What is Brand You? In Morgan Spurlock's TED talk (above), there's one segment in which he goes around and asks people what their brand is. They primarily define their brands by their clothing and hair styles. He also asks the folks who market Ban deodorant how they describe their brand – and they couldn't, mostly because you put their product in your armpits to keep you from stinking (although Axe seems to have been able to define their brand just fine, thanks, even though they're essentially the same product).
So, what is Brand You? If you buy into the whole Fight Club "revolution" of you are not your job, you are not your clothes, you are not your possessions, how do you describe your brand?
Brand Josh is passionate, creative, energetic, hardworking and generally likeable. How do I know? I work hard at being those things. I have a fair bit of self-knowledge because I've worked on it, and I listen to the feedback of people around me.
Which brings me to . (Now there's linkbait if I ever saw it: both of them in one sentence?) I've never had a face-to-face conversation with either of these gentlemen, but I think they're both really smart. And I think they're really smart because of what I see of them – the face of their personal brands.
Maybe 10 years ago we didn't think about our personalities as brands, but we most definitely do now. We may have always been selling an image – through our hairstyles, our clothes, our circles of friends, the music we listen(ed) to, the sports we play(ed) – but only in the past few years have we been able to market that image worldwide, and actually been able to make it pay off financially.
So what is Brand You? Are you what you do or what you look like? Are are you how you do? And what of other brands you represent? Can you be the face of a business brand and still have an individual Brand You? (For the record, as a community manager, I believe you can; I may be building a brand, but I'm definitely Brand Josh both inside and outside the gym's walls and website.)
Note: This video is about sex and orgasm. It includes adult situations but not offensive language. You've been informed.
Howdy. Many of you who read my blog (and I assume that number is dwindling, given the frequency of my posting) know that I tend to go into hibernation in winter. True story. I do. And with the I've been doing, it's been worse (though the past couple of weeks I've been a little better about public appearances).
But it's spring: the sun is starting to not only come out, but stay out longer; birds are starting to migrate back to the area; and I guess grass is coming in soon (still waiting to see evidence of that, though).
This is supposed to be a time of renewal. In addition to the weight loss (roughly 28 pounds so far since the beginning of the year – official weigh-ins are in about an hour from this writing, so there will be more blogging this week), one of the things I've been doing is gleaning some knowledge and inspiration from talks.
The Technology, Entertainment and Design conferences draw the best and brightest speakers on all kinds of topics. One of my recent viewings is Mary Roach's talk on orgasms (above). Some other favorites include this and one by (not as in the abortion debate, but as in "which jeans do I buy?").
I can't say enough about TED as an education and personal growth tool. Catch up on some talks (here's a handy index ), learn a little, grow a little, and share your favorites.
Really, people? It snows here a minimum of five months every year. Every year. There is almost no chance, if you were here the previous winter, you've gone more than six months without driving in the snow. Why are all these cars off the road for the first snow? Because people are idiots. Or at least bad drivers.
And if someone's not off the road because he or she's an idiot, that person's off the road because someone else was being an idiot. So here we go: how to drive in the snow.
Slow down. The biggest problem with driving on the snow and ice? It's slippery. I don't care if you have snow tires, or a ginormous car. If your tires can't find the road because there's something between, you have a chance of slipping. The speed limit is not a guide for how fast you're supposed to drive on the road. The reason your all-weather pickup truck is buried up to the door handles on the side of the road while you wait for a tow truck is that you saw "Speed Limit 45" and said, "OK, cool," while the rest of us were driving 20 (notice who is asking whom if we need to call someone for you).
There's no such thing as a controlled skid. You were taught (or you once heard) that you should steer into a skid. The reason for that is that it makes you feel like you're in control. But you're not. So when you're done with that skid, take a brief moment to get your bearings. You might be on the road facing the right way, but you might be about to drive three inches forward into a ditch. Either way, you're probably not where you intended to be, so take a moment to figure it out and get yourself on the right path, rather than making it worse.
Leave extra space in front of you. No matter how safe you are, someone else is going to be unsafe, and you need to account for that. The going wisdom is that you need to give one car length for every 10 mph you're traveling. You need more than that in the snow, since it takes longer to stop your car suddenly.
We're not all driving big SUVs, so don't drive yours like we are. So you have a GMC Yukon. Made for bad weather and poor driving conditions. Excellent. I'm driving a Hyundai Accent, made for getting me from point A to point B as best it can. So if you can drive 40 mph on Erie Blvd. and I can drive 20 mph, you shouldn't do it behind me. Because eventually it means you're going to have to drive your Yukon over the top of my hatchback. Also, if we're on the highway and you decide to cut me off, remember I need more braking room – so when I wind up in a guardrail, expect I'll have memorized your license plate and you'll be getting a call from your friendly local police department.
Figure in extra time. So you live 10 minutes from work, and usually give yourself 11 minutes so you can climb the stairs when you get there. Leave five minutes early. Seriously, it won't kill you. If you get to work two or three minutes early, no one's going to complain, I promise. If you have to be 50 miles away and you're driving a 65 mph road, it's not going to be moving 65 mph. Figure on taking 75 minutes or more, not 50.
Be patient. That's really the thing, isn't it? Slow down, give extra time and space, be realistic about physics. Yes, you have somewhere to be, but so does everybody else on the road. We're not driving in this crap because it's fun. We're doing it because we need to be someplace.
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I made a mention of in a tweet – for the uninitiated, that's today in the U.S. and tomorrow in the rest of the world. In the U.S., it is "celebrated" (such as it is), alongside Black Friday, the first "official" shopping day of the Christmas season.
When the person to whom the initial tweet was directed learned what Buy Nothing Day was, she said, "People come up with the stupidest things." And all I could think was, "Yeah, like lining up at 3 a.m. to buy crap they don't need and that their kids will stop playing with by February." I didn't say it, because frankly, I'm not anti-consumerist, and really my problem with Black Friday is that few things make me as uncomfortable as giant signs and throngs of people fighting over the last t-shirt or toy. My day after Thanksgiving is usually spent emptying the dishwasher's fifth load, hanging with the family, and avoiding the mall, though buying a meal or coffee or admission ticket isn't out of the question.
There's moderation in everything, isn't there? People who aren't doing the buy everything thing and who aren't doing the buy nothing thing?
It's the same dichotomy issue we're having with our (de facto) two-party system in the U.S. In 2004, Republicans won the White House and both houses of Congress. And so they spent two years making the moderate middle angry, and in 2006 Democrats took over Congress, and with a Republican in the White House, nothing got done. That changed in 2008 when a Democrat took the White House, and then earlier this month, after two years of making the moderate middle angry, Democrats lost control of the House and now nobody's talking compromise.
The past six years of U.S. politics are a tighter cycle than we're used to, but it's a cycle that we are, in fact, used to. And it's going to lead to a long cycle of government accomplishing something that annoys just over half the country for two years, then nothing for two years, then annoying just over half the country (with a different outlier composition) for two years, then nothing for another two years.
No one ever has to build a coalition. And no one gets to claim success for more than two years at a time.
Dichotomy is not the way things get done. Humans are not an either-or species; there are shades of gray, and worse (or better), we change our thinking. Unfortunately, it's easiest to express, in language, everything in an either-or fashion.
Democrat or Republican. Black Friday or Buy Nothing Day. No carbs or no meat. Writing for search engines or for humans. Paper or plastic.
When we think outside of language, we'll think outside of dichotomy. And that's when progress happens.
I haven't seen this ad on TV, but I like it.
The text (this is my own headphone-less transcription, bear with me) is this:
"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot – and missed. I've failed over and over and over in my life, and that is why I succeed."
Thank you.
When I was at Syracuse University, one of the things I did was to help put together a conference for the Center for Digital Literacy focusing on Democracy and the Internet.
It was summer 2004, and Howard Dean was making waves in the online fundraising and organizing world, thanks in large part to Meetup. We had one of Meetup's co-founders; Joe Trippi, a top Democratic strategist; and a bunch of other great speakers.
Among the co-coordinators of the conference were the authors of . One of those authors, Grant Reeher, has recently launched a new public affairs blog, .
Grant is open to guest posts and suggestions, so please go over there and be active.
Incidentally, he's also hosting The Campbell Conversations on each week; he's done everything from interviews with local politicians and political candidates to having a really interesting discussion with Lakshmi Singh, who is the mid-day newscaster for NPR.
I've been getting miffed at my LinkedIn network lately. Here are some reasons, and what you can do to keep yourself in good favor with your professional contacts.
Stay on topic
I posted a while back about . It's received renewed interest lately, and it had a little blip in the comment stream.
One person (who's a friend and who runs an organization I belong to) said something that was only slightly off-topic, pumping the organization I work for. And someone slammed him as unprofessional for advertising on the thread.
To stop that quickly, I left a comment that basically said, anybody else who only mentions one business might also be advertising, but that maybe we should consider another discussion about staying on-topic, since his comment about unprofessionalism was certainly off-topic as well.
Sell to new connections on first full contact
Your first opportunity to reach someone on LinkedIn is to personalize a connection request. You get about 255 characters, so there's not a whole lot of room for error. If I accept your connection (and chances are I will, unless all indications are you're a jerk), I really hope that five minutes later I don't get a message that says, "Hey, I see you do something. My company makes something that helps people like you do what they do. You should totally come check it out!"
Because that makes me not want to send you any business.
How you should approach that is to introduce yourself and ask what I do, because chances are, no matter how many times you've read my profile, you don't know exactly what I do or how I do it. You just assume you know my business.
Make me trust you first.
Personalize your request.
I feel like a broken record when I say that, but if we're connected on several other platforms, have each others' phone numbers, and occasionally have a beer together, there's no need to customize a request. But if we've met once or twice, or not at all, or only heard about each other, send a note. You wouldn't walk up to me, shake my hand, tell me your name, walk away, and consider me a good connection, would you? [If you answered yes, let's talk about that.]
What other ways are you killing it on LinkedIn?
I wanted to give a quick shoutout here to and , two Syracuse-area Twitter rock stars who co-moderate a Twitter chat called .
The chat is for community managers (and people who hate community managers, except not really). It's still in its growing stages, but in its fourth week, 126 people contributed.
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I'm learning a lot and I think contributing some useful information as well . It takes a fair bit of concentration to keep on track and to keep up, but ultimately it's definitely worth the hour each week.
Do you have any other Twitter chats worth mentioning, or that I should join in?
This comes to me from .
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"Ordinary people with extraordinary visions tell their stories of living and working together to build a better world"
—Visions of Utopia
Come together at the Westcott Community Center during the Westcott Bulb Project Garden Extravaganza Saturday, October 2 at 11 a.m. to view this award winning documentary (The Communal Studies Association's Outstanding Project Award)and take part in a panel discussion with communitarians from around Syracuse (including Bread and Roses House, Common Place Land Trust, and the New Environment Association).
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"Visions of Utopia" (94 min.) is a great way to experience a sampling of community life "up close." You can see and hear community members tell their stories in their own words.
Part One includes: Profiles of seven diverse communities. Exploration of the "glue" that holds communities together. Honest revelations about what is working and what is not. A brief history of 2500 years of shared living.
The communities featured in Part One are as follows: Ananda Village (Nevada City CA) Breitenbush Hot Springs (Detroit OR) Camphill Special School (Glenmoore PA) Earthaven (Black Mountain NC) Nyland Glossary Link Cohousing (Lafayette CO) Purple Rose (San Francisco CA) Twin Oaks (Louisa VA)
This event is part of the Westcott Garden Extravaganza which includes: Free flower bulbs (for Westcott residents), view our award-winning film, purchase fresh vegetables, flowers and handspun yarn from Daily Harvest Farm's Farmers marketwww.dailyharvestfarm.com, enjoy live music by Larry Hoyt and Friends; buy handwoven baskets from Ghana ideal for organizing your garden tools or harvesting the fruits of your labor, from Bluetree Studios, purchase a pumpkin for your child, hyacinth and allium bulbs, earth-sourced jewelry and note cards from Songs of Earth and support the WCC Kid's Club bake and perennial plant sale/fundraiser.