note to self

Worth Noting

Time for my last-minute weekend post? Things that made me smile...

ONE Gabby Suede Sandals TWO The Golden Book by Andy Warhol, Sims Reed THREE Oyster Inn by Special Group on DWL FOUR Stationary Objects FIVE The White Pepper (via Anne)

Escape to...

Aloha! Escape to... is off to Hawaii!

A dream vacation of this magnitude would certainly call for the dream wardrobe, starting with... a Madewell classic v-neck tee ($19), some minty Madewell Hepcat retro sunglasses ($55), a "sunny" Rebecca Minkoff sunglasses case ($75), a great read, From Here to Eternity by James Jones ($12), a J.Crew ruffle bikini ($48) (I also adore the scalloped one-piece), this (ridiculous yet amazing) Vivienne Westwood Anglomania "Liberty" skirt ($448), a fun[ky] MINOX Classic Digitial Mini Camera ($249), an oh-too-perfect Marc by Marc Jacobs Top Chicret Cross-body bag ($298), Clinique SPF 30 sunscreen ($23) and finally, these adorably chic new eyelet Tory Burch sandals ($285)

Serendipity is...

...browsing around on Tumblr and – out of the millions of photos before me – stumbling across Alice Gao's lovely snapshot of my Sailor Tee print on her bedside table. I literally could not think of a better environment for it. That marble tabletop! Those peonies! That nail polish! That afternoon light! It's a moment – someone's happy place, and to be even a small part of it is just wonderful. Thank you, Alice!

Advice 02 (Part 1)

This is a topic I know really, really well... she says semi-confidently while staring down the barrel of actually committing to sharing her innermost thoughts on a gigantic topic. No big deal? Really big deal. So big I can't fit it into one blog post. Instead, I'll just start with my love letter to the online community and why branding for us means something entirely unique. And because I'm a huge nerd, I'm using some nerdy technical terms. Please don't hate me because of it. If you feel the need to roll your eyes, I completely understand. I roll my eyes at myself all the time...

It should go without saying that I definitely do not know everything there is to know about branding, but I can tell you what I have learned from my professional experience and from my time at SCAD. This should make you smile: Even the multi-billion dollar corporations we worked with in sponsored classes struggle with branding and especially with adjusting to change. And this, my friends, THIS is why I have always had enormous respect for bloggers and smaller companies who manage to nail the process. We bootstrap while they sit through PowerPoint after PowerPoint presentation. And we all know why, right?

Our medium is our strength. Our medium is a community. It's alive. It's active. It's social. It's amazing. Above many other industries, we are some of the most obsessively connected professionals. We are able to find, know and understand like-minded people at an unprecedented scale, connecting through common emotions, their behaviors, and their opinions. We process and consume this information every day through Instagrams, Tweets, Facebook "likes", and (sometimes) blog posts. Some of it is more, shall we say, "composed" {::cough:: staged ::cough::) than others? But for the most part, these little offerings of personal moments allow us to know each other and/or the brand we represent.

For all of our strengths, we also have weaknesses. Being a part of a community can make it difficult to really recognize or understand (contextualize) our place in the community as an entity. Sometimes we survive on behavior that helps us to simply co-exist, rather than to innovate, serve or influence. This is why some ideas are duplicated and content can become generic or borderline soulless (that was another blog post entirely). But strong branding has heart and guts – it represents a clear purpose, and as such, it is relatable and addicting. While a great brand comfortably co-exists, it also leverages its strengths to lead. And all that starts with a firm idea of what/who you are, the purpose your work serves, and how that translates to the surrounding community. 

Figure out where you stand. The next time you're browsing around on Instagram, your Google Reader or your Twitter feed, bypass the pretty and instead think about the pure data you have on your hands for a hot minute. Massive companies pay consultants thousands of dollars on focus groups and surveys to tell them whether or not their brand is viable or if their product will sell. A lot of them are turning to algorithms that troll Twitter and Facebook for keywords used to map our communication activity (I took a class in this, too. It's truly soul-sucking.) They're looking for information on the memorability, distinctiveness and relevance of their products and marketing efforts.

Does this sound like a familiar concept to you? It should, because as bloggers and blog readers, we have all of this activity going on around us all the time. But we aren't computers and we aren't coming at this from the other end of a spreadsheet. We live it. We understand the qualitative value of context and community. We have taught ourselves to read the signs better than anyone. And after that long-winded introduction, this is Part 1 of my branding advice...
 

1. KNOW THYSELF: IDENTIFY YOUR CORE COMPETENCIES AND YOUR BRAND ATTRIBUTES 

Last week I rambled about the importance of "being yourself" as the catalyst for building a community, and hopefully you can see why this applies for personal branding as well. To create a strong brand, you must seek and leverage your personal points of differentiation. In branding jargon, these are simply referred to as core competencies – the things you are best at, and brand attributes – literally the words that best describe what your brand is all about. The intersection of these two things (strengths and aspirations) is where the branding magic happens.

If you don't know your core competencies or brand attributes already, or if you're looking to build a brand from the ground up, I recommend taking advantage of our resources (social media included) to look for patterns: What are people doing? What are they sharing? What are they excited about? What are they complaining about? What surprises delight them? Even better: What are you doing? What are you excited about? What are you complaining about? What surprises delight you? Write it all down. Draw a mind map. Make a big list on a piece of big paper. Stick Post-Its all over that list. Make it messy. Messy thinking is a lot of fun and usually more productive anyway...

Out of the mess (my mess being 4 years of blogging), you will find specific combinations of competencies and attributes that make your role in the larger community special, like a fingerprint. Your personal brand (or your business's brand) should grow out of these reference points. Likewise, you can use them as a metric for success for anything that you do. This is especially nerve-racking to share, but.... Here are mine:

Still to come next week... 

 

2. TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE: VALUE PROPOSITIONS / MISSION STATEMENTS AND HOW TO USE THEM

3. AS A RULE (NOT A REACTION) EMBRACE CHANGE AS A CONSTANT

(Why the Shakespeare? I'm not sure. Clearly one of my other core competencies is being weird.) So... What do we think? Are you hating this? Is it helpful? Let me know! And I would love to see other bloggers take a chance and share their competencies and attributes. If you are inclined to do so, please share the link in the comments!

 

Words for the Week

I love this. So much. Probably because I'm about to post my second ever Advice column, and I have to say... I'm nervous. It's truly a leap of faith to put myself and what I care about so fully on display. But as my blog turns 4 this month, I'm just goin' for it... Have a great week everyone!