White space is typically a term used in graphic design that means the space between elements in a composition. It’s often the mark of simple, clean, and clear design.

The past month we’ve looked at white space in new ways.

In “White Space (Part 1)” we note, as did Da Vinci, that “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Often complex ideas can be best explained by using metaphors or examples. By utilizing these techniques, we can all bring a greater understanding to what we do.

“White Space (Part 2)” looks at how the internet is creating another sort of white space. By having multitudes of information always available when we search for it, we can relax, clear our brains, and be ok with decentralized knowledge.

All of these approaches to white space lead to a hopeful reality for our emerging world:

Great ideas will win.

This is largely due to the technological changes happening right now, in real time. The internet is redefining “authority”.

Culturally, the playing field is leveling. It’s less about how much influence you can buy and more about how much influence you can earn. It’s about how good your ideas are and, of course, how well you communicate them.

Here’s why:

1. We’re in an opt-in world. Increasingly, we only consume the information and media that we want to. We self-select the influences we want to have and so we care more about what those people and brands say. Time-shifiting products like TiVo, DVRs, podcasts, other on-demand services, and even Google itself, mean that we get what we want when we want it. The role of interruption-based messages (like traditional advertising) is changing drastically.
2. Communities are evolving, and they’re going online. Instead of turning to big media outlets to tell us what’s happening and what’s cool, we are looking more and more to our hand-picked communities (or, as Seth Godin calls them, “tribes”). These tribes are developing online where we can create and digest tons of content, stay in touch with more people than ever, and essentially leverage our time, our expertise, and the value bring to the table.
3. All media is becoming “social media”. This means that we can engage with and/or contribute to the messages we consume like never before. Walls are down. Gatekeepers are dead. Ideas can spread with the click of a mouse or cell phone button. For example, if one of your Twitter messages is “retweeted” by a few folks and again retweeted by some of their friends, you’ve reached an audience of thousands within seconds. We have more potential for influence and power than ever before.

The real question is, what are we going to do with it?
Brody

P.S. A great example of this whole concept is that in a matter of days, over 1,000 people signed to participate 40 Days of Water, a Blood:Water Mission campaign to bring clean water to our neighbors in Africa. In the 2 days after launch, about 10,000 people had visited the special website dedicated to the campaign. All of this happened almost exclusively through social media and word of mouth. It’s incredible.

Wordswell had the privilege of building the website and software application that is supporting this campaign. You can sign up to participate by making water your only beverage for 40 days. Otherwise, if you’d like to donate to the cause, visit my profile page at http://40Days.bloodwatermission.com/brodybond.

Mike Metzger of The Clapham Institute writes a weekly must-read piece called the Clapham Commentary.

Mike will often talk about the concept of “ordering your loves.” Let me explain how I understand the idea:

Imagine you have these 3 ideas, goals, or let’s call them “loves”: vacation, money, and time at home. Let’s first note that none of those things are intrinsically bad (or good).

If you love vacation more than than you love time at home, that will directly affect how you plan your year. Just because you love vacation more than time at home doesn’t mean you’ll never be home. Rather, one priority informs the other, and in this case, you’ll be heading to the beach!

Now, let’s say you love money more than vacation. All of a sudden, there is a different and higher priority that informs your decision making. Now, though you love vacation more than time at home, you may actually be more inclined to stay at home so that you can save money. It’s a worthy sacrifice because you’re responding to a greater love.

Here’s the twist: let’s say you love your family more than you love money. Now what do you do? Which is more critical to the success of that even-greater love: vacation or staying at home (or saving money)? Moreover, what is a greater love than even your family? Your career? God? The environment?

There isn’t an answer. But there is a guiding principle: How you order your loves will directly affect the decisions you make.

What does your organization love? What are the order of those loves? What hills do you die on – and in what order?

Do your customers care about knowing those things? Absolutely.

Go tell them,

brody

P.S. Wordswell is looking for a research intern.

There’s an oft-quoted piece of advice that sometimes rubs me the wrong way: “Live everyday as though it were your last.”

To me, that can be short-sighted, selfish, hedonistic, uncharitable, rude, or opportunistic. There are certainly times when we shouldn’t throw it to the wind. We should often take care to live today like there is a tomorrow – so that tomorrow is all it can be.

The implications for your organization and it’s brand development are strong. Simply, a business cannot think only of the present if they are interested in building a brand. A brand says, “we’re here, today, tomorrow, or whenever you need us, ready to serve you and meet your needs.” A brand’s marketing and advertising needs to communicate that.

The opposite of a brand is a commodity that screams, “Sale! Today only! Call us now! We are awesome! Your opportunity (and our success) lives or dies right now!” Those businesses take advantage of their customers.

And they don’t build trust. Hurried messages can’t make the type of promises that you can deliver on over and over again. A brand is a promise. And, without a concerted effort to build a brand, it becomes difficult for people to become advocates and fans of who you are.

All of this is directly tied to the religious significance of this season:

Hanukkah is a holiday that celebrates longevity. Consecrated oil that was thought to only be able to burn for one day miraculously burned for eight days.

Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, whose very coming was predicated on God’s desire to redeem the world so that people could live forever with Him.

Right on the cusp of every new year we are reminded of what endures. Does your organization – does your brand – follow the theme of that song?

Joy to the world,

brody

So says my wife’s brother who lives with us.

Certainly, my wife and I are not going to have deep conversation nor get cuddly while he’s around, right? He has a limited perspective of how we spend our time.

The problem is that his limited perspective creates his entire framework for how he sees our marriage. It’s arrogant.

And we all do it.

We so often use our limited perspective to give us our entire framework of looking at something. Like my brother-in-law, we let our perceptions of something project realities that aren’t always true. We are all arrogant.

This happens in business all the time. The limited (and jargon-laden) perspective of a business owner will often provide the entire framework for how that organization communicates with their prospects and customers. The message will be about the company, in the language of the company, and about things that the company cares about.

But remember: marketing and advertising are not about you. Each ought to be used to serve your audience. Messages should be about your customer, in the language of your customer, and about the things your customer cares about.

At Wordswell, we define brand development as “telling the truth about who you are – quicker.” It’s a process that requires humility. Only when we are humble can we speak someone else’s language. Any only then can we convey real meaning.

How do we meaningfully communicate the truth about something (e.g. our organizations)? 1) Realize our perspectives are limited. 2) Listen.

Ya hear?

brody

P.S. The best advertising merely echoes that which people are already saying about you. Research is a key element of brand development. That’s why Wordswell helps our clients research what they should say before they say it. When we interview your clients to see why they love you, you get invaluable information about your brand. (And, along the way, you get some huge customer service points with your audience.)

Listen to all those “bad” notes.

They are exactly the reason this experiment was a success.

And they are exactly how to get people to walk up your staircase.

Because if people are hitting bad notes it means that they are allowed to hit bad notes. And if they’re allowed to hit bad notes, then they have freedom. And if they have freedom, then they can choose to contribute. And once they contribute to something, then they are vested in it.

And if someone is vested in you, your history is changed.

None of this happens if you stay in control. How do you give up control? Enable your customers to be creators, sharers, collaborators, lovers, fools, fans, advocates. To put it another way, let them be themselves. Just make sure you’re a valuable part of the conversation along the way.

Practically speaking, what can you do? Make your content accessible. Allow comments on your blog. Respond. Give away secrets. Tweet. Ask for advice from your clients. Post that ridiculous photo. Put down your defenses. Talk about what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. Don’t just give the polished impression of yourself. Give the transparent one.

And follow it up with engagement. Prove you’re listening. This is a fundamental shift in the way most “marketing” has happened in the past.

The days of control are over.

The days of inspiration are here. Better start getting more creative… and more humble. Why? Because people have more options than ever. We are all more likely to be commodities. Most of us are staircases. Some of us are cool, flashy escalators. Few of us have the courage to let people walk all over us by turning ourselves into instruments.

But if you believe in what you’re doing in the world, if you believe your product or service makes a difference, isn’t that exactly what you want people to be doing? It’s the only way you can earn the right to be heard and gain influence. Why? So you can be the staircase that guides your clients to the light of day.

Inspire,

brody

P.S. If people are going to use your staircase for all its worth (and give you their time or their money along the way), they must be delighted to do so. There is no delight without surprise. It is incumbent upon us, not the pedestrians, to make our staircases surprising. That’s why Wordswell asks our clients to take risks. We help you create surprise. Wanna start 2010 well? Jump. We can push you if you need it.

The conclusion? Metzger writes, “People tend to conform to social customs, or what others call peer pressure. When people discover what most of their peers are already doing, they’re more likely to begin doing it themselves.” (Emphasis mine.) When there is “social proof” that something is a good idea, more people hop on the bandwaggon.

So how can you get your customers socially proving that other people should spend their time or money with you?

First of all, we need to understand that people have an unprecedented number of options when it comes to finding the goods and services they want. Additionally, the providers of goods and services now have new and innumerable ways of communicating about their brand. Both are largely the result of the forces of the internet.

In light of this, brands and organizations need to start adopting tribe mentalities. Meaning, your best chance at success is through ever-expanding influence. For more info on tribes and marketing, google Seth Godin.

In a tribe mentality, you as the leader (the brand that people love) need to create your own cultural norms, customs, and even your own language. These all contribute to a shared experience amongst your fans and members – and they create the dynamic that is the tribe. Metzger puts it this way, “People tend to convert to what their surrounding culture tells them is normative.”

Never before has this been so important, and never before have there been so many tools to do this. Social media is a key set of tools you can be strategically using to create your own normative culture. Social media is the easiest and fastest way for you to gain social proof that you’re worth the attention of others.

Make sure that you are creating customer experiences that make them want to vouch for you. Once you do that, make sure you’re helping to create venues where they can share their experience. The tools exist. Ever hear of a “re-tweet”?

What’s Foursquare?

Basically, every time you go somewhere – your favorite restaurant, coffee shop, office, gym, appointment (anywhere that’s a destination) – you “check in” as being there. Typically, this works best with a GPS-enabled mobile device like an iPhone.

For instance, last night a friend, my wife, and I go out to dinner at Holy Frijoles, a Mexican restaurant in Hampden, Baltimore. When we get there, I launch Foursquare on my iPhone, it locates my position, and gives some probable options for where I am. I check in at Holy Frijoles, and voilà, the world knows where I am:

“I’m at Holy Frijoles (908 W 36th St, @ Elm Ave, Baltimore). http://bit.ly/3QuNYy“

Of course, my friends on Foursquare get notified about this (often through a text message, if they have that feature turned on). But my Foursquare updates are linked to my Twitter account. My Twitter updates are linked to my Facebook account. Soon, and through a one-click process, I’ve told my entire circle of influence where I am.

Great… another tool for over-sharing, right? Not so fast…

What happens if I went to Holy Frijoles every week? What happens if I went there so often that Foursquare claimed that I was the “Mayor” of Holy Frijoles? What happens if someone else wanted to chase that crown and started eating there more? What happens if I was proud of my position and started eating there even more to keep my title?

What happens if there was an incentive for the Mayor of Holy Frijoles? You’d be surprized what I’d do for a free margarita.

Meanwhile, everytime we’re “checking in” at Holy Frijoles, we’re personally vouching for that brand visibly through our entire networks on Foursqure, Twitter, and Facebook. Talk about word-of-mouth advertising (the free kind). Wow!

But what’s this whole business about being a “Mayor”? Basically, Foursquare keeps track of what you do, when you do it, etc. There are different point values you earn by doing certain tasks. For instance, if you go to a gym enough times in a month, you earn the badge “Gym Rat”. If you go to you gym enough, you’ll soon be the Mayor of the gym. For more information on this points system, Mayors, and badges, check out Foursquare’s web site.

Foursquare is a developing platform. The number of titles and badges available to earn is certain to grow. It’s a game. But it can be played (and won) by anyone – including your customers.

Now the question is, how is your organization going to become a prize?

Wordswell can help you coordinate a plan Foursquare for your business as part of a larger social media strategy. Drop us a line any time.

Let’s describe this tree. It’s:

• Different
• Evergreen, long-lasting
• Serving those who use it
• Easy to tell if you want to use it
• Easy to find when being sought for
• Strong under the weight of much use
• Attractive (in content, purpose, and aesthetic)
• What else? Share your comments on what differentiates this tree.

I just need a website…

The funny thing is how little thought has gone into what the purpose of the website is before the process begins. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised; I don’t think much about a lot of things that are probably very important but aren’t a focus of my time.

The truth is that Wordswell’s initial client meeting (“the Storyboard” meeting) is spent asking hundreds of questions to help our clients narrow their and focus and determine exactly what they want to accomplish on the web. These questions usually have very little to do with the web itself. It normally has to do with our clients customers, their business, and their market. It is uniquely focused on our “client’s client”.

We are big fans of questions. Seth Godin is also (and we’re big fans of Seth’s). Check out his questions to ask before starting a web project.

If you need help figuring out the right questions to ask before you embark on your new web project give us a holler at 443.804.0108.

Sean Silverthorne wrote “Understanding Users of Social Networks” for the Harvard Business Review. He profiles the research of Harvard Business School professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski who has years of online social media research under his belt.

Here’s our summary and comment:

•”Online social networks are most useful when they address real failures in the operation of offline networks” So says Piskorski. How do you know what lots of your friends are doing? How do lots of your friends know what you are doing? How can you search for real-time information on a topic? REMEMBER: Google is NOT real-time. How can you have a real relationship with someone without having to commit significant time or resources to make it valuable? There are TONS of ways social media allows us to leverage to achieve what was once impossible. This doesn’t mean that all those achievements are good things. But the more tools we have the better – we are only limited by our imagination and ethics.

Would you offer some more “How could you ________ without social media?” ideas in the comments?

•Pictures are huge in social media platforms. According to this study, 70% of actions in online social communities (except for Twitter) are related to looking at photos. So, reader, how are you going to get more photos associated with how people connect with your brand?

•Myspace? Yes, it still has 70 million folks logging in every month. But this is interesting: “MySpace has a PR problem because its users are in places where they don’t have much contact with people who create news that gets read by others. Other than that, there is really no difference between users of Facebook and MySpace, except they are poorer on MySpace.”

•Social Media must turn to Social Strategy. A couple quick points here. People don’t tend to click on many ads presented in social networks. Further, you shouldn’t expect folks to just use social networks as a way to find a way to click through to your website. What should your brand do in social media? It goes back to point 1: solve failures found in the “real” off-line social world. Do you have customer service issues? A tough time connecting with your clients? Following up after a sale? Market research?

What it is for you?

You’ve heard that social media is all about “engagement” – and it certainly is. But it is also about serving your clients. More about that in a later post…

Here’s our summary and comment:

•Perceptions Matter (!). Perceptions are tied to perceived value. Further, people are going to be more inclined to enjoy/use their investment when they value them more. In so doing, that creates even more value. Creating the perception of value is emotional.

Case in point: When you lay down $100 for a date at Swanky Inn, you are going to eat slower and enjoy your time differently than your date to McDonalds. This is even if the salad you order is exactly the same salad.

I’m not saying that the nice place can or should serve a crappy salad and charge more for it. I’m only talking about perception – and you know as well as I do that you’d be willing to pay more for that salad at a different locale.

•Brands are born from customer experience. Therefore, create the experience that lives up to the prices you charge. You ought to deliver a better product/service for more money. But, again, regarding only perception, you client experience better kick ass if you want to charge more for what you do (especially if you are delivering a better product).

In the article, Derek identified two means to affect customer experience: meaningful customer service and customer interactivity. This interactivity should show your intention to invest in your customers and assure them that they each have a face.

•Brands get communicated with words. You’ve gotta choose the right ones that evoke the right emotions. Is your restaurant a “bar and grille” or an “inn”. With every ounce of how your brand communicates you are instructing (or not instructing) your customer how to engage with and best enjoy your product or service.

If your words can tell someone how to best use your product, you’re serving them, which, in turn, serves you. Outback Steakhouse tells people to say, “Let’s go Outback tonight”. Outback then becomes an “every day” option for eating out. But that is only so because they have let us know that they are; they have created the expectation that their price, their speed of service, and their entire experience works on a whim.

Brands make promises. Deliver on them. Set the right expectations with the words you use. And this becomes especially true when your setting an expectation on PRICE. If your brand’s price perception isn’t aligned, you’ll have a lot of confused customers (who aren’t willing to spend much).

It’s an idea that would help people remember you, and it’s an idea that would encourage me to eat at your place more often. Read for it? Here it is:

Below the sign that says “All employees must wash their hands before returning to work” you should install another sign. This sign would say “… Not that we would hire anyone who needs to be reminded of this.”

Everytime I see a “wash your hands sign” I’m not thinking, “Sweet! The people here are clean!” I’m thinking “Crap! The people here are idiots.” Yes, I know the sign is required by law, but still… it’s gives me the creeps.

Control the signals and you control the perceptions.
Control the perceptions and you control the conclusions.
Control the conclusions and persuasion is accomplished.

The end: What do you want to persuade people to do or to think?

The beginning: What signals are you sending?

Chris wrote a post today called “What Makes a Community?” and it echoed thoughts of my own. Recommended reading.

One thing I took away from his article is that the necessary conditions for building community are also true for building brands. As you are building your brand, Chris’s ideas about community might serve as inspiration. They did for me. Here’s the summary recap of Chris’s thoughts (my comments in italics):

A community needs a leader. That’s you, business owner, CEO, pastor, president. There is no brand if you don’t act. Need help aligning your vision and your action?

A community needs friends AND enemies. There is no inclusion without exclusion. You want fans (short for “fanatics”), not a lot of people who just think you’re ok. Do your ads annoy people? Good. They’re listening. If you are afraid of having enemies, you can’t have a brand. Do you think Starbucks is Starbucks because everyone likes them? No. Their brand has attracted friends of Starbucks – and enemies.

A strong community needs long-term commitment. That’s why you build a brand – to get commitment. It starts with your commitment to your audience and that commitment never stops. You must earn their commitment to you along the way. As you keep delivering on the promise that is your brand, as you keep adding value to the lives of your audience, you will have your own community – that you lead – that has long-term commitment.

A community needs its own language. YES YES YES! This point cannot be understated. My best friends and I communicate in a way that no one else understands. The world’s people-groups are organized by language. Certainly, you need to be clear about who you are and what you do in this world. BUT, if you develop a language that you use with your clients exclusively, and they use with you exclusively, you have built a community. The person that orders an iced-quad-venti-whole-milk-caramel-macchiato isn’t crazy. They’ve experienced love, commitment, and a language from a brand – and they are making that brand very rich in the meantime.

A community needs to actively (and carefully) solicit other members. Don’t grow too fast. Not everyone is a good client. Your brand’s integrity is worth more than your bottom line this year.

A community built on hope is stronger than one built on fear. Sales and discounts don’t build brands. Do you want people to BUY FROM YOU RIGHT NOW!!! or know that you’ll be there tomorrow and the day after that, ready to take care of them when they need what you have to offer? Your brand is strong when people think of you when they have a need that you fulfill.

Maybe it’s not that “the principles of building community are the same principles of building a brand.”

Maybe it is that brand-building and community-building are the same thing.

What do you think?

What it said

•Twitter and Facebook are useful in corporate branding. But they are different platforms. Users and marketers need to understand each separately.

•Twitter and Facebook “enable organizations to learn about what people are thinking and saying and doing about their brands, and about life in general.” Listening is the first step in engaging social media. Better understanding of need means better understanding of how to meet that need.

•Through these social media platforms, brands are able to get close to customers. This enhances customers’ experiences with brands.

•Companies have been able to offer customer service and put out fires because of information gleaned through social media.

•Virgin Atlantic “uses Twitter to alert passengers of flight delays and other negative events. It also tweets about positive goings on, such as special travel promotions.”

•There is a “power of Twitter to get people to self assemble and become impromptu, impassioned marketing machines.”

Our take

Social media empowers conversations between companies and the people they serve. You should figure out how to take advantage of this. Wordswell can help.

It’s not a junk yard, it’s a parts garden.

Take a look at their website:

Crazy Rays

Here’s the copy from their home page. It should be their radio ad.

“A car-enthusiast friend once said, “It’s a parts garden, not a junkyard.” Graceful words for an auto scrap yard. But as anyone who’s called a dealership for a replacement window or radiator can attest, car parts are mighty pricey. And if you’re cheap and drive old cars, like we do, salvage yards are the places to go. That in mind, the best parts garden around is Crazy Ray’s, the kind of scrap yard you have to explore yourself–they don’t log every vehicle towed into their gates. Pick a location–there’s a yard off Pulaski Highway on the east side and another off Washington Boulevard southwest of town, in Jessup. You pay your buck to get in (paradise has its price), lug in your toolbox, and set out to find that radiator (all radiators, $40), windshield (all windshields, $50, and they pull it for you), or, if you’re a true motorhead, a full engine ($150). Mercedes Benzes and Escorts alike are jammed together, Jaguars ignobly gutted, and an iron curtain of crushed cars surrounds the lot. It’s not for the timid or those uncomfortable with grease, mud, and weeds, but Crazy Ray’s is a godsend for folks who don’t mind getting a little dirty to save some money. For the rest, the dealership parts counter will be glad to take your money.”

Don’t you want to go to Crazy Ray’s?

Don’t you want your message to sound like that?

Write with creativity, honesty, story, and courage. All you have to lose is the interest of your reader.

Step 1: Include the 20 Words to Get Your Email Marked as Spam.

Step 2: Blind carbon copy (Bcc:) as many people as possible.

Step 3: Write in all caps. If you want to be a varsity-level spam creator, type some of the 20 Words in all caps.

Step 4: Attach large images and files. Use HTML tags not meant for email.

Step 5: Don’t honor opt-out requests.

Are you interested in good email marketing?

Wordswell can help you send emails that:

• bust through spam filters
• look great
• offer measuring tools such as open rates, click-through rates, and forward rates
• are easy for you to manage

Here are some more short pieces you should read:
•An Intro to Email Marketing
•Features of Our Email System
•What Makes Our Email Services Unique?

If you’d like a free demo of how all this works, please call me at 443-804-0108.

Can spam,
brody

only matters if it has

INFLUENCE

only matters if it has a

VOICE

only matters if it adds

VALUE

only matters if it offers good

CONTENT

only matters if people can

FIND IT.

Message Creation isn’t just about getting you a website, logo, or brochure.

With Message Creation you bring into focus the value you offer your audience, establish your voice in a crowded world, earn the right to have influence, and deliver on the promise that is your brand.

Wordswell helps our clients do this. And we offer production leadership and creative consulting when it comes time to create your identity, website, email campaign, film, etc.

Need help?
brody

As customers/deciders, we need brands to help us make our decisions. We buy based on our emotional attachment to a brand.

Quick Thoughts
Ideas about branding are vast, but take these to the bank. Your brand is:

• greater than the sum of its parts: Every aspect of your organization is your brand. Your brand is not just your colors and logo. These merely serve as visual cues to help customers remember your true brand and differentiate you. Instead, the way your employees act, the way you answer your phones, the cleanliness of your restrooms, your perceived value – that’s your promise, your brand.

• personal: In addition to “buying billboards”, brands are now having conversations. Technology and social media are opening the doors here. More than ever, brands have personalities like people, and we are asking, “Is he reliable? Is he authentic?”

• foundational: Your brand drives everything you do as an organization, internally and externally. It informs hiring, pricing, decor, and management. And it is certainly the base for all communication, PR, and marketing.

• a promise.

Before you spend another day and another dime on “marketing” yourself, take a look at your brand. Wordswell can help if you need it.

Don’t be a commodity,
Brody

Comments, stories, or advice? Please share!>>

As the speed of all our transactions increases, we need fast ways of transmitting information about ourselves without losing authenticity; we have less and less time to make our mark in other, more leisurely ways of knowing. Style, like a perfectly fitting book jacket, evokes the substance within by way of the surface. It makes an authentic visual impression, is a memorable mark of identity in a world that otherwise strips people of identity. There was a time when style was a luxury. Today it is a necessity. …

In the end, style is fundamentally democratic. It assumes every person has the potential to create a unique identity and express it through grooming and a few well-chosen clothes. Yet style is also aristocratic. It sets apart those who have it from those whose dress is merely utilitarian. …

Whatever else it is, style is optimism made visible. Style presumes that you are a person of interest, that the world is a place of interest, that life is worth making the effort for.

That’s brilliant, and it has everything to do with how you build your brand.

Converting Prospects to Buyers
Ultimately, when a person makes a particular decision it comes down to one moment in time. It’s a window of a few seconds. You gotta be in that window! Some ideas and suggestions will be in the next Communiqué. But you can always call us for specific advice.

Glances are fleeting,
Brody

Comments, stories, or advice? Please share!>>