The Brainzooming Group

A radio ad I used to hear all the time said, “The words you use matter.”

That is true for people, and it is especially true when you are figuring out how to brand a company. The brand language you strategically choose to describe what you do and how you do it sets the stage for both employees’ and customers’ expectations and satisfaction with your brand.

What types of brand language should you be using as you brand a company?

Seven Types of Brand Language You Should Use

As you develop (or refine) the brand language you are using, be on the lookout for each of these seven types of brand language to make sure you use words that are:

1. Simple

These are the easy to understand words that everyone knows and readily uses in your marketplace.

2. Emotional

The brand language that creates strong impact by tapping into an appropriate range of experience-based emotions.

3. Aspirational

Words that convey the hopes and dreams of employees, customers, and other stakeholders interacting with your company.

4. Unusual

Distinctive words whose less frequent use makes them stick out and become more memorable.

5. Connectable

These types of words readily pair up with other words, word parts, or phrases to create new and distinctive brand language.

6. Open

Brand language that brings depth to the brand because it can mean multiple things or apply in a variety of situations.

7. Twistable

Words you can use in varied ways and forms.

Pay Attention to Brand Language when Deciding How to Brand a Company

When devising your strategy for how to brand a company, don’t overlook the brand language. You can leave the selection of brand language to chance, accident, or time. Making solid brand strategy decisions on brand language, however, helps make sure the words you use not only matter, but also work as hard to benefit your brand as possible. - Mike Brown

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The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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The June 2013 issue of Psychology Today includes an article on “The Enemies of Invention.”

It is a compilation article featuring five authors’ perspectives on factors standing in the way of creativity and innovation.

The article also includes creative ideas from each author on how to get around these impediments to creativity.

Creative Ideas for Defeating “Enemies of Invention”

Here are snapshots of each of the five authors’ perspectives, along with our Brainzooming point of view on these creative ideas:

1. The Danger of Starting in the Same Old Place by Art Markum

“Don’t think differently. Think about different things.” 

The point is when we start from the same frame of reference as the creative challenge we face, we come up with run-of-the-mill ideas. Instead, we have to begin by thinking about other things from different perspectives. Brainzooming Article: What’s It Like?

2. Fear of Failure Narrows Vision by Peter Gray

We “work best when we are playing, not when we are striving for praise as a reward.” 

To be creative, don’t be so serious so much! Have some fun and play! Brainzooming Article: Kids and Creativity

3. Concentration Is Creativity’s Killer by Sian Beilock

 ”Turning your attention to something that requires just a little bit of concentration is a better way to jump-start the creative process.” 

Don’t concentrate so much on the task at hand. To instigate your creative possibilities, free up space in your mind to let your creativity work. Brainzooming Article: Finding a Huge Task to Avoid

4. The Downside of Avoiding Imitation by Christopher J. Sprigman and Kal Raustiala

“In practice, creativity is a cumulative process, one that often involves tweaking, adapting, and melding existing creations.” 

As we say so often, borrow existing ideas and twist them into new creative ideas all your own. Brainzooming Article: Lessons in Borrowing Creative Ideas

5. Battling Boredom Thwarts Serendipity by Peter Bregman

“Wasted moments are ones in which we often unconsciously connect the dots.” 

Resist the temptation to fill your head and attention with stuff that gets in the way of creativity. You’ll be much better off if you pursue empty-headed creativity! Brainzooming Article: Perhaps not surprisingly, we don’t have an article on doing nothing as a way to spur creativity. We’ll have to get on that right away!  - Mike Brown

If these creative ideas for defeating enemies of invention intrigue you, check out the links below for each of these authors’ books (affiliate links):

                                                                                  (Affiliate Links to Books)

Learn all about Mike Brown’s creative thinking and innovation presentations!

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Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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I was writing a story for The Social Media Monthly magazine recently on the Mall of America and its social media strategy. In the course of interviewing Mall of America Senior Public Relations and Social Media Manager, Bridget Jewell, she discussed how the Mall introduced each of its social media presences based on a specific opportunity or seasonal campaign. Instead of immediately hopping on every new social network right away, MOA creates a presence when there’s a clear business reason to do so.

Not surprisingly then, as Bridget reviewed the content strategies and specific content media shared by channel, each had a different purpose. While its multiple social media presences are brand consistent and integrated, the Mall of America Twitter and Facebook sites are used differently (i.e., not simply sharing the same links), and Instagram isn’t simply for sharing photos from MOA YouTube videos.

Can you answer these 5 social media strategy questions as well as Mall of America can?

Taking a cue from the smart social media strategy at MOA, here are five questions any organization should ask about its own social media content strategy:

1. In what ways is our content well-suited to the specific social media network and our current and prospective users on each of them?
2. How is our content across the channels integrated and collectively representative of our brand?
3. How does our social media content vary across our different platforms?
4. What is included in our social media content to move the audience toward progressively beneficial behaviors for our organization?
5. What do we incorporate into our social media content that makes it worth remembering, sharing with others, and returning to in the future?

All five are very rich strategic questions. That means you need to be able to provide strategically rich answers.

Need some ideas for your social media strategy?

If you want to go to school on an organization doing it right to get a sense of how these questions should be answered, check out the varied social media presences for MOA. You’ll learn a lot – trust me. - Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming email updates.

If you’re struggling with determining ROI and evaluating its impacts, download “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track” today!  This article provides a concise, strategic view of the numbers and stories that matter in shaping, implementing, and evaluating your strategy. You’ll learn lessons about when to address measurement strategy, identifying overlooked ROI opportunities, and creating a 6-metric dashboard. Download Your Free Copy of “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track!”

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Talking with a senior executive about creative ideas and strategic planning for his organization, he mentioned being a published business cartoonist. He showed me his very funny cartoons that appear regularly in the Wall Street Journal, among other noteworthy business publications.

I asked him how someone not cartooning full-time managed to publish cartoons in the Wall Street Journal. He directed me toward a publication with specific details for the types of content publications seek for their audiences and how to submit ideas. Ultimately, he said it’s a numbers game where you have to actively and regularly submit enough creative ideas to get some cartoons published.

Getting Your Creative Ideas Out There

On the surface, what he shared is common sense. In fact, playing the creative ideas numbers game and the importance of content resonating with the intended audience are topics we’ve covered here.

The big surprise for me though was you don’t have to be a full-time cartoonist to submit cartoons to publications.

Why my surprise?

As a kid, I submitted a variety of stamptoons (drawn cartoons which incorporate a postage stamp in the design) to Boys’ Life magazine. All my stamptoons were summarily rejected and returned with a letter saying they weren’t up to the magazine’s standards.

While that was a one-time rejection for a twelve year old, I took it as a general pronouncement my cartoons weren’t good and there was no need to submit them anywhere ever again unless I happened to develop into being a professional cartoonist.

Even though I kept drawing cartoons and even created a business humor blog largely featuring cartoons, it had NEVER occurred to me to submit cartoons to a publication.

Overcoming Rejection of Your Creative Ideas

You see, so much material in the Brainzooming blog is offered for your benefit. The impetus for much (most?) of it, however, is the need to regularly work through MY OWN blocks, fears, and apprehensions with creative ideas.

There is no reason in the world why I couldn’t take a shot at getting cartoons published, but it had never occurred to me as a possibility before last week. Because of an anonymous person at a kids’ magazine years ago who didn’t like my creative ideas, I have only shared my cartoons on my own sites online because I allowed my creative horizons to be squelched.

I’m not sure what to say for myself other than that if you struggle with whether you are creative or talented enough, keep trying to figure out what works for you to get beyond your creative apprehensions. Maybe it’s reading. Maybe it’s doing. Maybe it’s talking to someone who is doing something with the types of creative ideas you’d like to do but never imagined you could.

Whatever it is, don’t ever give up on the search for sharing your creative ideas. – Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.

Download the free ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to help you improve your creative thinking skills and generate fantastic ideas! To boost your organization’s innovation success, contact TheBrainzooming Group to help you rapidly expand strategic options and create strong implementation plans. Email us atinfo@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we’ll deliver these benefits for you.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Event marketing can be part of the brand building strategy for an organization of any size. While the size and scale of an event will vary based your organization’s objectives, if you’re investing in event marketing, you want it to support your strategy and work as hard for you as possible.

12 Articles on Event Marketing and Developing Memorable Audience Experiences

These twelve event marketing articles from the Brainzooming blog archive provide a strong starting point for moving an idea for an event marketing effort into a solid brand building strategy.

Creating Memorable Audience Experiences

A three part formula for designing and creating memorable audience experiences through event marketing.

Making Every Occasion an Event

An approach to making every gathering an event to maximize the impact with your audience. Whenever multiple people come together, take the time to make it special.

A Checklist for Integrated Program Planning Success

While not specifically event-related, the steps you’ll want to take to integrate your event with other activities in your organization are all here.

Sponsorship Strategy – Attention, Strong ROI, and a Non-Traditional Strategy

An overview of the strategy The Brainzooming Group used to create and roll-out a non-traditional sponsorship strategy related to the Google Fiber implementation in Kansas City. It’s a formula other organizations can use successfully for event marketing .

Free Speech? Try a “Fair Trade” Speech Strategy Instead

Speakers can be a big cost item in event marketing programs. It’s smart to invest in speakers who can deliver compelling content to create memorable audience experiences. If the budget it tight, however, here are ways to create real value to help attract strong speakers with fewer dollars.

Project Management Techniques – 6 Project Manager Mistakes to Not Repeat

Again, this isn’t exclusive to events, but many of the situations behind these project management lessons were born out of producing big corporate event programs.

Fireworks Displays-10 Event Secrets for Fourth of July Excitement

You can take a variety of event planning cues from a fireworks display to apply to your event.

An Innovative Business Conference Audience Experience – 7 Vital Elements

If you’re going to promote your conference as innovative, you had better incorporate these seven elements.

Capturing Big Ideas and Strategic Connections: Big Ideas in Higher Education Conference

This is a great companion to the previous article on creating an innovative business conference. The Big Ideas in Higher Education Conference was the height of a new type of event.

Create Lasting Memories in Online Events – 10 Ways to Do It

Ten specific ideas for creating memorability specific to online events.

Customize a Customer Brand Experience Very Simply

Customizing a customer brand experience doesn’t have to high tech. You can do it by knowing your audience along with a piece of paper.

Kansas City Marketing Communications and Social Media Panel Take-Aways

When you’re doing event marketing, build your strategy around how to make peoples’ dreams come true through a unique event. - Mike Brown

Subscribe for Free to the Brainzooming blog email updates.

Download the free ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to help you generate fantastic new ideas! For an organizational creativity boost, contact The Brainzooming Group to help your team be more successful by rapidly expanding strategic options and creating innovative plans to efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can deliver these innovation benefits for you.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Blogapalooza veteran Jessica James is back today with her message that stress is a choice, along with 4 ways to decompress that she’s using amid a clearly busy life. Not only does Jessica work for one of the world’s largest casual dining restaurants, she’s also completing her master’s degree in journalism from The University of Kansas. Here’s Jessica:

Stress is a Choice by Jessica James

A full-time job, parenthood, married life, graduate school, a social life and the occasional volunteer opportunity– with all this going on, I’ve somehow managed to maintain my sanity.  It’s not something I ever thought about until recently when a close friend commented on how she couldn’t believe I wasn’t medicated.

She openly takes medication to help her cope with the stress and anxiety in her life.  I do not.

I Get it, You Are Busy…

This is not to say that I am not stressed out beyond belief right now.  My husband is a second-year law student who studies around the clock, I travel out of town for work about 30 percent of the time (which is incredibly disruptive to my toddler’s home life) and I am wrapping up my capstone project and presentation in just over a week.

4 Ways to Decompress

In the last three months, l have experienced more stress than ever before.  If I could find the time to go to thy gym, some of this might be alleviated.  However, I have managed to find little moments throughout my day to decompress.

1. Have a Morning Routine

My mornings are hectic, yet predictable.  My 30-minute commute from home to daycare to work consists of morning radio and a large cup of freshly ground and brewed coffee.  Without it, I am lost.  This daily ritual sets the tone for the rest of my day and helps me focus on what’s ahead of me.

2. Keep Your Priorities Straight

It never fails that as I ease into the day at work, my ‘to do’ list for the day gets high jacked by other, more pressing things.  I’ve learned to adjust to this and not become overwhelmed by focusing on what REALLY needs to get done for the day.  My industry is food, not rocket science, and most of the time, things can wait an extra 12-24 hours to be completed.

3. Quantity of Time Spent at Work is NOT > the Quality of Your Work

I refuse to fall into this trap.  So many of my peers at work, along with some leadership, value how long people show their faces at work and not how good the work actually is.  I am a consistent eight-to-fiver.  I excel at my job, always meet deadlines and pride myself on being a reliable and timely source of information for my peers.  As a result, I am able to spend a fair amount of time with my family in the evening and still have some time left for myself.

4. Put Yourself First…Sometimes

Working, going to graduate school and having a family is pretty common these days.  A lot of men and women do it.  I am able to because I am not afraid to do things for myself.  I’ll take a Friday off a couple times each year to shop, have lunch by myself, get caught up on laundry and catch up on my favorite TV shows.  It’s amazing how a few daylight hours to myself really rejuvenates me at home and at work.

Make a Choice to Take a Step Back

So before you let your friends talk you into medicating your stress and anxiety with prescription drugs, take a step back, and evaluate where you might be able to trim some stress out or bring some routine and predictability into your day.  And remember, the choices you make have a direct correlation to the stress in your life. - Jessica James

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Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Yesterday’s Brainzooming blog post was about 7 easy ways to get one or two more blog posts weekly by improving your social media productivity. Today’s post takes it one step further to answer a question that came up with Max Utsler’s Blogapalooza group last week: How do you keep yourself and your blog content fresh when you are blogging daily?

7 Keys to Keeping Your Blog Content Fresh when You Are Blogging Daily

With the limited time to answer during the class, here is a more in-depth answer on 7 things it takes to keep blogging daily:

1. Self-discipline

There has to be a reason your daily publishing deadline is meaningful and motivating. The answer will vary by blogger. For me, making a public commitment  years ago to blog daily has been the ongoing personal motivator to keep producing daily content.

2. Developing more blog topic ideas than you need

You always want to have choices when it comes to the blog you plan to publish. When you have multiple blog post possibilities, you can select the best option from among a few topics instead of being in the position of having to run the only blog you have close to being done.

3. Improving your communication skills all the time

If you’re signing yourself up for daily blogging, you need to be getting better and faster at producing and publishing content all the time. If you stand still or go backward in the effectiveness and efficiency of your communication techniques, you’re doomed.

4. An audience that cares

Even if it’s only a few people, you need to feel (or better yet, know) somebody will notice whether or not you publish a blog post on any given day. That’s why I so appreciate those of you who have reached out over the years to say you look forward to reading the Brainzooming blog daily. That’s huge information for any daily blogger you enjoy to know.

5. Flexibility in some way, shape, or form

If your publishing commitment is going to be unwavering, something else has to be able to waver in your life if need be. Making any type of daily commitment is about both discipline AND compromise. Make sure you know where you can compromise when you need to in order to sustain a daily blogging schedule.

6. Comfort with brevity and incompleteness

When you’re producing daily content, you aren’t going to want to write a novel or shoot a feature length video blog post every day. That means you have to be comfortable with and good at editing liberally, leaving things out, and revising and tweaking what you publish later.

7. Tools to make you better than you otherwise would be

There are many moving parts behind a blog. It’s not just writing or shooting a video. It also involves editing, making SEO adjustments, creating graphics, scheduling posts, and social sharing, to name a few activities you’ll be doing. Tools that are both effective and work well with your style are vital to blogging. daily.

That’s my formula for keeping blog content fresh when blogging daily

I hope you agree our content here is fresh! And if you’re doing a daily blog, what is your formula for doing it successfully?  - Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming email updates.

If you’re struggling with determining ROI and evaluating its impacts, download “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track” today!  This article provides a concise, strategic view of the numbers and stories that matter in shaping, implementing, and evaluating your strategy. You’ll learn lessons about when to address measurement strategy, identifying overlooked ROI opportunities, and creating a 6-metric dashboard. Download Your Free Copy of “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track!”

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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