Viewing: Applied Narrative

Beware of Your Brand

August 18, 2009

When I was a kid, and staying at my grandparent’s house, my grandmother called down the stairs to my grandfather who was collecting something from his in-house art studio.

“Al, the toilet won’t stop running,” she told him.

We were about to go out and fixing the toilet was not on the to-do list, I’m sure. But it wasn’t that which surprised me. It was my grandfather’s reaction. He simply said, “Shit.”

I was devastated. My grandfather said the S word. I must’ve been between six and eight (he passed when I was eight) to be able to remember this so clearly. I have an older brother and there were many older kids on my block so I knew my share of curse words. However, it wasn’t the curse that floored me.

I’m sure my grandfather did things that he thought would have a lasting impression on me. I’m pretty sure he took me to the park, gave me ice cream, told me something profound, or gave me advice filled with wisdom. But none of that stuck. It was his curse that I remember. This story stuck with me for years before I finally realized why it contained any impact.

Pop-Pop cursed.

Up until that point in my life I saw my grandfather as a supernatural being capable of amazing feats, knower of all facts and keeper of all answers. He knew things my father didn’t know. He was mysterious and immortal… until he cursed. One word taught me that he was real and flawed, just like you and I.

If my grandfather could have been told that when he was dead and gone his youngest grandchild’s most vivid memory of him would be the day he said shit, I imagine he’d protest and opt for a different memory. But he got “shit.“

What does this have to do with branding? Everything.

A brand is a story that lives in the mind of the people who interact with you, your organization, or your company. When we think about personal or corporate branding, word-of-mouth marketing, and/or plain old trying to make an impression on someone, we tend to forget the child’s mind. We can never quite completely understand—or spend enough time trying to understand—the people in whom we are trying to make our brand a reality. No matter how hard we try to brand ourselves by looking and acting in a certain way, the truth always seeps through unexpectedly.

My grandfather did not tell me he was supernatural and amazing, I just thought that. Sometimes your customers, partners, children, or friends develop unreal expectations of you or your company. Sometimes it’s their fault for idolizing you and sometimes not.  Many companies, jobless hopefuls, and lonely singles will say just about anything to get a prospective customer/employer/suitor to bite. It’s not the bite that’s the problem—it’s the disappointing after-burn when the bubble containing the brand-fantasy gets burst.

In the case of my grandfather, I still loved him, possibly even more. But in the case of you or your business or organization, you might not get a second chance to live up to the fantasy that you painted. For those of you who leave branding up to someone else, beware. Could branding for who you want to be be more detrimental than branding for who you already are?

Remember that a brand is a story that lives in the minds of other people. Problem is, they might get so personal with your brand that they run away with it and make you into their god or guru. Don’t let them.

Posted in Applied Narrative on August 18, 2009 : Comments (3)

Reframing New York City’s Garbage

August 08, 2009

New York City artist Justin Gignac has created an artistic product—which is essentially trash—and he is selling it to people all over the world via the Internet. New York City is known for many things and garbage is one of them. You can easily find cans, plastic forks, tin foil, used metro cards, napkins, and paper cups on the streets and sidewalks all over the five boroughs. So why on earth would someone want to pay for that trash and then display it on their desk or shelf? Because Justin has reframed the trash and turned it into an object of desire.

New York City Garbage are tiny plastic sealed (smell-proof) cubes that contain an array of trash lovingly collected and arranged by the artist himself. The cubes sell for $50 each, unless they are part of the Yankee opening day series in which case they double in price.

NYC Garbage

I used to be a New Yorker and the above image reminds me very much of Union Square, where I used to live. The Starbucks cup took me by the Starbucks on Astor Place and the Metro Card feels of the subway that I rode so often. Although I will not pay $50 for a plastic box of trash, there are plenty of people who will pay $50 for a smart piece of art that reminds them of the city that never sleeps. And therein lies the genius of this work.

The artist identified something that the city is known for—a characteristic that is usually seen as a negative—and he turned it into something positive, a work of art. He transformed the garbage from what it once was into something of value. Let’s face it, when you are in New York, the trash on the street is part of what gives you that nitty-gritty NYC feeling. Why wouldn’t it do the same if it were sitting on your desk in a cube on the other side of the world?

The artist is crucial in all of this. First of all, without the artist the trash is just sitting on the sidewalk waiting to be collected by sanitation workers. Anyone could collect some trash and take it home with them—but they don’t. It’s a very New York City thing to do to support a clever artist who goes and handles the trash for you. The art and the artist are a necessary part of the transformation and it is the reframing of the garbage into a neatly packaged art object that causes the paradigm shift.

Imagine that some guy from Bayonne, NJ got the idea to seal NYC trash in a cube and sell it to the souvenir shops on Times Square. He hires a bunch of illegal workers to sift through piles of rubble all day and assemble the cubes by using a formula (three colors, no two same types of trash in one cube). Suddenly tourists are purchasing trash cubes for $14.95 each and they’re flying off the shelves. It becomes a completely different, although believable, story. (I prefer Justin Gignac’s story and am glad he got there first.)

Check out the NYC Garbage website and choose a cube for yourself. If that’s not your thing, find some trash in your life and transform it into art!

Posted in Applied Narrative on August 08, 2009 : Comments (0)

Leadership, Storytelling, Action!

May 11, 2009

Inspired by a discussion on Twitter, I wrote this post weeks ago while jet-lagged and on vacation at the New Jersey shore. I stayed up all night polishing it off in a web-based content management system. As I was publishing it the whole thing accidentally got erased. Hours of work vanished in less than a second. Poof! All of my points and links to pertinent information—gone. Deleted. Period. What did I do? I did what any defeated writer would do; I let it go and went to bed.

Would I make a good leader?

There’s an armchair politician in every local bar who has plenty of great stories to tell—but he’s got as much of a chance of getting in office as the loudmouth at a sporting event has at getting into the game. Still, some people want you to believe that storytelling is the secret language of leadership. It’s not. Being able to spin a good tale doesn’t make someone a great leader. I once argued (on Twitter) that a person’s storytelling ability has nothing to do with their ability to lead. When I said so I got a reply saying, “Watch this 5 minute Obama video and tell me storytelling has nothing to do with leadership.”

Obama used some key storytelling techniques in his telling. Setting: Greenwood, SC—the middle of nowhere. It’s raining. He spoke to the senses—he was tired and grumpy (feeling). There were no tall buildings; the woman was short (sight). She yelled (sound). And in the end he felt fired up (emotion). However, his story lacks a poignant crux and he makes a big mistake at the end when he tells us how we should feel rather than making us feel it. (Still, he did it better than the competition!)

Yes, storytelling is a great tool for persuasion. It makes sense that campaigns use stories. Storytelling can influence a person to take a particular action. Obama’s communication skills certainly helped him get into the presidency. Many people voted for him based on the imagined future he was painting. However, a big part of many people’s choice was having seen the real past that the other candidates had created through their actions, or lack thereof. In the midst of a crisis Hillary Clinton appeared to do nothing—she did not take action. McCain’s political choices could arguably be blamed for America’s state of affairs during the campaign. But let’s not get sidetracked by politics.

It doesn’t matter which candidate you liked. Now that Obama’s got the job, his actions will be the deciding factor in determining whether or not he’s a good leader. Imagine if, after 100 days, Obama’s biggest accomplishment was having perfected his storytelling skills! For the rest of his term, the question on everyone’s mind will be, “What has Obama done?” His actions will become our (hi)story and his legacy.

Action: the secret language of leadership. And really, it’s not such a secret.

Posted in Applied Narrative on May 11, 2009 : Comments (4)

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