I’m getting ready to go walk in the Fourth of July Parade in downtown Laconia, NH. For the past two years my whole family has participated. My boys, Connor and Cameron recently earned the rank of “Life Scout” (one away from getting “Eagle”) and my wife Julie was recently appointed to the role of District Training Coordinator. Indeed, it’s a family event … and so appropriate for a beautifully sunny Fourth.

Meet my other family …

Tomorrow, our lead designer, Katie Oddy, is getting married. This past week we had a surprise pot luck where everyone brought “something they used to make when they were single.” Scary concept … pretty awesome dishes. Understand that less than three years ago, I was by myself, working in my den, wearing fuzzy Homer Simpson slippers. We’ve had many bumps and grinds in the chaotic development of this team but, with 9 full-time employees and 6 subcontractors, it can now be safely classified as awesome! Sitting and looking across the room, my business coach pointed out to me how amazing this group is … I said, “I was just thinking the same thing.” Ten minutes later, Allen Voivod pointed out the same thing but used the word “family.” It truly is.

From Left to Right; Renee Capen - the ever camera shy Project Manager, Karina Giordano - designer, Katie Oddy - lead designer, Anne Ward - Assistant Bookkeeper, Kim Perkins - Bookkeeper, Debbie Carbone - Copy Writer, Dawn Swain - Office Manager, Rob Keplin - Web Programmer, Allen Voivod (with his son Declan) - Marketing/AhHa Guy, Joan Russo-Scannell - BizDev/Process Consultant, Lani Voivod - Word Smithe, Julie Skarritt - my wife/muse, Dan Kleiner - Web Programmer.
Not shown; Howard Fenter - Lead Programmer, Jim Horne - Business Coach

Let me tell you about another family. This picture was taken at the Iperia Fourth of July Party on Wednesday afternoon in Billerica, MA. A sudden squall came through and drove the party indoors, but it didn’t squelch the sense of camaraderie. My friend, David Jodoin, CEO of Iperia, had a similar sentiment about his team… how he’s gone through bumps and grinds in the recent past but he feels that the team energy is WAY up — where it should be. Exciting times.

OK, I’m rambling and breaking my “short blog post” rule, but here’s the point;

Read this post by Chris Brogan — especially the part about the “Loosely Joined Employee.” He describes how employees can become their own brand and that the company (a brand of its own) may only share the lime light with any one employee on a temporary basis.

To some business owners, too caught up in control, this might be seen like a bad thing. To me, it’s similar to watching your own children grow. Your family/business will be much healthier if you let the kids bloom and thrive.

To this end, I’ve asked each of my “kids” to start developing their own voice by connecting with the world via multiple social network systems … set roots, grow, connect, blossom. From this process of each employee building their own personal brand, I hope a truly great Acorn Creative brand will grow. Check out our Twitter Page to see what we’re all up to at any given time.

P.S. Katie, Here’s to you and Pat! Julie and I wish for you a lifetime of happiness. Thanks for being part of my family.

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I’ve spent the entire morning catching up on the podcasts I subscribe to.  When I have the time, I’ll also go out and check out who’s new on the scene.  I’ll subscribe to a feed, listen to one or two podcasts and make a quick decision on whether or not I’ll continue with this author.  Because there are soooo many great content providers, we all have the luxury of being super critical on where we spend our precious time.  Here are some of my filters:

• The person must be connected, relevant, intelligent and informative.  This is filter #1.  If the first author doesn’t meet this criteria, I quickly hit the delete button.
• The person has a voice, powerful opinions and is carving out their own niche in the world.  Me-toos don’t cut it for me.
• The feed isn’t too long.  I’ve only kept one feed that regularly goes over 30 minutes because the author jam packs the cast with great, valuable content.  Not many people can do that.  Most podcasters would be better served to keep their casts to less than 15-20 minutes.

A new addition to my list (as of this morning) is whether the person can speak.  I listened to a West Coast social media podcaster this morning and although she passed muster for the above criteria, I had to delete her feed because it was agonizing to listen to for any stretch.  Two full podcasts was my limit.  It was a continuous stream of “uhs”, “ums”, “ands”, mouth smacking, and just general filler while her brain scrambled for the next idea on which to ramble.  OK content … terrible presentation. YIKES!

I was at a seminar in Boston a couple of months ago and the speaker was so bad that several people got up and left the room in the middle of his talk.  The remainder of the crowd (around 100 or so) stayed put but got increasingly anxious and restless.  Most certainly, few of them will attend this speaker’s sessions in the future.

The difference between the two scenarios is the “in person” speaker has the luxury of watching people get up and leave the room.  Whether they do something about this is up to them.  The podcaster, however, will likely never know if people quickly unsubscribe from their feed.

This, however, can be remedied! … For several years now I’ve been - off and on - involved with Toastmaster’s International.  Toastmasters is an organization dedicated to helping professionals improve their speaking skills … as well as listening and thinking.  There are clubs all over the world. If you’re going to seriously get into podcasting and you have no experience in public speaking, then I strongly recommend finding a Toastmasters club near you and honing your speaking skills.  Your audience will love you for it!

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It would be a lot less funny if it weren’t true. A classic from Comedy Central about the brand dance performed by AT&T…

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A few days ago I wrote about the Entrepreneurial Dating site shortening their name (in their logo) down to the acronym “ED”. Problematic.

Sent to me yesterday (from Howard, one of our programmers) we see that mid-February was the annual event of the National Association of Home Builder’s — the “International Builder’s Show”, shortened to “IBS 2008″. Hmmmm … again, somebody’s not thinking!

Take a look at the event home page. We think the picture of the crowd at the top of the page is the lineup to the bathrooms.

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Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba (authors of Creating Customer Evangelists) point us to the humorous side of brand strategy with this cartoon from SkyDeckCartoons.com by Tom Fishburne.

BAD: If you have your brand stand alone, it becomes a speck…. GOOD: Instead, if you tie it emotionally to one of the other BIG parts of the consumer’s mindshare, then you stand a chance…. For example; heroically advancing your career … or caring for your family … or intelligently maintaining your home … loving your spouse…. There are a million approaches that could be taken with any product or service.

So, are you “selling pickle relish” or are you “providing the most delicious and nutritious foods to your family”?… You have a choice.

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Last week I had a conversation with a local tradesman who came in to our office with his wife inquiring about a logo…. He had VERY specific ideas about what the logo should be, what it should look like, what colors to use, what imagery to use, etc…. Indeed, this was an entrepreneur with a clear vision…. The only problem was that his ideas broke just about every logo design convention I could think of AND his ideas had no basis in any type of brand strategy.

I tried to gently coach him off the ledge and educate him that there was a more powerful way to approach the design process…. He was to have nothing to do with it … His quote; “Darn it, I just need a logo!”… We mutually agreed that we weren’t a good fit for his project and he cordially went along his merry way.

So, why did I tell you that story?… As a lead-in to this post from the Motley Fool…. Apparently, someone figured out that a powerful brand can actually change the way a consumer thinks about the quality of any product associated with that brand ….. imagine that!… Here’s a snippet from the article;

Researchers presented several dozen children with a taste test, offering them various foods such as carrots, milk, and apple juice in both unmarked and McDonald’s-branded wrappers. As you might expect, the McDonald’s-branded foods received uniformly higher marks.

Think about what this means. It shows how powerful brands can be in our minds. A mere brand label can affect how we perceive something. According to the study, the children’s perception of taste was “physically altered by the branding.”

I’m sure the customer I “lost” last week will find a perfect match…. Some designer out there will create a logo that exactly matches the image etched in his mind…. It’s just too bad that neither of them will have read the above article … or will ever likely open their minds to a better way of presenting themselves to the world … or likely realize the power of what a great brand can do for their marketing and business health.

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It doesn’t happen very often in a small New Hampshire town, but when it does, you have to take the photo opp that it is…. Yes, indeedy …. THE OSCAR MEYER WIENERMOBILE came to town today!… We just returned from a Boy Scout Troop hike with four of the Scouts and we all got the chance to be filmed singing the Oscar Meyer Wiener song together.

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