If you are interested, as we are, in archetypal phenomena, especially as they relate to brands, then you will be as excited as us to see David Croneberg’s A Dangerous Method. It tells the story behind Carl Jung’s astonishing psychological insights, learned first under the mentorship of the great Sigmund Freud, but then innovatively developing after Jung’s break with Freud in a groundbreaking leap of psychoanalytical thought.

We have referenced Carl Jung’s analysis of dreams before in this post here, as well as our use of brand archetyping as a tool to aid clients in deciphering and articulating their true selves (such as that for Omaha Steaks here, for example). What is exciting about A Dangerous Method is the opportunity to see a rendition of the formative relationships and experiences that spurred Carl Jung towards his spectacular insights. Not only that, but the film is in the hand of the auteur, David Cronenberg, which promises a unique and memorable experience. It should be in Omaha this week!

“Work should ennoble, not kill, the human spirit. Promoting workers’ well-being isn’t just ethical; it makes economic sense.”

As Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer point out in this New York Times opinion piece, happy workers are not just some wishy-washy feel good fluff. Engaged employees drive the business bottom line. What is not to love about a humanistic capitalism, where the business and the person succeed not in spite of each other, but by fulfilling each other’s aspirations?

Face it: the brand is not just what the executives say it is, nor solely what customers perceive it to be. Enron had its values engraved in its building. You know how that ended. Employee’s don’t reach for a brand manual for values, culture or the elevator speech. Employees understand the company’s brand, its values, behaviors and actions at the water cooler, the canteen, in the corridors and cubicles.

dd|a’s brand process ensures that a company’s brand is inextricably comprised and expressive of not just external facing values, promise and attributes, but internal cultural aspects also. You can look at the internal view of the brand through these lenses: What we say, meaning executive expectations (Business); what we do, meaning company actions (Systems) and what we believe, meaning culture.

It is abundantly clear that a company’s success in its market must be strategically viewed from the inside out. This means that those responsible for human resources and talent management have an integral strategic role to play. Alex Edmans of the Wharton School of Business has shown that,

“Employee satisfaction is positively correlated with shareholder returns.”

HR Directors belong in the Board Room not just because of functional duties, but because they can directly contribute to employee engagement, actively manage the internal elements of the brand, and drive business success.

Any of you writers out there who use The AP Stylebook as a guide know that “the Oxford comma” (that one in a series that comes before the ultimate conjunction) is considered superfluous and ill-advised. Obviously, The Oxford Guide to Style disagrees.

Style manuals can argue until the cows come home, but let’s face it – as an artist and history buff unbeknownst to me articulated so well – it all comes down to who’s invited to the party:

Sounds fun, right? Not always. (more…)

It was arresting to hear Doug Edwards, the former director of consumer marketing and brand management at Google, on NPR’s On the Media yesterday. He recalled this conversation with one of the founders of Google, Sergey Brin, around the time that Google launched Gmail and users feared their emails were being read to facilitate advertising placement:

“I went to Sergey and I said, ‘We’re getting all these emails about how upset people are with the privacy issue. We need to address that,” and he said, “There is no privacy issue.”

This encounter speaks to the essence of what constitutes an authentic brand. One of the challenges (more…)

I attended a discussion about urban art in the community with visiting artist Lavie Raven at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art last night. To be honest, I was there to support some of the great people that are tirelessly investing energy in arts education in our community; but didn’t really expect to personally, much less professionally, take many juicy nuggets of insight away from it.

Leave it to them to inspire me in spite of myself.

Lavie and fellow panelists spoke to the rush that graffiti artists get from their work. The high generated from writing on a wall – “writing” being more than just words and more than just “tagging” your name with a spray can; but investing in the color, contour and soul of a message that can inherently cross cultural barriers.

Someone in the audience asked if teaching urban art is basically teaching kids to be better vandals, which struck a chord with me because the conversation had led my mind to such a different space. My first thought was, “Wow, if that’s true, maybe I’ve been studying to be a vandal my whole life.”

No, I’ve never done graffiti. But I have been researching art, cataloging my own emotions, and trying to find the perfect words to say exactly what needs to be said ever since I can remember. And now I’m at a place where we’re working every day to strategically develop design and message as eloquently as some of these writers brand themselves. The biggest difference is that our expression of creativity is legal.

It’s so important that we (being the community at large) don’t push these artists away from their amazing raw talent and vision, but appreciate it, help them hone in on it and occasionally look to the writing on the wall for a little inspiration…

I want to say a quick “thank you” to Nebraska Humanities Council, Kent Bellows Studio & Center for Visual Arts, The Union for Contemporary Art, and all of the folks that made the event happen and made me think.

I love being reminded of how easy it is to be enlightened and humbled in a city like ours if you just open your eyes.