For nearly 10 years now the alumni of beyond-branding have been trying to narrow the gaps between the 3 corners of the intangible valuation dynamics triangle: outside, inside, leading

The outside is how a brand relates to those outside the organisation who pay for it, this is NOT just mass media communicating at them but learning from their greatest needs, and actioning services that meet them. It must also respect the greatest needs anywhere in the world which that industry could promote its part in healing.

The inside is how people increasingly self-organise knowledge around those external stakeholder demands, the company's competence and their individual capabilities as humans who enjoy making a difference

The lead is the core gravity (expressed in investments, walking unique purpose, prioritising context-specific metrics which confirm how deeply the organisation cares, which is also the best way of being change adaptible)

All this is difficult to transform all in one go even though it is where all value multiplication of service and knowledge economies must go because:

• 
  
  it needs interdisciplinary cooperation in which most people give up the most expensive part of their profession's controls: marketers no longer need billion dollar global ad budgets, if an organisation truly knows its unique purpose then everyone will market its value multiplication
• 
  
  Leaders must incorporate a second type of governbance (across the 'sound barrier' of transactional numbers) that measurably infuses trust all across the realtionship system and openly detects relationships conflicts so they are resolved before ths system compounds them either over time or across other organisation's systems
  
• 
  the new intangible metrics system needs to interface with all sorts of new human facilitation methods that make the most of investing in people
• 
  
  I'm not very good at drawing the connections you need to draw- so why dont you draw your own organsiational map and let's see if there is a whole correspondence between the two

brandkmleads.ppt posted by ..., 4:11 PM  permalink

The big question uniting Klein of No Logo and Beyond-Branders is: couldnt global branding organisations do more with the world's most expensive communications exercises than spend a billion dollars an ad budget on image-making?

Are there not greater communal exercises uniting the billion people who know and support a global brand than some image-driving emotional proposition of its product form, or in the case of one market-coms industry leading speaker the question he seriously asked his client as most vital of global branding : are you big enough (in term of communications budgets) to paint the world yellow? (Georgetown Global Branding Coloqium 2000)

For example of a better value concept, if your brand unites all the world's youth, isnt there a bigger communal identity to promote than just image-making?

If you dont find this line of questioning useful, there's another. Isnt the primary job of matketers simply: how can we collaborate with consumers better and better? This seems to be the question asked conversationally at www.cluetrain.com and asked procedurally in Alan Mitchell's book The New Bottom Line - 7 ways most companies havent begun to systemise customer value

If that's our big question of marketing, it connects with another : how can this be achieved if a company doesnt collaborate well with its employees? (most companies measurably dont because they charge people as costs to cut even while maintaing the industrial age pretence that a machine is always bookable as an investment). And it connects with another: how can companies collaborate well with consumers if they dont collaborate well with other corporate partners? The time I had lunch with Doc Searls, he mentioned this issue was the biggest trust one that his corporate clients saw cluetrain as giving them permission to ask. Equally at risk conferences, the former head of the UK's CBI has suggested that if circles of companies do not collaborate over at the least the biggest worldiwde responsibility that contextualises their industry, we'll all be toast soon. So it turns out that global communications execrises should not just be cross-examined for their expensive costs and gratifying imagery, but wherever they are most outrageously expensive through lack of responsibility which that company could have taken up the collaboration cause: local communal leadership for worldwide. This makes global branding- and its impact on globalisation leadership and mass media - a fundamental democratic issue- if company leaders won't get it, my question to you is will we as human beings get it in time? even if means boycotting the biggest companies and media and nations until they wake up to realities for the human race as their first responsibility of leadership... posted by ..., 12:47 PM  permalink

I invite people to participate in this group inquiry relating to schools of excellence, and humanly preferred futures of the post-industrial age

Who do you feel your discipline's most brilliant person of the 20th C and did they have one foremost opinion on how humankind should structure/systemise the global/local networking/real revolution that is emerging all around us?

We could rehearse this here or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/com-truth/ or just post your answer com-truth@yahoogroups.com

For example, today I am attending the centenary commemoration of John von Neumann at Greenwich, partly because my father the biographer of Johnny is speaking (footnote).

Mathematicians regard von Neumann as the origin of collaborative computing- the truth for most future breakthroughs in maths. It was his view that a networked world should change the life of patents to last 3 weeks at most. His point was that any company issuing a valuable patent would, in an elearning age, be the hub of such a value multiplying network of excellence, that 3 weeks lead would be quite enough to exploit the next big leaps forward in collaborative partnership formation, at least for anyone truly interested in innovation rather than blocking progress for humankind

Footnote:
(Bill Aspray (Indiana), John von Neumann and the Institute for Advanced Study Computer Project Ivor Grattan-Guinness (Middlesex), von Neumann's early work on set theory and proof theory, 1923-1931 Tinne Hoff Kjeldsen (Ruskilde), von Neumann's work on the minimax theorem in game theory
Norman Macrae, What Jonny von Neumann thought you mathematicians should have achieved by now)

Chris Macrae, wcbn007@easynet.co.uk, www.valuetrue.com
Co-author in 1984 of The 2024 Report- a future history of the first 40 years of being globally & locally networked

2005 Timeline chapter 6:
By 2005, the gap in income and expectations between the rich and poor nations was recognised to be man's most dangerous problem. (The necessary resolution was not a conception of policy-making governments, but emerged from the first computerised town meeting of the world)

posted by ..., 8:03 AM  permalink

True or False; Coca-Cola, famous as world number 1 brand, was mainly built on tv advertising

If you said true, go read part 1 (earlier in this blog) where we chartered how for the half century when Robert Woodruff reigned as the world's most passionate brand manager, tv ads didnt even exist most of the time

The question that interests me if he could have started a second half century platforming off the pop and peacemaking song with a child from every nation on earth singing perfect harmony: how would he have continued that campaign? I believe as world number 1 brand he would have identified what knowledge Coca-Cola could have become the collaboration epicentre of to resolve a top 20 global divide. Having asked that question: the answer would be let's open source knowledge everywhere so that we dont have over a billion people with no access to clean water. Imagine that reality as a youth movement campaign theme; Coca-Cola's bonds with youth would now be 10 times stronger. And of course, America as a nation would have seen from Coca-Cola how a superpower can help humanity at every local crossroads.

(Link to first journal published to connect leadership models of branding & corporate responsibility )

Instead Coca-Cola has yet to begin to be the networking knowledge centre of all liquid industries and experts on the fundamental humanitarian right to drink and uniting all youth movements in such a joyful accomplishment; and America's addiction to cheap oil guzzling makes everyone else on earth question what human right and transparent credibility has it to lead the world's peacemaking? even against the tyrants who should never have been financed to power by whomever did that humanitarian blunder??

PS Two weeks ago, I suffered one of those reality checks that seem to gravitate around beyond-branders. Ukraine's leading professional association network had asked me to give their keynote talk on branding. Blurry eyed I was met by a taxi driver at 1.00pm who told me the story of how post-perestroika Ukraine was the only way forward the people wanted to sing, BUT the population had been yrimmed by 3 million to date. What? He went on to explain that there were no longer any safety nets for the old, frail or poor.

I spent the rest of the night inadequately rewriting my presentation on branding - for what its worth here it is : Branding - Value for People?...ukr2.ppt posted by ..., 9:41 AM  permalink

I heard on the grapevine that December 1 is a day for blog discussions of brand

I have attached some story beginnings from 25 years of working on the beast


and would welcome a chat if you want to polish up your own story - chris at wcbn007@easynet.co.uk

Nuggets include:

Doc Searls' perspective on how brands in knowledge markets will have customers who are contextualy smarter than their vendors

Why Naomi Klein is right in declaring that most global brands and mass media are destroying communal value, but it didnt have to be so if brands were marketed around true huan responsibilities instead of billion dollar image-making budgets

How the brand and knowledge and leadership investments should form a golden triangle for systemising human organisations, but dont yet seem to have grown up to this level of integrated communicating and doing and learning

My pro bono brand architecture and next 5 years work: open source peacemaking leadership links across humanitarian networks brand2003.doc posted by ..., 3:23 PM  permalink

Chris Lawer has pointed me to this rather creepy story from Business 2.0 about how Nokia is targeting a phone at teenage girls by identifying their social leaders. Yuk.

Led by DVCX, a division of DVC Worldwide, the monthlong campaign aims to turn trial and awareness into legitimate teenage buzz. So DVCX sought out teen girls in seven U.S. markets: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. The goal in each market was to identify the "social leaders" of each group, who told DVCX marketers how, and where, to pitch the product. Armed with this powerful inside info, the marketers hit the right restaurants, malls, and, of course, high school parties to introduce and demonstrate the new camera phones. "We try to find the right places, the right times, the right fit," says John Palumbo, president of DVCX. "You merge the brand into their lives." Along the way the company worked closely with these teen brand advocates, who through their shining example gave Nokia's camera phone the necessary cachet. (To secure this teen loyalty, Nokia gives alpha teens free phones and three months of free service.) To keep the initial buzz alive, and to exploit additional viral marketing effects, DVCX also handed out $50 rebates to people who voluntarily e-mailed camera photos to their friends. "You create an experience that's brand- and target-relevant," Palumbo explains. "They say, 'I've gotta use that.'"

Chris says

At face value, one would expect Nokia to be getting close to the values we espouse, yet this activity seems to be as far removed from the Beyond Branding agenda as is possible...would you agree or is the practice as stated here of "fitting the brand into people's lives" appropriate? - I mean "targeting" at "alpha teens", what the hell is that??!! Is this a classic case of agency bullshit?

It's hard to know whether to laugh at the agency's smugness or worry at the sheer ghastliness of the strategy. There's a glut of this "cool hunting" being touted these days. To me, it seems like the latest desperate wringing of the dried out flannel of promotional, hyped marketing. I don't know if this agency is successfully manipulating the teens or just trying to manipulate the client. posted by Johnnie M, 10:05 AM  permalink

Chris Lawer has pointed me to this rather creepy story from Business 2.0 about how Nokia is targeting a phone at teenage girls by identifying their social leaders. Yuk.

Led by DVCX, a division of DVC Worldwide, the monthlong campaign aims to turn trial and awareness into legitimate teenage buzz. So DVCX sought out teen girls in seven U.S. markets: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. The goal in each market was to identify the "social leaders" of each group, who told DVCX marketers how, and where, to pitch the product. Armed with this powerful inside info, the marketers hit the right restaurants, malls, and, of course, high school parties to introduce and demonstrate the new camera phones. "We try to find the right places, the right times, the right fit," says John Palumbo, president of DVCX. "You merge the brand into their lives." Along the way the company worked closely with these teen brand advocates, who through their shining example gave Nokia's camera phone the necessary cachet. (To secure this teen loyalty, Nokia gives alpha teens free phones and three months of free service.) To keep the initial buzz alive, and to exploit additional viral marketing effects, DVCX also handed out $50 rebates to people who voluntarily e-mailed camera photos to their friends. "You create an experience that's brand- and target-relevant," Palumbo explains. "They say, 'I've gotta use that.'"

Chris says

At face value, one would expect Nokia to be getting close to the values we espouse, yet this activity seems to be as far removed from the Beyond Branding agenda as is possible...would you agree or is the practice as stated here of "fitting the brand into people's lives" appropriate? - I mean "targeting" at "alpha teens", what the hell is that??!! Is this a classic case of agency bullshit?

It's hard to know whether to laugh at the agency's smugness or worry at the sheer ghastliness of the strategy. There's a glut of this "cool hunting" being touted these days. To me, it seems like the latest desperate wringing of the dried out flannel of promotional, hyped marketing. I don't know if this agency is successfully manipulating the teens or just trying to manipulate the client. posted by Johnnie M, 9:48 AM  permalink

Thanks to Chris Lawer, a new member of The Medinge Group, for pointing out this article.

A company’s social responsibility policies can improve its competitiveness and Economic Value Added, according to a new report.

The report, called ‘Sustainability and business competitiveness’, is a summary of a workshop commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and organised by Forum for the Future in May 2003. It was attended by 70 senior business researchers and practitioners, from the Chief Economists of Shell and BA to the Senior Corporate Responsibility Adviser at Vodafone.

Personally, I try to be sceptical about these measures, even when they support practices that I agree with. Still, at least it's ammunition for those battling with people who says business will only change in response to a profit motive. posted by Johnnie M, 12:37 PM  permalink

Last summer I took a week off at a Club Med. A funny thing happened. I met an American at dinner and our conversation turned to what is superpower (of a country or a global company or whatever). Coming from a humanitarian marketing definition that wants to profit by promoting the world to be a better place for people my definition of superpower was along the lines of : compete as much as you like with your strongest competitors but collaborate with the weakest who most desperately need help. Use your power to earn the goodwill of being the world’s most super. My American friend started with a conflicting definition : the superpower country, he said, is the one most able to strategise on how to profit from choosing where to go to war. At our initial conversations, and we had them at roundtables through 5 dinners and 5 lunchtimes, it was probably a jolly good thing that a few GOs (Gentil Officers) – Club Med Youth staff had sat down at our table as their job is to see that guests good humor is brought to every table. They did such a good job at moderating that guests from many other countries joined into the discussion of what is superpower, and though we couldn’t agree on anything, the American and I enjoyed each other’s company as people even if we couldn’t agree on any fundamental belief. My American comrade was a great wit- and superbrain alumni from Columbia University - with stories that made some people eyes pop out of their proverbial heads. It turned out incidentally that he was one of the leading technical management consultants to all sorts of American defence sectors.

Looking back on this I realise that I have a proposal for the next World Economic Forum or actually the world’s 20 CEO’s whose companies spend the largest global advertising budgets. Why not take over a Club Med for a week. Each go with 4 team members, say a financier, a brander , a risk expert and whomever is the responsibility or sustainability soul of your company. Invite 100 people from the NGOs and peace laureates of www.collapsingworld.org as your guests. Invite 100 people who represent the poorest countries at world trade talks. And invite 100 creative people: I’ll give an example in a footnote. Make the whole week a discussion of superpower branding. As well as your dinner tables, invite if he will, Harrison Owen (www.practiceofpeace.com and www.openspaceworld.com) to open space beech parties on this theme too. By the end of the week you will have gone Beyond Branding to a place where your organisational systems will both compound much more wealth for long-term shareholders and much more responsibility around the world and engage every other stakeholder in win-wins. What’s more my friends you will find that you spent less money and burnt less of your valuable time than a week at the 2003 World Economic Forum on Trust (or that of 2002 on proximity with all the world’s stakeholders) where all the conversations are going one way from the podium instead of exploring every human common sense you could be in the middle of animating.


Footnote: Even if you didn’t get quite as far as I believe openness would take you in a week with your own top 20 brands: what if you’ve invite among the 100 creative 25 upcoming youth stars like Britain’s Alex parks recent winner of the BBC’s fame Academy to provide some of the entertainment as well as join in your open space beech parties. If you could convert 10 of these budding superstars into folk who also heroically took up world causes, the 21st C brandaid or is it bandaid that you would have set in motion would be a wonderful way of spinning mass media differently. ( I must state a self-interest : University of the Stars is a budding movement which I support amongst the world’s youth and women’s networks aimed at offering mentoring swaps on what upcoming superstars would like to learn (a virtual university for folk who have no time to go to a real one) where the exchange involves make a free guest appearance for a cause should they choose to adopt one).

You could also have great fun. One of the secrets of Open Space facilitators is that in between the hard work sessions where every self-organises tutorials on ideas to make a better world, we have time outs arranged by the world’s most extraordinary facilitators of spirit- eg a musician who can show you what fun it is to make music and dance in which everyone participates and the least capable performers get the most fun out of the experience.
uniofstars.ppt posted by ..., 7:25 AM  permalink

A lot of self-interested nonsense is talked up about how the value exchanges that brands multiply are developed, especially by those who want to sell you tv spots.

Let's look at Coca-Cola and USA brand 1910-1960s- Coca-Cola became the nation's favourite brand before tv ads existed- so how did it do it?

In my view it linked 4 brand chartering blocks extraordinarily

ESSENCE	IDs	Architecture	Own Leadership Stages
America's Cheerleader	RED & white	Brand USA Americana Partners	Coca-Cola Breaks
Pause that Refreshes	Designer Bottle	Bottlers Franchises	GI's Mascot
Within arm's reach of desire	Santa Claus		Pop Song Ambassador

Robert Woodruff was determined that if a developing America needed one product, then a high energy drink was what workers needed more than anything as they built American freeways in the hot sun. He was also determined that serving the pause that refreshes would be an uplifting pleasure for all along the supply chain as well as customers. Certainly America would have taken longer to build its nationwide distribution systems without Coke. Amongst other innovations, Robert convinced factory owners that their workers should have a Coca-Cola time-break, and innovated the vending machine to deliver that. He later convinced America's war office that in the extreme fatigue of world war 2, American GI's should have Coke wherever they went- the nation sponsored that at 5 cents a bottle. As cheerleader Coca-Cola was there: in prohibition, it packaged itself in the smartest bottle design ever seen, in depression time its timeout provided good cheer, in exiting the vietnam war, it sponsored the pop song "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony", with youth from every nation congregating together in what could be called the first pop song video.

Coke's Red and white match the American flag and other leading Americana products. Coke found that Santa Claus had no uniform and dressed him in corporate red & white, sending out hundreds of thousands of the first Xmas cards, at least the first with Santa in them.

In other words Coke wasnt just an expensive communications campaign, it valued doing more to build America than any other brand and in return America built Coke. This raises 2 very intriguing questions: have other brands helped bulld nations and if so with what flagship products? and if Robert Woodruff were alive today, would his ultimate campaign "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony" have coalesced through some real global responsibility-making to have built a different superpower America than the one we see today. I believe the answer is yes on both counts- part 2 of this serial later in the week.
Chris Macrae, wcbn007@easynet.co.uk posted by ..., 10:47 AM  permalink

We would like to partner it, assuming it wanted to help eductate everyone go beyond. One candidate is Chartering a brand's living script which we act as an open source guarantor of. Launched in the early 1990s its basic ideas are simple:
what topics does everyone in a company have a right to converse about in multiplying value?

how does one develop workshops for each topic that can be IQ tested in terms of how well different parts of the organisation know the whole of the company's intangibles/relationships system and whether they are strenghthening or weakening them?

what's the simplest method to update everyone's common knowledge of brand leadership?

Chapters illustrating what we thought were the most important connecting junctions of living a brand in 1995 are here http://www.instituteforbrandleadership.org/Brand_Chartering.html

We seek to revisit every link again to be more inclusive of all intangible perspectives not just the old brander's, more measurable to the extent that system realtionship dynamics can be mathematically, and to include major beyond issues including networks and taking collaborative charge of the biggest world responsibility the company's industry could promote for humanity.

To start with, we'd like to make 4 conversational junctions core to any transparently branded company , and invite both your questions on these and suggestions of other focal junctions to surround the big 4

Two of these junctions are wholly new to brand charterers, namely:
Everything a conversation on Beyond Branding should connect with in a particular company's context and networked futures
Everything to do with Brand Trust and suitable levels of openness/transparency

Two are old:
Essence aka gravity, promise, vision which starts with the question: which staheholders would uniquely miss what if this brand ceased to exist

Brand Architecture: this is the main method brand experts use to assure that partnering strategies are brand aligned for all the stakeholders of both partners.

We have started an EU discussion thread on what is in my view the biggest and most open brand architecture to be built this decade- that of peacemaking to be owned by all humanitarians and for all people starting with the most vulnerable.In other words, when it comes to peacemaking on the world's biggest conflict issues there are clearly many potential partners and the whole human race has many stakeholding rules. We have tried to map four open sources that are making a wonderful start on connecting all this and invite sincere relationships with all transparent parties. You can see more at http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=95100&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y This is a thread which mixes early EU ideas on social capital and responsibility with those we are now openly mixing in to peacemaking brand architectures. Our friends from India have just made some wonderful slides on Peacemaking Brand Architecture attached. Tell me at wcbn007@easynet.co.uk if you want our latest communal commentary.
Brand architecture.ppt posted by ..., 1:35 PM  permalink

Ford's still in the poo even though it puts out a good product; meanwhile, Volkswagen is happily in the black. Toyota has just overtaken the blue oval as the world's second-biggest automaker. So much for the argument that people are going to premium brands, a convenient excuse for Ford's woes.
   None of this is much of a surprise when one considers how tough it is to change the American auto industry.
   Every time I go to the US, I notice the poor quality of American cars—more so when I have driven the equivalent European model.
   When contacting some of the suppliers in the United States, the culture seems very stuck in the postwar period. It mightn't be a huge surprise: Wacker and Mathews, in The Deviant's Advantage, wrote about their childhood in Detroit when there were riots and tanks going down the streets. Meanwhile, Motown executives in Grosse Point got into their gas guzzlers with free gasoline and drove to work (or were driven), unaware of the social upheaval going on in their own city.
   Following the MBA textbook, Ford has pinned its hopes on making money and cutting costs, which has meant downsizing. Yawn. How twentieth-century.
   Yet there are beyond-brand-related ways out of the mess. Toyota has positioned itself as a leader in hybrid and green technologies, tapping in to the social consciousness and the consumer's jadedness toward the old ways. Its Prius II is the first step—next there'll be electric–petrol SUVs.
   Volkswagen, meanwhile, has its workers' charter and has become a defender of rights internationally, while cleverly expanding in its third-world markets using this as one of its principles.
   I wasn't worried about the Japs beating everyone else in this industry in the 1980s, but by being environmentally responsible, they have a great chance in the 2000s. While it doesn't make total amends for their actions in the 1930s and 1940s as part of a certain military complex, I can't see Toyota's rise stalling unless someone does mention the war, or how the Toyota truck is the Taliban's vehicle of choice. And Volkswagen's rise has followed yet another one of my predictions.
   Mr Bill Ford: there are better ways—but don't blame branding for your real woes. posted by Jack Yan, 12:27 PM  permalink

Let's be absolutely clear: I hate the irresponsibility of any company that says every 90 days lets change to whatever is lowest cost. This misses at least 2 important issues:
1) bit wise low costing by snapshot periods doesnt achieve low-costing over time; retailers who have a long-term relationshopw ith a supplier shopuld be able to give them an advance steer if they feel theye are losing edge rather than no warning, and over the middle-run this is always better for the retailer brand too. Indeed the number 1 cause of retailers losing brand leadership is chopping suppliers indiscriminately

2) the mentality doesnt ask whether for a cent more one could have maintained a responsibile approach rather than sent something into a terrifying spin; it was rumored a while back that Wal-mart nearly made a category decision that could have bankrupted a country (or at least ruined it main export business) without even realising that was the cost of the last 1% saving for the consumer

However, most of this FastCompany article was extraordinary biassed because there was little evidence that Wal-mart was randomly commiting tese irresponsibilities. Moreover, it failed to point out that far huger waste in the US supermarket industry is caused by all the deal promotions which most other supermarket chains indulge but Wal-Mart largely put a stop to. In truth, most supermarket categories have climbed in cost to the consumer over the years with more and more marketing budgets for ads, and coupons and others specials - so much so that in spite of its larger market, a lot of American products that used to be cheaper in the US than the UK are now more expensive. Much of this reflects a sales culture where the idea is to offer a 50% off bargain once every 6 weeks we trade the product at 20% over its average price the rest of the time. This is always high costing, always wasting consumer time, and by and large Wal-Mart has stopped this extremely inefficient marketing from getting worse. Very wasteful and image-ridden marketing far from people realities by the manufacturer brand themselves is the number 1 cause of lost work in America, not Wal-Mart's particular stance. Get tuned to people responsibility-branding and then your product would not be substitutable anyway. posted by ..., 4:18 PM  permalink

Fascinating and well-balanced article in Fast Company looks at The Wal-Mart You Don't Know. Poses lots of interesting questions about the impact of its operations on suppliers. Perhaps the nub of it is this:

In the end, of course, it is we as shoppers who have the power, and who have given that power to Wal-Mart. Part of Wal-Mart's dominance, part of its insight, and part of its arrogance, is that it presumes to speak for American shoppers.

If Wal-Mart doesn't like the pricing on something, says Andrew Whitman, who helped service Wal-Mart for years when he worked at General Foods and Kraft, they simply say, "At that price we no longer think it's a good value to our shopper. Therefore, we don't think we should carry it."

Wal-Mart has also lulled shoppers into ignoring the difference between the price of something and the cost. Its unending focus on price underscores something that Americans are only starting to realize about globalization: Ever-cheaper prices have consequences. Says Steve Dobbins, president of thread maker Carolina Mills: "We want clean air, clear water, good living conditions, the best health care in the world--yet we aren't willing to pay for anything manufactured under those restrictions."

Gary Lawrence Murphy - who blogged the piece - comments:

Sure, the price is right, but is the price really right? Or are we bargain-hunting our society into permanent poverty? A whole-systems look at WalMart from FastCompany suggests that the dime you save on socks may mean stealing a working wage from your neighbour ...

posted by Johnnie M, 8:26 AM  permalink

Here's part of an ongoing conversation geing networked amongst milions of open space alumni see http://www.practiceofpeace.com,
and this previews my talk premiering at the European Union on Thursday.

When I read this thread's title sentence in Harrison Owen's book, I jumped for joy. As a human system's mathematician I had never seen a famous person dare say this before. It's truth is fundamental to every disaster and every lost social policy strategy- most especially system of system disasters such as all world peace contexts which are usually compounded not just by 2 or more nation's governments but all the global corporates vulturing over their past or future (think on Iraq). As other parts of Harrison Owen's treatise shows : high conflict areas are those where huge human value can be quickly won or lost. It is time this secret was out and word of netted wherever humanitarians chat.

Unless I hear any objections, this is how I propose to make a conference address hosted by European Union research into knowledge and critical conflicts, later this week. I'd also be most glad of any ideas where this presentation can be open sourced for debate from the embargo date on. Chris Macrae, wcbn007@easynet.co.uk, London, www.valuetrue.com

---

Democracy’s number 1 demand from Knowledge Management

Know that any organisation where safety is the most vital enduring purpose is exposing people to huge risk unless it is transparent about exactly what quarterly auditing is does relating to conflicts between safety and performance.

As system experts would say: what you measure isn’t just what you get but what risks you compound over time and across interfaces of any networking system including outsourced links of any organisation.

Recent cases include:
NASA (space), Nuclear, European railways, European Ships, European Airlines.
The main case featured in these slides is NASA because for the first time a totally systemic report of a huge national disaster – challenger’s loss – has been debriefed and posted for prosperity on the net.

First, intangibles (eg www.euintangibles.net) and economic experts (eg www.normanmacrae.com) provide the system evidence why every organisation's core human purpose is at risk wherever it is audited only by global accountants. Remember Andersen proved this professional class to be world’s least competent measurers wherever you wish to safeguard how transparency of relationships compounds. Mathematically, quarterly accounting of numbers can be shown to be perfect as the number 1 knowledge-sharing language of an organisation only if your intent is to govern in a way that compounds relationship conflicts that characterise safety dynamics and all sustainable value of human systems. We are currently researching the mathematics needed to safeguard world peace because a very similar remark can be mapped at the system of system level between governments and global corporates. As anyone who is an alumni of the 300000 Open Space convened since 1984 may know, the open source founder of this methodology has recently written a book on the hypothesis that many , if not most, large organisations are no longer able to do what they were designed to do. This is devastating piece of news that the mass media has largely kept under wraps from its publics, and we now have millions of people in human networks spreading the word by email as I speak.
Full Presentation available after embargo date EU Commission Brussels: 20 November 2003.
posted by ..., 12:59 PM  permalink

Paul Goodison has blogged this item from the BBC - US babies get global brand names.

Children have been named after big brands as diverse as beauty company L'Oreal, car firm Chevrolet and designer clothes company Armani.

There are even two little boys, one in Michigan and one in Texas, called ESPN after the sports channel.

Paul comments:

If a culture encourages you to name children after a brand of hair products, what does that say about you and what does that do to your children? Isn't there a fundamental disconnect with their very humanity? Money, the pursuit of affluence is more important than anythng else. Something is very wrong.

I'm inclined to agree! posted by Johnnie M, 8:28 AM  permalink

A date for the diary of anyone blogging... Ashley Benigno is suggesting that interested bloggers all take the theme of "brand" for their entry on December 1st... it's going in my diary now... posted by Johnnie M, 3:55 AM  permalink

and the trouble is these days its quite easy for connectivity audits to determine which half is wasted. Primary reasons for this waste:
budget is being used to build a person's empire - internal surveys make this quite easy to spot

budget has been hijacked to support business case of a supplier; always easy to spot because these suppliers are worst at integrating

budget isnt connected through brand archietecture with the decisions the board makes

Connectivity analysis is one of the cluster of new methods arising from intangibles research now the secret is out of the bag that accounting's metrics separability conflict disastrously with those aspects of a leadership system whose value depends on connectivity


email chris macrae posted by ..., 3:05 AM  permalink

In our branding questionnaire protocol, we now ask of top management:

What charities or non-profit ventures do you personally support?

Are there any ventures you would consider contributing to in terms of social responsibility?

in addition to the many we already ask. It's one quick way of getting inside the minds of clients—and whether they're worth that extra effort. We can only help those with whom we have affinity the most and CSR seems to be a quick way to establish whether it's there.

posted by Jack Yan, 8:42 PM  permalink

Please help us assemble open catalogues:

• of organisational diseases: eg bad news, empire building, hijacked by supplier's business case, marooned in a network whose connections are dysfunctional
• of methods that systematically multiply human value in service, knowledge and networked businesses
• Open Space Greatest Apps.: eg Peacemaking, regional regeneration, connecting separate professions, self-organising organsiations (eg NHS healthcare) where human commitment is number 1 value multiplier

Join our guided tour of slides-tell us how to improve them: 1 What Measurement Designs 2 The irresponsibility of ruling only by accounting's transactional metrics 3 Valuing trust-flow is only difficult if you can't let go of control by numbers 4 If joy of learning to make a difference sustains human productivity, why don't we design organisations that way?

posted by ..., 9:23 PM  permalink

Here's an extract from the Delphi Futures Report just published in the 4-yearly series by the International Marketing Department of Georgetown University:

Markets and governance

We see a world-wide push for more corporate transparency and accountability. Quick, ongoing, and public action against nefarious business practices by the industrialized nations is essential for world acceptance of globalization and market forces. The proponents of market-based systems are "selling" the world on two key approaches to doing business. One is the benefit of market forces that results from the interplay of supply and demand. Price signals instead of government fiat gauge the effectiveness of activities. Competition is good and works within a responsible environment of respect for profitability and private property. In exchange for the chance to earn profits, investors provide resources to the most productive and efficient uses.

The second comprises managerial and corporate virtue, vision and veracity. Unless the world can have trust in what firms and their managers say and do, it will be impossible to forge a global commitment between those doing the marketing and the ones being marketed to. It is therefore of vital interest to the proponents of globalization to ensure that corruption, bribery, lack of transparency, and the misleading of stakeholders are relegated to the scrap heap of history. The main remedy will be an early identification of transgressions and the collaboration of the global policy community in administering swift punishment of the executives involved.

Extracted from A FORECAST OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AND TRADE SHIFTS: REPORT FROM A DELPHI STUDY
November 3, 2003
Michael R. Czinkota and Ilkka A. Ronkainen

Georgetown University
posted by ..., 12:44 AM  permalink

Jeremy Williams makes many points and I'll just pick up on a few for starters:

• There is considerable evidence that if a company's brand is a family's name then the family won't permit the worst inconsistencies (or broken promises) done in their name. Indeed many families I have interviewed at board level have stated such explicitly as a reason why their company retains a sustainable advantage. Of course there is a caveat: whilst the family has influence. Of course, this links with at least two things:
  -the shareholder structure - a family has lost charge once it no longer controls the majority of the votes
  -the founder; almost without exception big companies as we know them today had a founder who originally had a big long-term purpose; he or she would have eaten the 90-day numbers sharks for sushi-style hors d'oeuvres, and because purpose came first the company grew; today the sharkss are gnawing away at the human flesh and structures of companies so much so that Harrison Owen creator of Open Space has said that perhaps most companies are no longer capable of doing what they were designed to do
• There is absolutely no sense in any beyond-brander throwing out how human beings decode communications. We tend to remember things visually, so logos will be just one part of any brand mix for ever; what we argue is : use every powerful element of branding to do good not to take advantage of people, and dont ever get beholden to the business cas of any component supplier of the brand - eg the brand is not advertising, it is not perception to have a brand model that can only function if you for ever pay the increasing cost of mass media is to commit your customers to an ever lower value exchange; brands must think ahead and divorce themselves from any practice which was once their most economic part but has become their most costly part
• Living Systems, and organisations as part of this family, are so humanly misvalued by one-dimensional financial demons that I make this offer; if you have share or passion ownership in some organisation which people value that has more human value than the number crunchers are saying - tell me ; if I believe its got more human value multiplication at ist core than you're getting, I will work for free, and you choose what to pay me (in kind or whatever) if you end up with more for everyione than the financial transaction people offered. Latest update of links:great prize gatherings for human KM. How many of the Networking Degrees of 3dom do you know?

  ---

  VALUEtrue=Productivities (Know) * Demands (Value)=K1*K2*K3*K4*K5*V1*V2*V3*V4*V5
  

posted by ..., 11:21 AM  permalink

Jeremy Williams of 1835 Company has used our contact page to comment on our endeavours. Here's what he says:

To save space, I've not mentioned examples to support what follows, though I can provide them to prove that it's not just opinion!

In terms of getting down to brass tacks (and not stopping at the brass), the work put into Beyond Branding and its predecessors is certainly a cry from the heart.

I notice that a number of successful companies taking such things seriously are associated with the names of their founders. This does not necessarily make them pesonality-led brands. You find lots of smaller but successful companies in this vein in Germany and France. The idea they espouse is not a fight between show and substance, but that they are proud (or satisfied enough with their product) to put their name to it. It's like a signature on a document, a charter linking consumer to producer. What they are doing inside the company is forming an extended family. It would interest me on a sociological basis to investigate the links between family attitudes and the success of such enterprises.

These firms in my experience are very product-oriented. The product may be anything from screws to advertising to management practice. Problems do crop up when there has to be a transfer between generations - the original standards must not be lost, nor transferred into the holding image of a marque that gradually loses impact. Witness the number of companies who celebrate 100 years in business as just about the last independent thing they do - maybe 4 generations is the limit? Sometimes the companies can be recreated around a personality, but if the cult of the personality takes over then I posit that there can be no successful continuation of that firm.

If there is to be buy-in to any concept relevant to the reality of running of a business and its products, that buy-in has to be into something tangible that surpasses the boundaries of the individual. A CEO looking out only for himself won't fit; an assembly worker uninterested in anything in the job or the product won't fit either. Being a member of a family (whether black sheep or bright star) does fit.

The tendency away from "home-grown" to "brought-in" talent, and the merciless analysis of individual performance is indicative of an environment that goes against personal undertakings and individual responsibility.

This thoroughgoing idea of personal product responsibility is one I'd like to think lies within Beyond Branding. In the past I've used images such as the Mafia to decide if a firm has what it takes - the Mafia is transparent to insiders (to the extent that everything is ordered from the top via personal contacts), it has a high level of integrity (admittedly a cultural one based on fear), but it has no interest in any product other than the amount of dough it can bring in, and a lot of interest in keeping personal involvement out of sight. In the minds of your experts, how would you place the Mafia in the spectrum of Beyond Branding?

Let me also express disappointment in something - you chose a logo for Beyond Branding! Logos can either sum up the enterprise or serve as something to hide behind. Remember Hubert Humphrey's words : "In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be." You've staked out your terrain in the simple two word statement of this website - was there any need to provide an incomprehensible logo? Or is it meant to be a deeply ironic stab at the whole subject?

I hope other authors will respond above... posted by Johnnie M, 3:08 PM  permalink

I have ranted on the fragility of human connection elsewhere of course, but I can't resist another nag at the superficiality and human emptiness of branding...

If organisations are to try and fulfil our manifest desire for human authenticity, they will need to focus on at least one of the following:

1. A Human Offer: think Alcoholics Anonymous or Samaritans, or South-West airlines in the US. Brands that are focused here promise a human experience at the heart of the brand. Not something anthropomorphic. Not a metaphor. Not a bloody ad campaign like kit-kat!

Love is indeed the killer app', but this is not about being a prostitutional 'lustmark' in Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts Lovemark (TM) terms. This is real people delivering real personal value to other people.

The trouble with embarking upon true intimacy is that emotional connection is very, very difficult to mass produce.

For every person for whom the brand works, there will be dozens for whom it doesn't. You can only 'love' a limited number of people, because love demands attention, and action and reciprocation. Brands which aspire to make human connections face a constant challenge not to let process and a misguided desire for consistency get in the way of selective human connections of genuine quality.

2. A Human or Humane Implication: think Innocent drinks, or Pret a Manger in the UK . This is where the the bulk of advertising fakery is presently focused. Brands that work well here tell a clear and compelling story about their (purported) heritage, or imply an engaging and inspiring vision of the people behind the brand.

Personality-led brands like Ted Baker or Paul Smith or Versace address this need. Very often these are Zeitgeist brands, emerging through a powerful human insight at one point in time. However a human implication is only sustainable if it's true! Often these brands fail to survive, because they confuse the pizazz offering with the underlying human need.

Will Innocent or Pret still be here in 20 years? The jury is out. I hope they're banking the cash right now.

3. A Human relationship Intention: think personal services, like TenUK or private school brands like Eton, or business schools like Harvard, or community brands like the Labour party in the UK, or monastic or religious orders.

Brands that live here began, way back when, with a ground-breaking relationship model, often offering simplicity, affection, communitarianism or humour as a core value. They intend to build a sustained and responsive human relationship over time.

They are challenged by a need for continual innovation in response to shifting needs. Exceptional service is only exceptional once and the attitudes and honesty which are demanded of relationship brands are under constant and justified scrutiny. These are low-tolerance and perversely individualistic brands.

4. A Humane brand Motivation: think Body Shop or Ben & Jerry's, or Patagonia.

Brands that grow up here bring with a clear and humane point of view. They wear their values on their sleeve and stand by the consequences, even if it means less profit. (And yes. Sometimes, despite all the sustainability rhetoric, having a conscience does mean making less money for shareholders, certainly over a short timeframe.)

Delivering here is toughest of all; it demands authenticity of treatment of of all stakeholders. The trouble with passion is - it's difficult to sustain. Humane motivation is difficult to discover, almost impossible to communicate, virtually unprovable and liable to lead to constant argument.

Brands that wish to live here need complete openness; total honesty and a heavy dose of humility. Their CRM strategies must be 'for better for worse', and are probably only sustainable for businesses like the Co-operative bank...whose stakeholders are sufficicently 'attuned' (not aligned - heaven forfend) to mandate ethical action.

Whichever of these human axes an organisation intends to focus on, it must be credible on other dimensions too. Hyper-sensitive stakeholders, with different, ableit momentary demands are willing to dismiss them at any point. It can expect to be exposed and attacked on all dimensions. Most importantly, it must deliver on its specific human promises and on the expectations that accompany those promises. Only by matching needs and constantly delivering on those needs; by learning and being seen to learn, can an organisation build respectful relationships.

This learning process creates the fifth brand requirement in the relationship age:

5. A human Interaction: Think here of brands like e-Bay or Epinions or Zagats guides or Moveable Type, the blogging engine, where the product is actually the value created by the interactions on the community. Do a greater of lesser degree, for these businesses, the process IS the product.

The means by which these 'mutualist' brands engage must be free of fakery and exploitation. Ideally, they will simply facilitate latent desire for dialogue and liberate word of mouth enthusiasm.

So this Humanisation stuff is really, really hard...

For all organisations, even those that feel they are functional or values-free - (and by implication that their stakeholders are also values free!), the pressure to 'fess up on all these dimensions is significant.


As deferential trust inevitably and thankfully erodes, it must be replaced by respect. Both self-respect, and respect for others.

Forget content; focus on connection. Forget knowledge; focus on learning.

Rant over. I feel so much better now. posted by Tim, 11:38 PM  permalink

Clueless agencies sometimes back their clients into brand-damaging corners through mindless exercises in marketing. In this case, the public raised the clarion call. Oddly, there's no mention of the brilliant ad people who concepted and sold the campaign.

Toys 'R' Us Ad Riles Anti - Drug Groups
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: October 31, 2003


Filed at 6:38 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Toys ``R'' Us television commercial that featured the company's mascot, Geoffrey the Giraffe, inhaling helium from a balloon has drawn the ire of anti-drug advocates who say the ad sends a dangerous message to children.

``Any portrayal of inhalant use is bad, especially when we're reaching out to younger children who are at most risk of abusing inhalants,'' Charles Curie, administrator for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, said Friday.

According to a 2002 Monitoring the Future Study, 15.2 percent of eighth-graders have used inhalants in their lifetime.

The ad campaign has finished its rotation and will not be introduced, Toys ``R'' Us spokesperson Susan McLaughlin said in a statement.

``Toys ``R'' Us takes the safety of our guests very seriously,'' McLaughlin said. ``We would never encourage any behavior that would be dangerous in any way.''

Inhaling helium has the effect of distorting the human voice. It also can displace oxygen in the blood and lead to unconsciousness and, in rare occasions, death.

Advocates are also concerned about the portrayal of ``huffing'' helium in other commercials, television shows and movies.

``The ingestion of helium is dangerous,'' and has resulted in deaths, said Harvey Weiss, executive director of the National Inhalant Prevention Coalition, a federally funded organization.

Weiss said he was inundated with complaints about the Toys ``R'' Us ad from parents, teachers, school nurses and substance abuse treatment workers, who also complained to the toy company.

``Maybe they heard what we had to say,'' Weiss said.
posted by Stanley, 12:36 AM  permalink