Advertising Age’s Point Magazine in September to find an article by Michael Treacy entitled, Ignore The Consumer. Here’s what Michael has to say:

Companies spend billions on market research to divine the needs and wants of consumers and businesses. Yet the new-product failure rate remains high. And we’re not coming up with better product concepts by listening to the voice of the customer. Why? Maybe the customer isn’t worth listening to.

While I appreciate Michael’s point-of-view, it is often not that customers lead an innovation effort astray. Many times, internal agendas and politics get in the way of true innovation.

While we can all point out innovation in marketing and product development as springing from the brilliance of one mind – Treacy uses the oft cited iPod as his primary example – the truth is that most innovation happens when co-creation is at the center of the innovation process for a brand. That means involving not only the internal resources of the company and a team charged with innovating, but also the external resources of the culture and the customers.

In my upcoming book, Spark, I had a chance to interview a number of leaders in innovation including, Mark Parker of Nike, Marsha Skidmore of Herman Miller and Rob Bon Durant of Patagonia. These interviews only reinforced my belief that there is no formulaic process, but the need to take a more holistic, co-creative approach to brand innovation with out excluding anyone, including customers.

For a team charged with innovation, try to remember to allow everybody, no matter the level of knowledge, to participate in a positive dialogue. Likewise, develop a policy of more open communication, dialogue, connectivity and equality. Remember to focus on learning and experience versus accomplishments.

In regards to the company as a whole, it’s important to remember that innovation is not necessarily a top-down process but the necessary support and nurturing must absolutely be top-down. Innovation can spring from any part of the company-customer community, but ONLY if the support and encouragement for this environment exists at every level of the business. Remember to learn from failure, reduce bureaucracy and encourage companywide communication.

When involving customers, be sure to think about inspiration and not reliance. It’s all about progression. And progression is based on immersion. People inside the company need to stop sitting at their desks and get out to spend time with their customers in the context of their lives. Take a chance and strive to become an inspired protagonist in the market. Have fun by creating a culture inside the company that mirrors the customers’ culture. Nourish the playful interaction between the company and customers.

In interactions with the culture that surrounds a company, think about leveraging relationships with suppliers in more innovative ways. Develop new ways to engage with the community. Remember, you’ll never be able to manage it or control it. Participate in it. Make use of new tools, like blogging, to interact with your culture. Allow the culture to create innovation with the company.

Only by taking a more holistic, co-creative approach that takes into account all constituents can brands be more innovative in their marketing and product design and thrive in this competitive environment in which we all exist.

Yesterday, I had a brand experience that rocked my world. First, I was driving to meet a friend in the morning. I called the company that he worked for to ask directions (Hertz was sold out of Neverlost). I was bummed after I called three times and no one could tell me how to get to the office from the Pacific Coast Highway. I had to stop at a retailer to ask and found that the office was only a couple of miles away.

That afternoon I drove up to do some work with Patagonia. I called in to ask directions and Patagonia's "Gatekeeper", Chipper "Bro" Bell, answered the phone while sitting at Mission Control. You see, instead of having an entry level receptionist answering the phone and interacting with customers, Patagonia has Chipper.

When I asked Chipper how to get there, Chipper started off by saying, "You've got it bro, " and then gave me detailed, simple instructions on how to get there. When I told Chipper thanks, he said "Believe it!" It was magical.

Soon after we talked, I realized I was going to be early so I called back looking for a friend to borrow a surfboard and get some exercise before my meeting. I called Chipper back and he paged my friend. Unfortunately, my buddy was in a meeting. When Chipper asked what I needed, I told him I wanted to borrow a surfboard. Chipper said, "No worries, come see me and I'll have a board ready for ya, bro!"

When I arrived, there was Chipper, stoked to see me with a board ready to ride.

I returned from a nice surf session and I sat out front watching Chipper spin his magic. He was treating everyone in a very human way, no matter what they needed, trying to solve everyone's problems. What really blew me away is that Chipper keeps this stoke that exudes the Patagonia brand 1800 times a day!

What would happen if your company had a brand gatekeeper instead of a receptionist? Would your customers be more stoked?

To learn more about Chipper, check out the fun article about him on the Patagonia web site.

I was disheartened today when reading Jeff Leeds' article about Russell Simmons in the New York Times today. In a civil deposition in July, Simmons is quoted as saying:

"You give out false statements to mislead the public so they will then increase in their mind the value of your company."

In a February 2003 appearance on CNBC Simmons stated that Phat Farm was "doing $350 million" in sales when, in reality the company had revenues in 2002 of $14.3 million. Talk about hype!

He also told Newsweek that Phat Farm's sales at $340 million "accurately reflected my optimism or my brand position statement, a good brand positioning statement. In other words, did I say it? I was hoping it would sound good."

I agree with Seth Godin's premise of his new book, All Marketers are Liars, that storytelling is important. But, it seems that some stories, like Simmons' are so outlandish as to damage the power of storytelling itself and call into question all marketing.

And people wonder why customers have a lack of trust?

I had a conversation with a friend of mine who is a marketing executive at an outdoor products company last week. It seems, he had some extra time on his hands so stopped by a retailer to watch his customers in action. He watched as a few people drove up in their BMWs and dropped $500 buying some of his gear. As he observed his customers, he felt a little uncomfortable.

He said it wasn’t until a kid, who looked like a river guide, walked in with a bunch of clothing to return that he began to feel comfortable. It seemed that many of the things he was trying to exchange would not fit him. In fact, my friend thought that it was even possible the river guide had stolen some of the clothing.

My friend told me that after the experience he felt horrible because he could relate to the river guide spending absolutely no money better than he could to the customers dropping $500 on his equipment.

Do you love your customers or who you want your customers to be?

What happens to a brand when the underlying business model goes away?

Take Leica, for example. I've spent some time as a fine arts photographer and hold on to my Leica M6 camera as a symbol of those creative times. I love the Leica brand! But, as everyone else has, I've jumped on the digital photography bandwagon.

Over the last couple of years, I have contemplated selling my Leica equipment. Every time I come close a camera dealer tells me that I might as well hold on to it because it's such a highly regarded brand that the price will never go down among it's followers.

So, imagine my surprise when I dropped by Mike's Camera in Boulder over the weekend and asked the same question. This time the answer was different, "I'd get rid of that stuff unless you are planning on using it for a door stop!" According to the salesman, Leica is in trouble. He continued by saying that he had personally sold 80 cameras in the last month, three of them film. (Two of those being bought by students who had to purchase a film camera for a class.)

I guess this isn’t a shocker. All of the photography brands, Kodak, Leica and FujiFilm, who were late to the digital party, have a lot of catching up to do. It doesn’t matter what industry you are in or how much your current customers love your brand, anyone of us could wake up one morning and be irrelevant.

So, what can a company do? It seems the only alternative is to hold nothing as sacred, jump in the stream of change and begin to co-create innovation with customers, suppliers and even competitors. In this networked world, things move much too fast to not be involved in the change that’s happening around you.

William Safire wrote a thoughtful On Language column yesterday in the New York Times, where he stated:

In a world where the words new and fresh are relentlessly repeated on every product label, the name of the sales technique is getting old and stale. Where is the ad-Übermensch, the creative Ogilvy, who will put forward a new moniker for the name of the atmospheric marketing game? The time has come, as John Kerry puts it, to unbrand the word brand.

The working title for my book Beyond the Brand was Unbrand and at the time, many involved in the project thought that such a title would be too radical. Now, a year later, I feel, more than ever, like Safire is right. The word brand has started to loose it's magic through overuse. Is there another word that captures the same concepts? If so, what is it?

I just listened to Bob Garfield tell the tale of An Impending Period of Transitional Chaos for Media on NPR's All Things Considered. Here's what NPR has to say about the segment:

Network television audiences are down as cable, the Internet and a host of other new technologies emerge; and marketers are shifting their dollars accordingly. The media world faces an interim of chaos before a new order is determined. The co-host of On the Media delivers his take.

After listening to the show it made me think more about the uneveness of change. While those of use who work in the "New Media" realm view the world of marketing optimistically, those that live in the paradigm of the "Old Media" view these changes pessimistically and cling to their worldview with every once of energy they have.

Times, they are a changing!

TOC brings up a good point in a comment on my last post Finding Balance. TOC ends the comment by stating, "Anyone who thinks the era of corporate asshoes is ending, isn't paying attention."

So my question is, are we all here living in a bubble thinking that the world of business is changing?

Are the concepts of co-creation, transparency, balance and fluidity all things we see through rose colored glasses or is there a real change happening in the nature of business?

My sense is that there is a real change occuring. From the clients I work with at Radar including HP, Nike, Patagonia and Unilever plus companies I've interviewed for both Beyond the Brand and Spark, such as, Stonyfield Farms, Lego and Herman Miller there is a shift going on.

Companies that are focusing on co-creation, transparency, balance and fluidity with engaging both their employees and customers are finding it easier to suceed in today's environment.

I'd love to get everyone else's feedback on this. Are we drinking our own cool-aid or is there something happening here?

I interviewed Matt Jacobson, VP of Quiksilver Entertainment for Spark. Matt's done a terrific job of connecting the Quiksilver brand to their customers in a unique way using media. More importantly, he has a wonderful take on the importance of balance and fluidity, hard things to find in today's world. Here's what Matt has to say:

"I was at Disney for four years and NewsCorp for almost thirteen years and then I went to Broadcom, so I worked in the semi-conductor space for a little bit and then I came to Quiksilver. One of the things that’s been great for me – one of the things that’s really great about this company – is that it’s all about balance. I think that corporate America is changing one company at a time and things that are important to people now are different than what was important to people fifteen to twenty years ago – where before it was about power, prestige, money – now people who are savvy and understand who they are as people are really much more into a kind of balance, the balance of lifestyle.

It’s the balance between life and lifestyle – or work and lifestyle – I think that’s what this company is really about. So I think I’ve become a much more centered, more balanced person, because I’ve been able to pursue something that I believe in. It’s holistic approach to the way we do business. The era of bullies and assholes is over.

The way we go about doing business, by finding partners we like to work with, putting all of our wood behind a couple of arrows. The kind of fluidity that comes from how we pick and choose our partners our projects makes for a healthier company and a healthier person."

Can we all find more balance and fluidity by rethinking our relationships with our customers and team members, becoming healthier brands and people, in the process?

I’m finishing the edits for my new book, SPARK, and came across some interesting insights from Michael Jager, Creative Director of JDK, a design firm in Burlington, Vermont whose claim to fame is their work on Burton Snowboards.

“To me the essence of leading, following or nurturing a culture of innovation starts with the depth of your belief in differentiation and the importance of differentiation. What drives it? Is it your desire for progression, something that you need to do to be successful as a brand, as a consumer product, or as an individual?

It goes back to a respect for differentiation. It means the willingness to take that risk and not be afraid of it but also finding pleasure and desiring progression.

The idea of progression is what I’ve used to help guide my thinking. To me, having a commodified existence is pretty painful and useless. People and companies that are followers instead of leaders don’t necessarily always stay on the path to commodification. Certainly, it’s not a very exciting place.

You can certainly be a second place company following innovations and tweaking other people’s ideas and remain in a place beyond commodity but I don’t want to be one of those people nor work for a culture like that.

It’s far more interesting to become an inspired protagonist in a market. And, by taking that position, it means that you need to be deeply connected to the culture that your products exist in and the people that use them; yet rely on your intuition about where things will be.”

Is your brand an inspired protagonist?

I was cruising blogsphere today, doing some research for SPARK, when I clicked on Jake McKee's About page on his communityguy.com blog.

When talking about the work he is doing with LEGO Jake says, "We are working to change the company's approach to one of marketing with consumers, rather than marketing at consumers."

That sounds like co-creation to me!

How can you be more paticipatory (with) and less communicative (at) with your customers?

I’m editing some more interviews for SPARK and came across this great quote from Scott Bowers, SVP of Marketing at Oakley:

“The brands that are ballsy enough or are brave enough to say, ‘You know what – we’re selling way too much product to the wrong people; we need to change the language of our brand, change the face of the brand, and get brave in product design again,’ the companies that are capable of doing that can thrive a lot longer as a brand versus those that get safe and complacent and start chasing numbers and quarters.”

Is your brand brave enough?

Jonathan Korzen, Audible's PR guy, responded 121 hours into my experiment started below. He wrote me a nice note. I'll let you know how the interaction goes from here.

I’m bummed! A year and a half ago I signed up for the Premium Listener program at Audible.com. At the time, I was stoked to listen to a few books on my iPod. It seems however, between writing and traveling, I wasn’t downloading the two books a month that came with the subscription.

So, a year ago I tried to cancel my subscription. I went to the Audible website and did everything they asked me to only to find a $19.95 charge on my credit card the following month. I finally picked up the phone and called. After the usual 5 minute wait I talked to a fairly responsible sounding person who said they’d take care of it.

Five nights ago my wife, Bridget, leaned over and said “What’s this charge on our credit card for $19.95 from Audible?” It seems that the friendly customer service representative didn’t, in fact, do what he said he’d do! So much for building trust.

Being in Mexico writing, phone calls are a bit expensive so I went back online to Audible’s site and was promised a fast and courteous response in 48 hours.

So, here I am 5 days later, out 240 bucks and no one to listen to me.

Hello, I’m a Customer. Is anybody home? I used to think your service was pretty cool. Now I’m starting to get bad!

Forget about co-creating, how about doing what you promised or at least sending an auto-response to my email!

Is Audible, and many other brands for that matter, too busy to listen to their customers? Are they really ready for the power shift that’s happening? Before companies, like Audible, can ever think about improving their products and services with the help of delighted customers they might want to think about creating satisfied customers first.

We’re living in lumpy times in the Brandsphere! Welcome to the Wild West.

Johnnie, I love the idea of “!” and “?” in your comment under the last post. David Weinberger’s idea reminds me of the movie What the Bleep Do We Know!? It uses both points in the title of the movie. Have you seen it? If not, it’s worth checking out. The movie explores the connection between quantum mechanics, neurology and human behavior in an interesting alchemy.

One of the segments that really struck me was how our neural networks in our brain work. As we all know, the human brain is able to function with a high level of complexity. We can react to numerous stimuli in our environment at the same time, and can be incredibly intuitive, making decisions on the fly about what things mean and what should be done about them. Hence, our intuition is fueled by repeated experiences, from which we form associations. Learning from our experiences, our responses become programmed for new situations.

The movie suggests that the neurological basis for this kind of learning can be understood in terms of a process can called “long-term potentiation.” This new age sounding idea means that connections between nerve cells are strengthened when stimulated repeatedly.

So, if you have a meeting every Monday morning at 10:00 AM at which donuts are available, your stomach will trained to start to grumble soon before ten. (remember Pavlov’s dogs?). A neural pathway linking the meeting and donuts is established and strengthened through repetition. This is classical psychological conditioning. The problem develops when we become trapped with the habituated activities of our lives, going to meetings, answering emails, etc. making it much more difficult from breaking with your routine and get out of our offices to interact with others.

It’s hard to change anything, let alone co-create, if we are physically addicted to our routines. Maybe companies and brands also suffer from long-term potentiation, making it more difficult to change and evolve with the environment around them.

I really like the idea of facilitation how that creates the foundation for dialogue. David Boehm, the British physicist, has suggested a concept of dialogue as the glue that holds a community together that seems to make sense. He describes the nature of dialogue by saying:

“I give a meaning to the word dialogue different from what is commonly used. The derivations of the word suggest a deeper meaning. Dialogue comes from the Greek ‘dialogos.’ Logos means the word, or the meaning of the word. And dia means “through” – it doesn’t mean two. A dialogue can be among any number of people. The picture or image this suggests is of a stream of meaning flowing among and between and through us. This will make possible a flow of meaning in the whole group, out of which will emerge some new understanding. This shared meaning is the glue or cement that holds people and societies together.”

Jennifer, I think you’re right. It is about community. Through facilitation and dialogue brands can play a powerful role in creating meaning in their communities.

After rereading Johnnie's post on the Perils of Research and the following comments about fear I noticed the Blink on AJ Hoje's comments including: "Perhaps business people should junk the language and thought patterns of business- and adopt the language of poetry." The combination of reading these together reminded me of a piece of prose from Ranier Marie Rilke that I included in the preface of Beyond the Brand:

"Only someone who is ready for everything, who doesn't exclude any experience, even the most incomprehensible, will live the relationship with another person as something alive and will himself sound the depths of his own being. For if we imagine this being of the individual as a larger or smaller room, it is obvious that most people come to know only one corner of their room, one spot near the window, one narrow strip on which they keep walking back and forth. In this way they have a certain security.

And yet how much more human is the dangerous insecurity that drives those prisoners in Poe's stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their cells. We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares have been set around us, and there is nothing that should frighten or upset us. We have been put into life as into the element we most accord with, and we have, moreover, through thousands of years of adaptation, come to resemble this life so greatly that when we hold still, through a fortunate mimicry we can hardly be differentiated from everything around us.

We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience.

How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence’ something helpless that needs our love."

AJ, Thanks for reminding us the power of the beauty and vulnerability that poets can provide us.

I just noticed a nice post on Customer Evangelistsby Jackie Huba today about citizen marketers, those people who decide to share their passion about a brand. This is a another good example of co-creation. However, when the people gain the power to market your product, they choose how to spin it both postively and negatively.

Jennifer, great definition of co-creation! I really like the way the meaning of co-creation is being refined. It is really evolving through the participation of so many great minds in this co-creation process. I wanted add to the dialogue providing some context for the struggle I have had over the past 18 months or so, trying to get my own arms around the subject. Last year, when I was writing Beyond the Brand, I struggled with developing a meaning for co-creation. Originally, the purpose of the book was to de-bunk the $1.2 billion focus group business and offer an alternative. While writing, I realized that there was something much bigger going on at the fringes of the way companies and customers were interacting. In this search, I took a great deal of inspiration from the alternative sports market that includes skateboarding and snowboarding. Here, everyone actively participates in a chaotic dance of co-creation between manufacturers, consumers, pro-athletes and retailers. After this exploration, I got so turned on by the concept that I wanted the title of the book to be, “How to Co-Create from the Bottom-Up.” Alas, my publisher didn’t get it and won’t go for it. So, in an effort to add to the dialogue, I wanted to share with you some of the thoughts I wrote last year. Here are some quotes from Chapter 4 of Beyond the Brand:

“Many companies focus their strategic thinking around current market needs by getting into a conference room and divining the future (or attempting to). It’s a very inside-out or top-down approach. In a reversal of this traditional process, exceptional companies use an outside-in approach, or bottom-up strategy, to focus their thinking on engaging in a dialogue with the other members of their community, allowing them to co-create innovations with their customers. This holistic, organic strategy allows companies to continually recontextualize and reframe their brand, making necessary adjustments as the community and customers evolve.”

“A bottom-up strategy of co-creation takes the open source philosophy a step further. First, it’s about loosening the control over the strategic process and focusing on guiding it instead of owning it. It’s about inviting the right customers, suppliers, and employees to participate in an open, informed process based on solid guiding principles. To do this well, companies must focus their strategic energies on building consensus and communities. The strategy has to be human. The focus has to be on the quality of the input into the strategy and the communications of those ideas to the community. Companies must focus on being evolutionary.”

“Disruptive innovation fueled by bottom-up (co-creative) learning means companies must participate in an open way within their community. This requires true corporate transparency, in everything from marketing to manufacturing, and a more long-term, sustainable outlook of the community in which they participate.
Companies that are able to make the transition to providing honest, original, culturally relevant materials and products will win. People will carefully weed out and broadcast to their peers those companies and brands that they do not trust. Many companies have discovered that being deeply connected to their community is good for their brands. In this new era, brands will have to become good, creative citizens of the community in order to survive.”

I hope this helps the dialogue evolve further. I think we are on to some thing big here. The more great minds we can get involved in this evolutionary process, the more fun it will be!

Lastly, did anybody see the February 14th cover of Forbes with the title of “Why Companies Need Your Ideas?” While I think the article, “Have It Your Way,” is an example of “shallow” co-creation, the ideas we are riffing is bubbling up in places like the cover of Forbes, nonetheless.

I feel like I'm a bit late to the party! Sorry. First, I'd like to say it's an honor to get to have a dialogue with Jennifer, Johnnie and Andy. I'm really looking forward to this journey of co-creation. That's what I love about blogs, and I think this plays into Pig Lipstick. I've been riffing a lot about The End of Branding as We Know it on my blog. It seems that many companies forget that their products and brands aren't owned by themselves, alone. Hence, if you're customers think you're selling a pig, it's still a pig, no matter what color the lipstick is or what brand attributes the lipstick provides! Companies have to get out from behind the shield that they preceive their brands provide and start being more transparent, willing to co-create their products with their customers.

I hope BrandShift can help energize this co-creation, creating a vibrant dialogue around deepening the connection between companies, customers and communities for the benefit of all.