My best me
About a month ago I took the three blogs I was maintaining and combined them into one: this one.
That included my business/technology blog, my family/personal blog, and my Christianity/faith blog … and that was quite a combination.
One response I got about that was fairly typical, I think, of how many of my business/technology blog readers might have responded. It happened to be from Juan Carlos Hernández Cámara, a blogging acquaintance:
Hey, I am just curious of your decision of merging all of your blogs… isn’t a branding principle to diversify with different brand names and focus each one?
I am interested in your response since (no offense) some of the subjects that you are now incorporating to your bigger blog are not relevant for me or maybe I don’t care to associate them with my blog.
What’s your strategy?
Here’s the reply I gave him:
Sorry for taking so long! I’ve been insanely busy …
I have been thinking about your question and would like to write a detailed answer. I guess the short version is:
- you’re right as far as branding goes
- but I stopped wanting to parcel myself out into bits
- and I stopped wanting to treat myself like a brand
I am who I am. I don’t expect everyone to like everything about me, or even necessarily anything about me. But I can only become my best me by being honest and real and integrated.
The point you make about irrelevance is a real one, as is the point you make about maybe there being pieces of me that you don’t care to associate with. I can only say that the essence of decency and the truest sense of tolerance is being able to associate with people who have traits you disagree with. But it doesn’t mean you shun them or hate them … and it doesn’t mean that you have to be silent about them either.
It does mean that on some things we may respectfully disagree.
And here’s the reply I received back:
Awesome and inspiring answer John… your my kinda’ guy!
I thank you so much for it. It tells me a lot about you and elevates my respect for you.
See ya around!
That was a wonderful conversation … and I hope to have more like it in the near future with others.
Brand protection, marketing, and responsiveness in a new media world
Consumer-generated Media has a nice breakdown of Steve Jobs open letter to early iPhone adopters who hit the roof when Apple recently announced the $200 price break.Excerpt:
What an incredible year to watch and learn from CEO-level behavior in times of crisis and difficulty. First we had Jet Blue, faced with an impossibly difficult situation, take to the airwaves on YouTube, apologize profusely, and announce a new passenger bill of rights. While Menu Foods practically hid their CEO during the pet recall issue, Mattel put their CEO, Bob Eckert, on the website video airwaves to nurture trust and confidence in the wake of the toy recall (a still-in-progress case study). Now we have Steve Jobs, who just wrote and posted the most remarkable letter in response to concerns about iPhone’s recent price decrease. He coupled an apology with a $100 Apple credit for all early-buyers of the iPhone. This is classic Defensive Branding. I predict it will be one of the most discussed, debated, and linked-to letters of the year, and so far I’ve already counted over 800 unique blog postings referencing his letter since 6 PM last night.
A full breakdown of the letter follows …
Busted by the Honda police?
A colleague of mine just bought a Honda.
He needed to pick it up tout de suite but the Honda sales rep wanted to slow him down. Apparently the car needed to be detailed yet.
When my buddy declined the detail in favor of getting the car sooner, the rep said he couldn’t do that. Asked why, he replied “the law of Honda.” Apparently it’s Honda law that every car gets detailed before leaving the lot.
Sounds like good customer service … and good customer service matters … BUT …
The customer gets to decide what service means!. . .. . .
(That, and the fact that he was told the car was en route from a different location while it was actually sitting on the dealership’s lot all day somewhat soured my friend’s new car buzz.)
The $30,000 toothbrush
Mike Wagner has a great post (and follow-up) on how poor service, breaking promises, and essentially not living up to their brand cost a hotel $30,000 … all for a missing toothbrush.
Here’s the story:
He was in town to deliver a seminar, had forgotten his toothbrush, tried to take the hotel up on their stated in-room offer of providing replacement items for things that guests have forgotten, and was invited to purchase an over-priced toothbrush at the gift shop.
Here’s the result:
A seminar participant shared with the group, “I’m negotiating a contract for more than $30,000 with that hotel later this week. We bring our most important customers from around the country here throughout the year. That’s the hotel where we were planning to have them stay. Now maybe we won’t. Their sales staff has been great to work with, but if that’s the way they deliver on their brand…”
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About
Sparkplug 9 is John Koetsier's blog on life, the universe, and everything,
but mostly the stuff you see big in the tags to the left.
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