Brindle Media

Archive for the ‘Branding’ Category

(Photo courtesy of Daniel Alexander/FramesMedia.com)

I first met John C. Havens at one of my friend, Bill Sobel’s NY:MIEG (NY Media Information Exchange Group) monthly networking breakfasts in Manhattan. John is a very likeable and knowledgeable guy on the social media scene who hosts a podcast on BlogTalkRadio. Recently he’s been doing a series about a subject I’d never heard of before, “augmented reality”. To be honest, I still don’t quite understand it but you can listen to John’s “Tactical Transparency” podcast about it here:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/search/augmented-reality/

“The Official Michael Jackson Opus” biography which is now available at www.michaeljacksonopus.com is 400 pages, weighs 26 pounds and features “augmented reality” that will allow you to integrate both video and music so that you can watch and listen through your computer (webcam required). It will cost you $ 249 at www.michaeljacksonopus.com

You can watch Al Roker’s TODAY SHOW interview about the book and see an example of how it will integrate “augmented reality” here:

Any thoughts about how you might be incorporating “augmented reality” into your daily life in the next few years?

How trusted do you feel by your employees, colleagues, clients?

How much do you trust them?

Dov Seidman, the author of “How: Why How we Do Anything Means Everything…in Business (And In Life)” makes some interesting points in this recent BusinessWeek article http://bit.ly/CR2rT

Meanwhile, at a recent TED (Technology-Entertainment-Design) event, Daniel Pink shared some eye-opening findings about how to motivate people. You can watch it here: http://bit.ly/PinkTED
(Thanks to Jerry Del Calliano for making me aware of this)

To be fair, Michael from Home Depot’s customer care department contacted me within minutes of my blog posting explaining my recent adventure. Another customer care rep, Stephanie from the corporate office, has been working to try and resolve the situation but her efforts to connect me with the regional Home Depot people here in the Saratoga area have not yet been successful. I appreciate her efforts but I wanted to share some of the comments I received to my initial posting:

Peter wrote: “When I renovated my home in Rockville years ago, I bought the appliances and most stuff from Lowe’s. However, since Lowe’s was farther away, I opted to hire a contractor recommended by Home Depot (after buying some more things from them). Home Depot is the worst. The Lowe’s contractor finally straightened out what the Home Depot contractor did wrong/failed to do. One of the best examples? I asked the Home Depot supplied electrician to connect a dimmer switch to the chandelier in my dining room. They did, and it didn’t dim the chandelier, but rather caused the lights to go off and on in a bizarre pattern, with some bulbs popping like in a bad movie, smoke to issue from the chandelier, and the circuit breaker to blow. Guess they didn’t teach the Home Depot ‘partner’ what ‘ground’ and ‘hot’ mean in electrician school… apparently, I was lucky not to have lost the whole house to an inferno...”

Lynn wrote: “I have been on a mission for quite some time to let everyone know NOT to hire people whom Home Depot employs(or suggests)as subcontractors. I have yet to see one job completed by any of these subs that has come up to the standards of most LICENSED, INSURED contractors.The best thing you can do in the future is NOT hire anyone from a home store like that until you have properly checked out their credentials and/or referrals, as you would do with anyone working in a trade. It sounds to me like your plumbers might not be properly insured, as they should have had NO problem in correcting THEIR mistake. As for Home Cheapo…keep on them too, especially to report the plumbers as ‘Sub’ standard in their quality of work .”

Jeff wrote: “Been there done that with Home Depot. We use Lowe’s now (in our experience, much better customer service). Like you, we bought an expensive product from Home Depot and they farmed out the installation. When things did not go right (which, of course, they didn’t), Home Depot would not take any responsibility. And neither would the contractor. It was not a fun situation. We have not had a similar scenario with Lowe’s”

The adventure continues….

Addendum added on 9/17/09:

Home Depot has connected me with their insurance company and I’ve been asked to provide estimates for the project so that we can resolve this matter. I can’t say they I envy the customer service reps
their jobs but at least dealing with them has been a positive experience.

A couple of weeks ago, New York Times writer Stuart Elliot had a column about the significance of the side-by-side bathtubs in Cialis ads. Here’s an insight from a person who does research in the field of semiotics:

“…those bathtubs…represent female sex organs.”

Hmmm.

Is there a Georgia O’Keefe reference here?

You can read the rest of the reader’s perspective here:

http://tinyurl.com/StuartElliot

If you watched the Triple Crown races this year, you may remember the story about a nice older gentleman who bred a filly and named her after his granddaughter, Rachel Alexandra. He later sold the horse to billionaire Jess Jackson, of Kendall-Jackson Wines fame, who is a controversial figure in the horse racing industry because he believes that the way horses have been bred over the past decade have led to more injuries.

Calvin Borel, who became America’s jockey after riding Street Sense to victory in the 2007 Kentucky Derby, is her jockey.

(Rachel & Calvin at Saratoga Race Course)

http://tinyurl.com/nx8oks

How do your peers, supervisors, employees, friends, and family members see you? What do they think are your strengths, weaknesses and most valuable skills? What is your personal brand? Does their assessment correlate with yours?

If you’re like me, it’s probably a lot easier for you to develop a strong sense about the value that other people bring to the table but your self-evaluation is a little fuzzy.

The folks at Reach Branding Consulting (www.reachcc.com) offer a FREE analysis tool named 360 Reach(tm) which allows people who know you to anonymously provide feedback and help provide focus. Over the past month, I took advantage of it and I thought you might find the results instructive.

I felt pretty good that the response rate for my personal 360 Reach assessment tool was 10% higher than the average response rate of all people who have used the tool so I’m grateful to everyone who took the time to participate and to share their opinions with me. Here’s a summary of the assessments of my personal brand by colleagues, peers, managers/supervisors, employees, friends: (71% of those who participated were colleagues & peers, 12% of those who participated were either former managers/supervisors or employees):

My Top 5 Brand Personas:

1. Expert
2. Rock (reliable; I do what I say I will)
3. Truth-Teller (honest, trustworthy)
4. Structurer (organized, methodical)
5. Visionary (I see the Big Picture)

My Top 5 Leadership Competencies:

1. Relating (meeting/connecting with colleagues, employees, customers; build trust & respect)
2. Expressing (clear & consistent 2-way communication)
3. Inspiring (nuturing, empowering, developing others)
4. Visioning (developing & executing strategy)
5. Developing (personal development, growing professionally; staying fresh, adopting new & relevant habits)

All the people who participated in this survey were also asked to describe my strengths and weaknesses in their own words. Here’s what the had to say:

My Strengths (verbatims):

-Ability to manage
-Ability to cover chaos with calm
-Being methodical
-Business knowledge
-Community-mindedness
-Forward thinking
-Intelligence (2 mentions)
-Seeing the big picture, managing any situation, always has a goal in mind
-Speaking
-Vast knowledge & experience
-Wisdom
-Analyzing (2 mentions)
-Caring professional and encouraging to others
-Experience (2 mentions)
-Market knowledge
-Imagining what needs to be done and getting the job done
-Knowledge
-Knowledge of industry
-Likeability
-Media smart
-Problem solving
-Strategic planning

My Weaknesses (verbatims):

-Being methodical
-Difficulty selling himself
-Occasionally opinionated
-Probably overqualified for a lot of available jobs in the area
-Talking over people who are already talking
-Too nice
-Delegating
-Irritating people
-Making quick decisions
-Not following through
-Organization
-People skills
-Speed of learning or change
-Stubborn
-Too fast to respond. Needs to listen more.
-Too formal.

Being human, I immediately focused on the weaknesses and felt a little hurt or dismayed by some of the comments but I’m still grateful for the honest evaluations. It’s also interesting to see how some people perceive me as having weaknesses in certain areas while others see me as having strengths in the same areas.

You might want to try this yourself. The initial analysis is free although you can get more granular by upgrading with paid options. Find the 360 Reach Personal Branding Analysis at www.reachcc.com