Treat your brand as an author does a story

Brand: Apple
Inspiration for a brand: Dude, it's Apple
Why Apple: Dude, it's Apple

Alright, yes, I am one of them too; someone who loves to consider himself as an everything Apple man. And I am a new kid in the block, albeit gaining a quick foothold in this Apple world. Now, I realize that Apple has changed my view of the world - the power of a meanie machine and an amazingly efficient sleek looking working style, my world is more colorful from the vanilla, boring, stupid looking drab Windows machine. Yep, I know, I need to stop the ranting for the welfare of the millions still stuck in the vanilla world - curse my arrogance.

Anyways, my point is not to do the comparison of the 2 world's but instead dwell a bit into the power the brand called Apple evokes in me. This is solely my view point and I think the millions of other Apple enthusiasts might endorse me.

So the brand story: everyone loves brands, more the glam and style, the better it gets, although the price tags get a bit too much for our small sized wallet most of the times. Apple however has always been not too expensive yet delivering an amazing experience. Some argue that it's the Jobs Phenomenon, and the company will be thrown to the dogs after him, yet I think its still amazing on how the company has cannibalized a lot of markets through the introduction of 1 single product and take the market by the neck to only dominate it and hit a big gold mine soon after.

Coming back to the brand story, I realize that I have gone to such an extent that I am trusting Apple more than I ever can imagine trusting a product / brand. I recently did a cool calendar, a book and a card from iPhoto that costed me little over 100 bucks. Even without reading through any of the mac forums on the coolness of the product, the finish, the shipping time, and whether there are any local players who can do the same job for me at a cheaper price, I went ahead and purchased the product to be shipped from California, This tells 2 things: 1. I am foolish, lazy as the word lazy can be defined and just wanted to get my job done; 2. I trust Apple as a brand.

Yes, I am lazy but I think it is more of factor 2 that overwhelmed me than 1. 

I vividly remember telling myself "yes Mahesh, go for it; it's Apple and it cannot be bad at all.". After I did make the purchases, some things started hitting me, like "What would happen if the shipping got delayed, or the time it would it take for the product to be delivered, or the look and feel of the packaging etc" . And on doing some quick research, I did not even find a single bad review about the whole process, nope not a single one. This tells you that my trust in the brand was worth all the money, and more so makes it more obvious that I will probably buy a lot more apple services without even bothering about the details. This is truly the power a brand can give you. You can argue that the amount is meager here, yes quite true but then it's more about the class of the product and the occasion than the cost itself. And there is nothing to worry about when it comes with anything Apple I guess. 

Last summer, I was in a branding workshop for my company Result with a brand guru named Thomas Gad, the man behind Nokia - Connecting People, and the author of books like 4D Branding and brand mind space. And his concept of branding is simple - "treat your brand as an author does a story" - cannot get more spot on! After all branding is an emotional process, it's more of buying the emotion than the brand / product.  And it seems that Apple knows how to stir up the right emotions in its cult like following.

Harvard lists 10 reasons for brand shortcoming and lack of fulfillment: 

1. Failure to identify and articulate a compelling set of brand values 
2. Failure to express the company's mission and vision meaningfully 
3. Failure to help employees understand how their jobs have an effect on the brand 
4. Failure to motivate employees to become active ambassadors for the brand at all times 
5. Lack of know-how in the basics of branding at the operational level 
6. A silo mentality within company divisions that wrecks cooperation on building the brand 
7. Managers' resistance to changes that would benefit the brand 
8. Lack of resources to make changes in how the brand is presented to customers 
9. Lack of processes and tools that would make good branding automatic 
10. Unwillingness to carry out the adjustments recommended by market research and customer feedback

Start up's typically spend very little time building the brand consciously, but I guess as we move up the ladder and grow up the company, building the brand becomes an impending issue that when spent time and energy on, the returns are extremely rewarding. This is what Apple did a decade back to see its never dying returns year on year till date, and probably for a long long time to come even after Stevie. 

P.S. Have you seen this video by Guy Kawasaki on innovation, and using mantra / brand to drive more innovation. I would take 55 minutes of my day to watch this again and again to get inspired :) 

"Please show your passport sir"

Who am I? 

Warning 1: Not a post about a geeky internet start up.
Warning 2: Not a film review about Jason Bourne. Common, everyone loves Mr. Bourne

I sometimes realize and question myself who exactly am I? Am I an Indian? A Singaporean? A Swede? Nah, and none of them seem to be right. I am practically a mix of a lot of different cultures and thoughts that I sometimes feel that I do not typify a community and hence, I have no identity as such. In short, do I associate myself as an Indian? Or as an individual with Indian roots but Western thinking?

Let me dwell a bit deep into the phenomenon of identity. When you gain an international perspective, you tend to mimic a lot of different things (both good and bad) from different cultures and ways of thinking, that you question your beliefs on which you were raised. You realize there are lot of places where Indian beliefs and culture is ahead compared to the Western society, and vice versa. However, I do not think there is anything wrong in being international, on the contrary, I think in this globalized society, its awesome to be international, be more tolerant and open as opposed to being stuck in 1 culture and 1 mind set. However, on looking back on how I have shaped and changed in the last 3 - 4 years, I realize that I am slowly losing my Indianess and going towards being more international. Mind you, India as a country is globalizing like crazy and the affluent Indians are more westernized than you can imagine. However, when you generalize the nation as such (with the aam admi ie. the commoners), the average Indian is still considered to be very religious, not very tolerant to other beliefs , strict dogma rules his life and is more often than not trapped in his / her own mind set. However, this is slowly changing and Indians are slowly but surely gaining an international perspective on how different cultures can bring in a lot of good.

And in a country like Singapore thats practically an amalgamation of different ethnicities, there is always this question of "what" is a Singaporean. As Singaporeans, do you think you suffer from an identity loss - especially when you come from a family with parents representing different ethnicities? Also do you think you can probably go and live your ethnic country although you have been born and raised here? 

On a personal note, quoting my boss / mentor Ola, he keeps telling me that I am a little bit too western to be an Indian; I know for sure I am not very Singaporean and neither am I very Swedish ( i am not nice as they are for starters, hello?) and so who am I? And if I go back to India say five years from now, god knows how much more Indianess I would have lost. So the question is will I gel into the culture? Will it be a welcome change to go back to India, settle down and make my own life there or have I moved so much away from the nation and its culture, that I would probably feel awkward, or worse, alien to my own nation that I will have to find my own identity outside India? Hmph, that is quite strange to think about but I think only time will tell.

What do you think? And oh being Jason Bourne in Part I of the triology is not as good as it sounds. :)

P.S. You might want to read more of this and this. 

P.P.S. I am sure how this relates to SOC, but I guess its an Universal issue :) 

Change is the new cool

Are you a change maker? 

Yes?  Why? Do you think you have changed something, created value and made life easier for someone?  No, why not? What has stopped you from making things happen? Ah, the usual reasons, no time, not enough opportunities, no cash, and "oh - the - stars - are - not - well aligned" syndrome or "I - have-always-wanted-to-do-something-but-I-will-do-it-after-I- buy- my-dog" reason?

You must have watched the US President- Elect Barack Obama's campaign about the change America needs. And you should try to spend 20 minutes watching Prof. Hans Rosling talk about the change the world has undergone and will undergo. And then, ask yourself do you relate to all these issues to piece them together to form a big puzzle, or are you lost in the train of information? 

From the familiar market crash story in the "Wall Streets" all over the world to the terrorist attacks in Bombay and the strikes in Thailand, the conditions are adverse, too bad to be true, but as the saying goes in a hurricane even pigs can fly. This is when we need to take our wings out from the closet and do the things that we have always wanted to do - the timing cannot be better suited to be an activist of things that you have always believed in.  

Lets make it micro focused now: when you think of SOC, you probably think of those intensive project meetings, sitting endlessly in the lounge or in the discussion rooms and rotting till you are self-convinced that you will get that elusive A+ in that module, or probably slogging hard for labs and PE's only for you to come out from the exams and say "No lah, NUS = No Use Studying". But have you asked yourself what do you think is wrong? Or what do you think can be made better? Is it the system, the modules, the syllabus or the attitude of being too caught up with the A's and the B's? Whatever you think is the cause, have you been proactive in voicing it out or tried to come up with solutions that you think can make things easier?

One such example from my end would be to voice out on starting an entrepreneurship cell within SOC. The reaction is cliche - "Aren't there enough happening already - the S&S, NES yada yada". Sure, very true; but what if you have an option of pursuing a project from a module into an entrepreneurship venture in lieu of other related modules? The grades can be awarded by an external jury / venture capitalist / business coach related to your company. Of course the structure needs to be fine tuned, but don't you think this will incentivize you to find real world practical projects which you have had a keen eye on? May be yes, may be not. But it's an attempt to change things within a system. And if it does, voila, you have something that has changed your experience called SOC.

And if you get into the macro perspective: In the wake of terrible events happening in places like Bombay, Bangkok, Israel - Palestine etc, do you think you are doing something that is changing the lives of people. How about saving the environment? How about protecting HIV patients? And did you forget to close the water tap, or not waste the food you got from the food court today? All these are issues that the world has been trying to solve, but what's cool today is that they are being brought under 1 banner called "Change" - something universal that people can relate to. Change has always been the buzz word for management consultants and the likes, to keep changing and cannibalizing things that you think can be made better in a company. But when people talk about it over dinner and at family events (thanks to a man named Obama) one slowly starts to understand that change truly helps redefine a lot of things and not surprisingly the impact is quite amazing to be true.

We are riding along in a generation that is trying to change the way things normally work. Make sure you hop onto the train, and inculcate change in your everyday life style, from caring for that old man trying to cross the street to pursuing things that will change yours and probably other's world for the better. The world is watching, can you live it up?