Skip to main content

Debbie Millman's Design Matters Podcast : Noah Brier

I've been following Ms. Millman for sometime and highly recommend her podcast: Design Matters. I'm quite deliberate about making time as soon as I see the update come through on my iPhone. This week she interviews Noah Brier. I remember messing around with his project Brand Tags some time back, though after the interview I see an deeper power to the site that I really hadn't considered before.

The most important takeaway: that we need to abandon the idea of controlling a brand's image and identity. We, as professionals, can clearly influence and effect perception, but "control"; no. He points out that, really, it's the fans, the public that really control, really own a brand. The interactions with customers, fans and critics all play a part in the identity. Reminds me of several discussions over the years where I say "we can't please everyone. We need to identify who our audience is, focus on them, accept that there will be some un-detractable critics, and move forward." Not everyone can become a superfan. The more popular a brand, or anything, becomes, the more critics rise. It's the way of things.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Driving along in Kirkland , home of the modern yuppie, I’m passed by a new Mercedes. Lovely, silver, shiny, new, bling-bling; a part of me loaded with insecurity twinges while I purr along in my Toyota. Why? How come this is a metric of my self-esteem? Am I being unfair to myself, being upset by this train of thought and it’s influence? Consider, please, how much this viewpoint is drilled into us. Look at how often this imagery gets pushed into our faces, and how long that’s been going on. It shouldn’t surprise me, really, that I sometimes feel this way. Though my conscious values oppose this, the lingering thread of this programming has threads into the depths psyche.

Oh, A Meeting We Will Go

This post gives me pause. Meetings, the infernal overwrought obsession of our lives. It's not just corporate America, but the various groups and org's I've dallied with over the years suffer from meetopia, too. No one I know likes the blasted things, yet I don't know anyone offering up a successful resistance. Related to this, methinks, I have noted that I do a great deal over my workdays (check off a ridiculous number of to-dos) and accomplish little or nothing. The mass of tasks don't roll up to anything. And I've noticed a lingering sense of frustration lately. I spend precious little time reflecting on my goals, and how I can link them to what I do over the course of any given day. I'm so divorced from this, I really wonder what I really want to do, to accomplish any more. Within a recess of my brain comes a niggling thought. Perhaps this passion for meetings offers up a substitute for reflection. Knowing that we must account, personally, face-to-face f...