tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-123792692009-07-09T08:29:55.244-07:00The very latest news and muse about the world of branding, advertising, creativity, communications, technology, viral marketing, and recruitment. Also occasionally includes the euphoria and despair of building a successful communications "boutique".JODYnoreply@blogger.comBlogger252125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-58827085999975892582009-07-09T08:28:00.001-07:002009-07-09T08:29:08.246-07:00

INTERNAL/EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATIONS= WHERE DOES IT FALL UNDER YOUR ORG CHART?(trends)

JODYnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-1990128082872328212009-07-08T12:02:00.000-07:002009-07-08T12:05:45.468-07:00

On a business trip to LA last year, I found myself in the unusual state of having some free time. I sat down at an outdoor table at a pub on the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica. As I sipped my beer, I noticed a group of 10 teenagers hanging out on the street. They walked up and down the block aimlessly – each kid being very careful not to get separated from the group. They looked like a

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04444808368736779996geoffrey.director@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-18644307620404904082009-07-02T11:39:00.001-07:002009-07-02T12:00:51.541-07:00

I like to think of an organization's Careers Site as a way to engage prospective talent and offer a window into their culture and business practices. So it doesn't surprise me to read in today's WSJ that more companies are reducing their reliance on job boards. Instead, they have enhanced their own career website as part of a larger strategy to boost brand awareness and compete for the best

JODYnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-24052879292889213832009-06-25T12:41:00.000-07:002009-06-25T12:42:50.816-07:00

At the end of my last post, I casually threw out the idea that people relate to people not organizations, and accordingly, organizations must take on a personality of their own or risk being perceived as ordinary. But why is this the case?Because personification is how humans go about understanding inanimate objects. We tend to personify things that we feel the need to have an emotional bond with

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04444808368736779996geoffrey.director@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-41932210419593586372009-06-19T13:12:00.000-07:002009-06-19T13:19:36.779-07:00

JODYnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-66542324007625299652009-06-17T08:57:00.000-07:002009-06-17T08:59:48.464-07:00

My last post, regarding using stories to inspire movements by creating dissonance in people’s minds, created a lot of commentary. Here’s what I’ve heard:"How exactly do you create the uncertainty that makes for a provocative moral? Why does uncertainty make people act? Perhaps this can work for a social movement, but not for an organization."I think it’s time for a case study.There is one story,

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04444808368736779996geoffrey.director@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-52714340505922137282009-06-13T05:21:00.000-07:002009-06-14T07:11:27.529-07:00

Recruiting on Social Networks- Take the pollI took my recent Social Recruiting presentation out from the virtual closet to freshen it up, since I'll be presenting it again on June 23.As it turned out, I really didn't have much to update.Surfing to see if there was anything new I may have missed over the past few months, I came across the newly released Arbita-Recruitment-Genome-Report. According

JODYnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-37735592417096393842009-06-10T08:15:00.000-07:002009-06-10T14:35:36.073-07:00

In my last post, I began to discuss the importance of storytelling in turning a cause into a social movement. Movements use stories to instigate action, not just attention. So how can we use stories to transform passive donors into engaged activists? There’s a formula. This is part 1.The 4 basic components of a story are: a setting, characters, a plot, and a moral. The setting and characters are

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04444808368736779996geoffrey.director@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-84927899241389383672009-06-07T18:52:00.001-07:002009-06-07T18:53:32.608-07:00

From the Financial Times and then to Bruce and onto me and the world:Ernst & Young’s “Your World Your Vision” campus competition, which asked college students to submit proposals for education and environment community projects, made quite an impact on Samantha Ma, a new graduate of theUniversity of Calgary . “[It] was attention grabbing, and it made me think, ‘This is definitely the firm for me

JODYnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-75730955254839828982009-05-27T13:19:00.000-07:002009-05-27T13:22:48.244-07:00

You may have seen this photograph before…it’s one of the most famous of the 20th Century and certainly of the Vietnam War. Aside from sheer terror captured by the photographer (Nick Ut), it’s the story behind the photo that propelled this image to infamy.The naked, screaming girl is Phan Thị Kim Phúc. American and South Vietnamese pilots had just finished bombing her town and had mistaken her and

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04444808368736779996geoffrey.director@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-180064009789432822009-05-20T13:18:00.000-07:002009-05-20T13:56:18.017-07:00

In my last post, I discussed one of the ways to create a culture around a cause. A concrete mission can energize a community, but it’s only the first step. The key to creating a movement with staying power (one that is magnetic enough to have people seeking you rather than the opposite) is brand.This term gets thrown around excessively so let me explain exactly what I mean. In essence, brand

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04444808368736779996geoffrey.director@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-24728395487959975222009-05-13T09:11:00.001-07:002009-05-13T09:13:09.705-07:00

In the midst of the space race in the 1960’s, president Kennedy was given a tour of the NASA facilities. Along the way he encountered a janitor and asked the man, “what do you do here?” The man replied without hesitation: “I’m putting a man on the moon.”The beauty of this story is not merely in the unity-of-purpose that NASA exhibited, but also in the clarity and simplicity of that purpose. The

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04444808368736779996geoffrey.director@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-74195644171572930762009-05-12T12:20:00.001-07:002009-05-13T07:20:58.138-07:00

We just found this on You Tube and it made us laugh.

JODYnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-64018516311387923332009-05-09T06:37:00.000-07:002009-05-09T06:52:29.631-07:00

Don’t Derail your Best Source of External Hires: 5 Surefire ways to screw up your Employee Referral Program It’s no surprise that CareerXroads’ 8th Annual Source of Hire Study finds Employee Referrals are the best, most cost effective sources of external hires. I was surprised to learn that 31% of the 45 participating companies (all with 5000+ employees) claimed to make 1 hire for every 1-4

JODYnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-72051763083389030462009-05-06T08:11:00.000-07:002009-05-06T08:42:33.860-07:00

Empathy is as much a core human emotion as is greed, so why is it that companies seem to have an easier time creating a loyal following for their products than NPO’s do for their causes? If people can “identify” with plastic clogs or “seven layer nachos” then they can identify with juvenile diabetes or scholarship funds...right?If a brand can start a social movement by uniting people around the

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04444808368736779996geoffrey.director@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-90436828231961760682009-05-02T05:24:00.001-07:002009-05-02T06:10:39.564-07:00

Armed Forces go SocialFor Lt. Gen. Benjamin Freakley and other Army brass, a new era has brought a new language — and new tools like online social networks Twitter and Facebook — for seeking out young recruits and spreading the military's message.Showing off the videos during an interview at his office at Fort Monroe, Freakley said some of the questions were surprising: Can I have a dog in the

JODYnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-53833481787279755332009-04-29T10:34:00.000-07:002009-04-29T10:54:53.635-07:00

Since joining BRANDEMiX a few months ago as the senior brand planner I’ve become keenly aware of the way in which successful brands create culture. From inside to out these brands rally people around a set of values and a common purpose...similar to the way a social movement functions. By looking at how social movements work we can better understand how to engage our ever-growing community of

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04444808368736779996geoffrey.director@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-30402687541453375252009-04-25T07:50:00.000-07:002009-04-25T07:51:37.825-07:00

Twitter vs Yammer in the war for workplace knowledge sharing.It's only April but I've already failed to keep my New Year's Resolution. Back in December I vowed to consolidate my digital footprint. (If you've been following me on Twitter, you already knew that.)Like the Berlin Wall, I was going to tear down the divider between my business and personal life. If my cousin wanted to LinkIn with me or

JODYnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-29548259608582915862009-04-18T04:46:00.000-07:002009-04-18T04:57:35.493-07:00

Who Owns An Employee's Social Media Activity?Thanks to John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing for this new issue to consider.This is probably a touchy subject in some circles, but as more and more companies encourage social media participation from employees and even create job titles such as Director of Community, it’s something that marketers are going to need to deal with.Many companies have

JODYnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-91446845931679806312009-04-12T12:37:00.000-07:002009-04-12T12:40:23.817-07:00

Congrats to my buds at Yahoo for winning ERE’s prestigious 2009 award for best corporate careers website last week. This accomplishment is particularly impressive in light of the type of questions they had to answer as part of the evaluation process. “How has the site has paid off or contributed to improved profits, better employees, and other quantifiable outcomes?” This was no beauty contest;

CMOnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-80967931374263590602009-04-04T06:18:00.000-07:002009-04-04T06:34:08.937-07:00

Intuit Is First Marketer to Have Its Tweets Streamed Across AdSense Network as Google Syndicates Twitter Tweets.Google, through Adsense, is offering syndicated Tweets and Intuit is the first to jump on the virtual brandwagon. When a user clicks on an ad from Google, it takes them to TurboTax's Twitter page.The success metric seems to be the number of followers they get though, according to Seth

JODYnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-59502683129564724402009-03-28T04:56:00.000-07:002009-03-28T05:06:26.747-07:00

As Seen on ERE.NET- This article marks my debut as contributor to ERE.net, the online community comprised entirely of professionals who are part of the recruiting industry. I look forward to being a valuable part of such a long-established leader in the virtual publishing field.=====Coming up on the second weekend of the NCAA tournament, I am happy to report that I’m in first place in my pool of

JODYnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-78024187089419247632009-03-22T04:03:00.000-07:002009-03-22T04:39:25.603-07:00

Kal Turner at Agency.com has offered some rules for finding the right Brand Voice across the newest Social Media. As creative communications professionals, we're all aware of the all important creative brief- the guiding principles for creating a branded identity and roadmap of communications. But marketing across social media- even in the internal sphere i.e. an intranet, means going back to the

JODYnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-8201628725871151142009-03-14T14:01:00.000-07:002009-03-15T14:46:47.884-07:00

Join us tonight for the premiere as we launch the newly enhanced BRANDEMiX Website. The newest release of www.brandemix.com is the latest chapter in the evolution of an agency and a dream that began almost 4 years ago. This is the backblog, the behind-the-scenes look at its release history- and in the spirit of transparency, names have not been changed.4/05 BRANDEMiX begins.Kelly was a flash

JODYnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12379269.post-56791880257218945132009-03-08T04:07:00.000-07:002009-03-08T04:35:24.790-07:00

It's no surprise that certain names keep blogging up all the time on the BRANDEMiX BRANDEblog. These are the ones that continue to push both the creative envelope and choice of messaging. So, here we again write about Best Buy.I've been following Best Buy's internal buzz for a while and continue to be impressed with their efforts- from internal operational ROWE (results-oriented workplace) to

JODYnoreply@blogger.com