Spaghetti Testing | Peter Smith

Arrived at the conference this am just in time for Mitch Joel’s keynote. Great fun. He was animated, articulate and funny.

(See a couple of pix over on at ConsciousImages.)

From what I had looked up yesterday, I was more or less expecting a talk on web 2.0 and what it means for marketing and communication, but his focus really was on personal branding – who you are and how you reflect to your community.

Not in the fake “create an image” for myself sorta way. He emphasized authenticity and knowing yourself, ie, since your personal brand is already out there whether you like it or not. Rather the key appears to be how to take yourself from where you are now to where you want to be.

Here’s a quick transcription of some notes I scribbled – more thoughtful postings later:

• brands are pretty much intangible, not about the logo or the campaign or the product

• brand concepts: seamless experience, differentiation, “conversations”

• differentiation = hard for companies, but for people it is built-in (bonus!)

• think about your story, not the fake bio (look at the first sentence in Mitch’s bio – it’s a mini-story that shows what he’s about…)

• tip for describing yourself: “you know when… [insert problem here]. What I do… [insert solution here]” — this is like a personal elevator pitch

• “givers gain” — gift economy: people who freely give will succeed. people who are “me first” will not.

• quote: “the web fundamentally sucks if you can’t create” (Luv it… hope I got this right!)

• marketing, communications: control has been disintermediated (I had to look this word up) – not that business has no control, but that the idea (myth?) of total control has blown up

• consumers control: whether they will purchase the product, and whether they will talk about it