Permission to be yourself

Written by erichv on 26 July 2010

So I’m in a coffee shop, doing a bit of filing around my Mac. And a woman walks up to me and wants to know if I recommend the Macintosh platform (I do.)

She’s a marketing guru, retrenched for two days because she didn’t want to relocate to Cape Town.
And I have some branding questions for her.
Should I change my 1990s logo?
How should I package my services?
She says:
1. No, don’t change the logo. Refresh it maybe (and she gave me some specific ideas around that)
2. And as for packaging services? She says: be yourself. You’re curious (she tells me), quirky, down-to-earth, you have a sense of urgency about you. You think laterally.
This, after 20 minutes. This is my “brand essence” she says.
Hence the blog.
It was the most empowering discussion I’ve had with anybody in months.

She said something else:

What I do is not “knowledge management” or “innovation”.

It’s taking your organisation where it is, with its strengths and unique positioning, and making that actionable.

It’s a bit like sharpening your competitive edge. That’s what I do.