Branding is creating distinction, and there’s a point in a branding exercise when a company’s unique personality traits are devised. It’s as if a human being is being built—a living, breathing brand. It’s a part of the process I particularly enjoy.

While flipping through photos I’ve shot in various cities, I was drawn to images of Rome—specifically the distinctive storefront signage so abundant there. You see, I love cities. They’re the result of a massive collective endeavor, with their own unique complexities, histories and discoveries. Cities are rich in detail and no two are alike.

I was struck by the thought of how a city attains its personality without even trying. It just happens with time. In the case of Rome, its signage creates a singularly distinct and beautiful voice. I wonder how Romans would characterize their city.

As a designer, I’m drawn to this sort of detail. And I love typography. I haven’t seen anything else quite like it—in Italy or any other place.

Lack of imagination. I could leave this blog post at that and just about everyone would understand and agree, but for the sake of those who don’t necessarily like to see ideas crumble due to a lack of understanding (myself included) I’ll expand a bit.

Sean X. Cummings wrote the article “Why the QR code is failing” going into great depth on this topic explaining that most people believe the QR code to be useless, though we shouldn’t blame the QR code itself for this but rather the people implementing it. Companies love to pepper these little pixelated boxes on their billboards, posters, fliers and commercials to get you to go to their website. What’s the problem here? That it goes to their website. We can all agree it’s just the same or easier to open up your mobile browser and type in the company’s URL than to bring up the QR reader app, take a picture and wait to see if it read it correctly. There’s no added benefit and no incentive to look at a company website by these means.

What needs to happen is a bit of creativity. Connecting your QR code to something that will engage the audience and make them want to utilize this technology rather than pointing them to a business card when they know just how to find you from your advertisement anyway. Don’t make them do extra work to get to an end they’ve already met. Cummings mentions using a scavenger hunt—great! Maybe it points to a hidden video that describes something about the area they’re in and how your company has influenced it. Sustainability is big right now, right? How about pointing the code to another video explaining the process behind creating the 100% sustainable flier your audience is holding in their hand and how they can plant it in a pot of soil and flowers will grow? There are a million ideas you could come up with for QR codes that are far more engaging and useful than the surface-scratching method of attaching your website to it. Tom Fishburn of The Marketoonist (whose image we’ve used above) provides a fantastic example in his article where QR tags in New York City’s Central Park have created a rich and unique interactive experience that brings visitors closer to this historic landmark. Don’t give your audience busywork. Teach them something, reward them with something, play with them. As Plato has said “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” What better way to connect with your audience?

Did I mention there are also branding and design opportunities for these drab black and white stamps themselves?

We all hate rejection, so much so that we often put off rejecting or avoid it completely to our own detriment. But being able to say “no” when we should—in both our personal and professional dealings—is clutch.

Part of the problem is that we want to please people, not disappoint them. But consider this: While saying “no” may disappoint briefly, a delayed response or lack of one, can rouse deeper resentment and anger or worse, burn bridges. In short, taking on more than we can handle is a sure recipe for failure. It comes at a great price to our relationships, our reputations and according to the Mayo Clinic, our health and wellbeing.

In a post on this very topic, blogger Chris Brogan points out another reason we hesitate to say “no”: our fear of passing up an opportunity, even if we have no capacity to take it on.

If we can’t devote the proper time and attention, we should say so politely, firmly and expediently. David Allen, a leading expert on organizational and personal productivity, talks about keeping a “mind like water,” a practice that can help us to handle our “nos.” The burden of leaving something for later weighs on us and grows heavier the longer we put it off. Taking care of things as they arise clears our minds for what we need to get done, and more importantly, for what we actually have the bandwidth and ability to do.

This also holds true in business. A recent post on Raven Blog confirms just what’s at stake: “The honest and ethical thing to do is to pair your client with someone whose strength is a match for what the client needs. The more you force yourself into meeting all a client’s needs, the less credibility you have, and the sooner they’ll leave you. Your honest ‘no, that’s not our strength’ will give your ‘yes’ answers credibility.”

To say “no” successfully in life and at work, we should aim for the following:
Integrity—being honest about our capacity and capability to deliver what’s expected and needed
Timeliness—giving the requestor ample opportunity to find someone else who can say “yes”
Respect—showing that you value the request and the requestor
Solution mentality—recommending alternative resources or ideas that may buffer disappointment, foster good will and open up other opportunities

Simply, saying “no” at the right time and in the right way is the right thing to do. It ensures not only our sanity, but also our success and standing with others.

Why? In the workplace and marketplace, communication is key to shaping people’s thinking and behavior—from motivating employees to perform at their best to attracting and retaining loyal, profitable customers. Throughout my career, I’ve been fascinated by the power of words and images to influence, inspire and impel action.

So while showering this morning, I pondered how professional communicators, such as our firm, help companies do what they seem unable to do for themselves. In between lathering up and rinsing off, here’s what I came up with.

When communicating:
- Speak and write in plain English; don’t use jargon. And remember: Wit can be the icing on the
cake, but don’t make it the cake.
- While less is nearly always more, use as many words as needed to be clear and understood.
- The truth sets you free. It’s important to respect people’s intelligence.
- Delivering bad news “right” wins brownie points.
- Make your messages believable and defensible. Use communications to build credibility and
value, not to blow hot air.
- Align all your parts and pieces; be consistent in tone, look and manner. It takes time for people
to get to know you, let alone trust you.
- Stand for something; give your employees and customers something greater to be part of. It’s
human nature to seek a sense of purpose.
- What you say is as important as when, how and to whom you say it. Consider the timing,
vehicles and venues for your message. Most importantly, think carefully about what resonates
with and is most relevant to your audiences. Don’t waste opportunities.

Sounds easy, right? Well, more often than not, people and companies find this hard to do. The rewards, however, far outweigh the effort. Mastering your internal and external communications does matter. Today, “designed communications” is not “a nice to have.” It’s the “secret sauce” that can make the difference between success and failure.

An article, “Five Lies About Social Media Marketing,” came out a couple of days ago about some of the “erroneous assumptions” cropping up regarding how companies should use social media marketing. This got me thinking. We must continuously look at the trends to understand the rapidly evolving landscape and judge for ourselves what works best for us.

How each business uses social media varies. Ideas about the “right” way to do things are always changing. One article may tell you to target your fans’ friends on Facebook while another gives you a laundry list of “dos.”

According to other expert articles featured in such publications as PCWorld and Computerworld, new social media networks like Google+ are added to the mix all the time, battling for your attention. Understanding their impact on current and emerging social media practices and the way your business communicates is vital.

And don’t forget the blog. Here’s a great read on the “Top 5 Reasons Why Blogs Deserve Our Respect (and Are Important for Business).” Done well, blogging allows us to build awareness and our reputation, share ideas and connect meaningfully with audiences.
The bottom line is this: We should educate ourselves on the full range of opportunities and possibilities for social media. Armed with knowledge and insight, we can then make informed decisions on using ideas and practices most relevant to our goals, rather than just the newest and most novel out there.

“Since the early days of Modernism, the interplay between art and music has given considerable impetus to the development of new art forms.” And so begins Barbara Johns’ highly illuminating essay about that very interplay, although she really could have given a tip of the hat to Alex Steinweiss who passed away this week at 94. A large contributor to 20th-century audio-visual culture, he revolutionized how albums were packaged and sold by simply putting covers on them. It’s hard to imagine nowadays, where image is everything and manipulated for the hard sell, but this innovation saw massive sales increases. As Eye magazine notes, “He was just as much a pioneer of corporate branding insofar as he gave a major recording company a distinctive identity.” Alex Steinweiss changed the way people saw music, forever.

Back in 1939, those hard shellacked 78s were covered in brown, tan or green paper and in the words of Alex (how auspicious of him!), “Who the hell’s going to buy this stuff? There’s no push to it. There’s no attractiveness. There’s no sales appeal. So I told them I’d like to start designing covers.’’ And he did—thousands of them. The art of the record sleeve had been born. His eye-catching covers, initially only for Columbia Records, used stylized imagery combining motifs from folk art, art deco and cubism as well as his own hand-drawn lettering. He single-handedly started a whole new design form and industry.

His account of starting out is fascinating, even inspiring and his influence is still with us. As Art Director for Columbia, he hired Jim Flora as a commercial artist who himself defined the 1940s-50s-era jazz album cover like no other. Today’s pop surrealists/low-brow artists such as Tim Biskup, Mark Ryden, Shag, Shepard Fairey, to name but a few, can trace their artistic evolution back to the Steinweiss/Flora era. Not to mention album art began to be taken seriously in other musical genres. Where would we be without classic rock covers of Storm Thorgerson and Hipgnosis, Peter Saville’s iconic images for Joy Division and New Order or the countless sleeve designers whose visions populate so many fabulous Best of and Worst of lists alike?

The Steinweiss legacy lives on, Taschen produced a weighty retrospective and an “art-star tribute exhibition” was shown not that long ago, acknowledging that these early commercial artists created something that deserved to be enjoyed on its own terms—as fine art. In the age of intangible downloads and music-streaming, long live Alex Steinweiss—the original music image-maker.

An ongoing challenge for most companies is employee engagement. At Baker, we keep internal staff up on the latest trends in the field by aggregating the recent research available.

This year’s studies reveal:
• Steady decline in engagement and job satisfaction
• Sharpest decline among top performers
• Need for a new Employee Value Proposition to retain and re-engage key talent
• Effective communication as a driver of engagement and results
• The ROI of employee engagement being measured in various ways

Read our full research summary.

We’ve all heard it: crowdsourcing is the future. It seems to make sense, and for a capitalist like me the fundamental idea is sound… you need a service, and there are a lot of hungry people out there willing to provide it — let them fight it out, you just reap the reward. You spend the least amount possible and receive the maximum reward for that. We could have all kinds of warm, emotional conversations about the “right” or “wrong” of that, but the truth is that it’s really just a numbers game… everyone, whether they admit it or not, wants the maximum reward for the minimum expenditure.

But while the individual reward of such an approach certainly seems clear, from a macro perspective there are all kinds of things that are wrong with this approach. First of all, the truth is that cheaper and better rarely go hand-in-hand. There is a reason why things that are exceptional are rare… the best of anything is inevitably in a minority. And while there are certainly times where this approach is valuable — say for example when trying to find the best price on toothpaste, where we know for certain that the product we’re buying is exactly the same wherever we buy it — we rarely employ it on things that are important to us, and where the outcome is dependent on the effort of the individuals providing the service.

Additionally, the net effect of contributing to such a system is that you have manipulated market forces downword. And while that may not matter to you in the short term, in the long term it means that the service which you’ve effectively said, “has little value to me” will lose the efforts of those that are exceptional. What the system will be left with is everyone else… those with enough free time to do anything you want for the slim potential of “winning” your attention. And for those contributing to this ever-declining system that are good at what they do, have proven to be short sighted: for the opportunity of one, very small reward, they have driven the price of what they aspire to do for a living drastically down. Good luck trying to make a living doing that.

So the question is, are there situations where paying more is worthwhile? Absolutely. When you’re sick, you don’t put an ad out for a doctor and take the lowest bidder. And even when given the option of using a med student over a doctor with years of experience, people will generally choose the doctor with more experience. When choosing someone to take care of your kids, you wouldn’t think to ask hundreds to apply and then select the lowest bidder and the most superficially attractive option. When you hire a contractor, you don’t hire the one desperate for your work and willing to take many times less than any professional would. So what do these things have in common? That the amount you are willing to spend is directly proportional to how important it is to you.

So since we’re designers here, let’s cut right to the chase and talk about something near and dear to our hearts: branding. Why not crowdsource your brand? Or at the very least, your logo? We could have all kinds of discussions about how you just may get a great result from this process… hundreds of options to choose from for less than you spent at Starbucks last month, or on your new smartphone. Yes, it’s possible… you may be able to channel your inner brand savant and find the one logo that seems to capture exactly who you thought your company was, taking into account the story of who you were, are and want to be, current design trends and fads, the challenges of creating a logo that works in print, web and video, the multiple instances necessary for multiple color and b&w scenarios, the potential evolution of the mark and finally, of course, how it reinforces and informs your larger brand initiative. And if you don’t, what’s the big loss… you didn’t pay that much for it anyway.

But a brand is built from the moment it first appears in the world. From that singular moment, you are being judged… not just by your potential customers, but by everyone. Designers, reviewers, politicians, investors, and of course, your competition. And I assure you, what your 99designs logo says about you is that I do not care about my brand. I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on commercial-grade video equipment for my lobby, but I don’t care what you put on it. I’ve spent millions of dollars on advertising space in the Wall Street Journal, but it doesn’t matter what I say or show. And many people may agree with you, but the people that really matter won’t.

Think about the brands that stand out to you, the brands that are most successful. Apple, Nike, BMW, IBM. None of these brands were created through crowdsourcing. They were part of one very organized, very coordinated branding initiative, that was executed exceptionally well, across all media, over many, many years. And while someone may one day achieve such a thing through crowdsourcing (highly unlikely, unless the crowdsourcing of the components themselves was orchestrated by one very skilled individual or individuals), that magical case study will be the exception, not the rule.

There are certainly valuable things about the crowdsourcing model. Let’s say you’re a small business, just starting out and leveraging your credit cards to make ends meet while you wait for that “one big break.” Crowdsourcing is perfect for you. What if you’re starting a new career — maybe you’re a consultant or you’ve just started your own contracting business, and you feel like a logo will help you feel committed to your project, give you something to rally behind. Great, do it! This is a perfect use of this new, inexpensive resource. Use the model and the system.

But when you succeed, then pay someone appropriately to help you intelligently develop your brand. There is an expertise required to fully realize a brand that very few have. And the efforts of those few are valuable, as they should be. Your brand, from the moment it is created, is a living thing… it does not rest, it does not sleep, it is a constant in a sea of change, even as it changes the world around it. It is who you are, and who you aspire to be… and that my friends, is not a responsibility that belongs with the lowest possible bidder.

A picture is worth a thousand words, but music says what words can’t. In the world of branding, where visuals and messages are engineered to jump out and grab your attention, it’s the one thing that (if done right) goes unnoticed—at least at a conscious level. Then, how important is music to a brand if it goes by without recognition? It can make the difference between simply looking at a picture and actually feeling emotionally connected to what that image evokes in your mind and heart. And isn’t that what brands ultimately want to do? They want to share memorable stories that move, motivate, persuade or inspire. To do so effectively, brands need to engage their audiences at an emotional level. And to make this connection, brands can utilize a powerful tool—one that has crossed every divide since human existence: music.

Music, though, is a delicate animal. Mishandled, it can very easily turn what had the potential to be a great message into an emetic. A good strategy for composing music for a brand is subtlety. Music enhances and enriches the brand voice and message, rather than drowns them out. When composing music for a brand, you need the right instrumentation to express its personality and spirit and to advance the narrative. The composition needs to have an underlying theme of which the various groups of instruments can play off in ways that draw in and captivate your audience. Think of how John Williams varied the theme throughout Jurassic Park to fit the mood on screen.

The most important thing about creating music for a brand is that you think about how you use it to bring your brand to life. If you do, you can make a real and lasting emotional connection that wins your audiences’ hearts and minds. If you have any doubts, take it from Conan.

It’s a loaded question. It can mean anything from the straightforward, “What product or service do you sell to make money?” to the more existential, “Why are you here?” And so many companies and the people who work for them, especially in the service industry, don’t have answers that provide much clarity. We often answer to satisfy ourselves, not the needs of our target audiences.

Don’t say anything, but don’t say everything.
When “answering” the question, the first thing to remember is, you don’t need to say everything. The question – and its rejoinder – is the start of a conversation, complete with opportunities for more questions and an exchange of deeper information (and understanding). Some other tips …

One description for all audiences.
Imagine you’re speaking to a key target audience member when describing what your company does, but you don’t know who. It could be a job seeker, media member, shareholder or client prospect. The general company description needs to be the same, and convey meaning to all important stakeholders.

Benchmark yourself, and then stop benchmarking.
Know how competitors talk about themselves, and don’t mimic their language. Ultimately, however, you need to look inward to answer who you are, what you do and why.

Sanity check.
Ask the following questions to evaluate your description:

There is no secret sauce, but my own preference is for descriptions to be simple, single-minded, and jargon-free. You get it. It’s not difficult for people in your firm to speak it and those outside your firm to understand it. Why is this important? A person can always learn more with follow up, but if you don’t give them enough to sense what it is they want to know more about — you might just lose them right there.