Contrary to what Tom Peters wrote more than a decade ago, being the CEO of You, Inc., does not make you a brand.

Back then Tom encouraged everyone to think like a brand manager. How do you stand out from your competition? What makes you different? What benefits do you offer (that no one else does)?

All good questions.

But people are not brands.

Brands aspire to stand for one thing (or more correctly, brand managers aspire to associate their brands with a single idea or story). Volvo = Safety. Kodak = Memories. Nike = Achievement.

But you stand for more than one thing (I hope).

You are multi-dimensional. Depending on the role you fill, lots of things change. You may be the boss at work, a partner at home, a helper at your daughter’s school, a coach for your son’s football team, a competitor on the squash courts, and a confidant to a friend.

You can be tough or patient or funny or enthusiastic or frightened or delirious as the situation demands. You change as needed.

Brands have a tough time making that pivot. Just ask BP. Or GM.

And if people treat themselves like brands, when situations change, they can’t easily go from one position to another.

Take Tiger Woods for example.

He is a huge brand, right?

He was an incredible athlete. A devoted husband. A trustworthy spokesman.

And then we learn that maybe he wasn’t all that.

But because he is a brand—a tightly controlled image—when it’s time to pivot from incredible athlete to contrite and apologetic husband, he can’t do it.

At least, not without appearing to be insincere.

And insincerity is the death of a brand.

There’s a lot to be said about managing your career and reputation as Tom Peters recommends (I wholeheartedly agree with this advice):

“… there are four things you’ve got to measure yourself against. First, you’ve got to be a great teammate and a supportive colleague. Second, you’ve got to be an exceptional expert at something that has real value. Third, you’ve got to be a broad-gauged visionary — a leader, a teacher, a farsighted “imagineer.” Fourth, you’ve got to be a businessperson — you’ve got to be obsessed with pragmatic outcomes.”

But that doesn’t make you a brand.

You have a bigger story than that.

It was always Steve Jobs’ mantra: “Let’s make a dent in the universe”.

I liked that phrase so much, I incorporated it into theHughtrain Manifesto:

Whatever you manufacture, somebody can make it better, faster and cheaper than you.

You do not own the molecules. They are stardust. They belong to God. What you do own is your soul. Nobody can take that away from you. And it is your soul that informs the brand.

It is your soul, and the purpose and beliefs that embodies, that people will buy into.

Ergo, great branding is a spiritual exercise.

Why is your brand great? Why does your brand matter? Seriously. If you don’t know, then nobody else can- no advertiser, no buyer, and certainly no customer.

It’s not about merit. It’s about faith. Belief. Conviction. Courage.

It’s about why you’re on this planet. To make a dent in the universe.

I don’t want to know why your brand is good, or very good, or even great. I want to know why your brand is totally frickin’ amazing.

Once you tell me, I can tell the world.

Really, is there any better way to spend one’s working hours? I don’t think so…

The above was shamelessly lifted (with creative commons license) from one of Hugh Macleod‘s recent daily emails. You can subscribe here.

No one reads books any more.

No, that’s not exactly true.

Almost no one reads books any more.

Which means one of two things.

Either reading is no longer useful or it’s a phenomenal opportunity for the few people who do it.

Those who think books aren’t useful would argue that there are new places to get the same information: Wikipedia, blogs, twitter, Google—you name it, they can find what they need somewhere else.

And maybe they’re right (in part).

But the people who read books know something that the first group doesn’t. Books aren’t just about finding information, they’re about something bigger.

Like exploring ideas in depth.

Finding answers to problems.

Discovering new ways of thinking.

No one gets the same depth or breadth of thinking from Wikipedia or an article at Inc.com or TED talk that they will get in a good book on the same subject.

We’re talking about the difference between an appetizer and seat at the banquet.

Most people prefer to starve.

In 2004, the National Endowment of the Arts issued a report called Reading at Risk. In it, the NEA reported that only 56.6% of American adults had read a book of any kind (fiction or non-fiction) in the past year.

And that statistic may be inflated—40% of people in a different survey admitted to lying about having read certain books (source).

Most book readers read fiction.

Which means there is a real opportunity for anyone who wants to stand out from the guy in the next cubicle who loves to talk about what happened last night on Two and a Half Men (the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV every day).

If you read one business book a month (just 5-10 pages a day) you expose yourself to new ideas and solutions to problems that your cubical buddy will simply not get from his sit down with Charlie Sheen and the rest of the prime-time line-up.

Harvest just one idea from each book and you’ll have 12 more ideas than Mr. TV. And if you can get more than one idea from a book, or you read more than one book a month, well, the math just gets better.

So where should you start?

Here are a few lists I’ve stumbled across recently. Lots of good choices here:

• One of my favorite lists each year is from Strategy+Business.
• Business Week Online just published a new recommended reading list, here. (It’s actually a list of lists—recommendations by 30 Business Professors around the country).
• Summer Reading from Wharton.
• Six Best Books to Read for Your Career (that’s the title of the article, not necessarily a recommendation from me).
• Books that Matter 2010 (from Tom Peters).
• Must Read Books for CEOs (again, a title, not necessarily a recommendation).

And, of course, there’s always The 100 Best Business Books of All Time (check out my review, here).

Have another book or recommendation list? Please add it in the comments.

BP has two big problems*.

The first problem is a well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico that has spilled an estimated 50 million gallons of oil in the past 48 days.

Until they fix it, nothing they do for the second problem will matter.

BP’s second problem is the story.

For almost a decade, BP has told a brand story about being the environmental leader among petroleum companies. Click over to BP’s website and you’ll find an entire section devoted to the environment. This tab talks about BP’s approach to alternative energy sources like solar, wind, and bio-fuels—and walks through how they are making the world better. BP has been sharing a similar message in their advertising for the past five years:

It’s a great message for an oil company, especially because it is very likely true. BP does spend significant resources on alternative fuels and clean technology. They have acknowledged climate change is a real problem. They are probably doing as much or more than any other oil company to develop renewable resources.

But none of that matters.

Because everything changed on the micro-level. Daily news reports of oil-covered wildlife and millions of page views for the video footage from the bottom of the sea overwrite the macro-story about environmental awareness.

It doesn’t matter why this catastrophe happened, or how many safety awards BP has won, or whether they were properly permitted.

What matters is the story that people are hearing today.

And that story isn’t about BP’s concern for the environment, rather it’s about how BP is a villain and there’s a million gallons of oil spilling into the gulf every day.

So BP is rolling out new ads to tell their side of the story and to apologize for the disaster. This is the exact right thing to do. But it won’t change anyone’s feelings about BP. Because until the brand’s macro-story is matched by the stories told on the micro-level, consumers will not trust the company’s message.

First BP needs to cap the leak. Then they need to clean up the mess. And at that point, consumers may be willing to listen to BP talk about the environment.

This is a problem faced by thousands of companies every day (not just BP). The bank that promises they care about you but then charges horrendous fees and raises rates. Would they do that if they really cared? What about the cable company that answers the phone with an automated message promising that your call is very important to us and, oh by the way, the hold time right now is 23 minutes?

When the story you tell isn’t matched by the story your customers experience, you’ve got a problem. And until you fix it, nothing you say matters.

The oil logo in this entry was “borrowed” from David Airey’s very good Logo Design Love blog.

In 1998, I stumbled across Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth for the first time. I remember downloading it to my Palm Pilot so I could refer to it whenever I wanted to. I shared it with many of the creative people I have worked with over the years. In the time since I first discovered the manifesto, it has been posted to hundreds of websites, sometimes in very unique ways (like this and this). It has been plagiarized and satirized. But what Bruce wrote 12 years ago, is still applicable today. If you are interested in personal growth, this is a good place to start. And it’s this week’s friday inspiration:

1. Allow events to change you.
You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

2. Forget about good.
Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you’ll never have real growth.

3. Process is more important than outcome.
When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.

4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).
Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.

5. Go deep.
The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.

6. Capture accidents.
The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.

7. Study.
A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.

8. Drift.
Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.

9. Begin anywhere.
John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.

10. Everyone is a leader.
Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.

11. Harvest ideas.
Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.

12. Keep moving.
The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.

13. Slow down.
Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.

14. Don’t be cool.
Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.

15. Ask stupid questions.
Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.

16. Collaborate.
The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.

17. ____________________.
Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.

18. Stay up late.
Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you’re separated from the rest of the world.

19. Work the metaphor.
Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.

20. Be careful to take risks.
Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.

21. Repeat yourself.
If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.

22. Make your own tools.
Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.

23. Stand on someone’s shoulders.
You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.

24. Avoid software.
The problem with software is that everyone has it.

25. Don’t clean your desk.
You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.

26. Don’t enter awards competitions.
Just don’t. It’s not good for you.

27. Read only left-hand pages.
Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our “noodle.”

28. Make new words.
Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.

29. Think with your mind.
Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.

30. Organization = Liberty.
Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between “creatives” and “suits” is what Leonard Cohen calls a ‘charming artifact of the past.’

31. Don’t borrow money.
Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.

32. Listen carefully.
Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.

33. Take field trips.
The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.

34. Make mistakes faster.
This isn’t my idea – I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.

35. Imitate.
Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You’ll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.

36. Scat.
When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else … but not words.

37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.

38. Explore the other edge.
Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.

39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms.
Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces – what Dr. Seuss calls “the waiting place.” Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference – the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals – but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.

40. Avoid fields.
Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.

41. Laugh.
People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I’ve become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.

42. Remember.
Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.

43. Power to the people.
Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can’t be free agents if we’re not free.

What’s the difference between Advil and isobutylpropanoicphenolic acid? About $8.24 and a good story.

Or, if you look at it another way, about $114 million a year.

The truth is, there isn’t any difference between isobutylpropanoicphenolic acid (ibuprofen) and Advil. Chemically they are exactly the same. The effect on pain and inflamation is exactly the same. The dose form and the strength are exactly the same. And yet, even when they appear side by side on the shelf, consumers willingly reach past the generic ibuprofin and grab the Advil despite the fact that it costs over eight dollars more. For exactly the same thing.

Why?

Pfizer spends more than $114 million dollars every year on marketing/advertising to tell a story about how Advil is the number one pain medication for joint pain. They claim it’s faster acting than Tylenol. And, the story goes, it not only works on pain, but also reduces fever fast. Generics could tell exactly the same story, but they don’t.

Like all good brand stories, the story Pfizer tells in its marketing creates a strong emotional attachment for consumers. Consumers pay more not only for the drug in the bottle, but the psychological comfort that the familiar brand name and packaging provide. It looks more effective (thanks to packaging cues), it sounds more effective (we recognize the brand), and we believe it is more effective (it costs more so the ingredients must be higher quality, right?).

Would you pay an extra $8 just to feel better about your purchase? Chances are, you (and millions of people just like you) already have.

Source: The Rip.
Hat tip: @SunnyBrown.