The second of Peter F. Drucker's five most important questions is "Who is our customer?" Like all of his questions, it is deceptively simple. The most common wrong answer, given by default, is "the people in the decision room."
Brands are often thought about in very limited terms but in reality, they exercise tremendous power in every kind of business or organization.
Watch an excerpt of our workshop at the Tenement Museum in New York City in which James Heaton poses the question, "What is a brand?"
Cute and serious are mutually exclusive in the American mindset and would send a conflicting message when combined. Seeing Seoul through my American lens made me realize that cuteness is culturally specific.
Most think of brands in terms of how they influence the customer—those outside of the company or organization—but a brand must function internally as well. Brands play an important role in attracting top employees and retaining them over time. We advise you not to make the mistake of neglecting this crucial audience.
I’d like to discuss creativity with the 7 habits of highly effective artists outlined by Australian 3D artist Andrew Price as the springboard. Here are my thoughts and tangents on each point—a sort of supplement to the talk, if you will.
What do you do when a client asks you to recreate the brilliance of a campaign you came up with years ago? That’s a lot of pressure. Illustrator Christoph Niemann cites Chuck Close saying it's about showing up and “enabling the chance for something to happen.” In other words, us professionals don’t need to count on dumb luck. What a relief.
Do performance reviews have to suck? It’s a question many people seem to ask. Brief answer: NO. Quite the contrary: they should be a gift and an inspiration. Performance reviews are not small tools to assess individual performance. They are large tools that impact the capacity of an organization to have the effect that it intends in the world.
Jim Collins says, “A company should not change its core values in response to market changes; rather, it should change markets, if necessary, to remain true to its core values.” At Tronvig, we endorse this idea: While business strategy must be dynamic and responsive, values are meaningful only when accompanied by long-term commitment.
