About You | Sharing Yourself
Cloning as the Road to Brand Management
The name of the game is how to take what you know about yourself and your organization and share it with the world. This conventionally manifests as a slice of what you want to share with the world—wanting to “sell”, “pitch”, “handle”, “guide”, and “manage” the specific message or concepts you share with the world.
That’s nice; that's tried and true; that's often affective; but it's also costly. It's costly in dollars. It's costly in time. It's costly in what you lose if you get the message wrong.
Instead, there is a way to save time, save money, and reach a wider swath of customers/constituents/clients/denizens/strangers.
This is all about you, and so the first thing that must be done is to clone you. Yes, clone you and everyone else who has an intricate part in executing services to the public. That may be a gaggle of sales people. It may be a horde of consultants. It could even consist of a troop of designers. Whomever they are, and whoever you are—you're the essence of your organization. Your actions and inactions make up your brand in the eyes of the public. So, for better or worse, that’s what they already see or experience; and so that’s the fuel for all your efforts: the labor force you have right now and the knowledge they possess.
The first step in cloning knowledge is extracting it. You can read all about creating an inventory elsewhere here, but the premise behind creating an inventory is a “limbering up” and an “airing out” of all the things you know and do.
The second step in our human duplication is describing our inventory, our lattice, our structure. We need to use the same tools that you might use to speak with the public and capture those words and notions [on video]. We need you to validate the inventory by telling the tale in human terms. It may be arduous. It may be trying. It may be time-consuming. But, it accomplishes two important things: it records/captures your method of presentation to the outside world; and it forces you to practice and accept or reject what you are doing right now. To be clear, we’re talking about recording all the things that make up your organization in a video session, so that we can later figure out how to tell those stories in many ways.
Third: now that we’ve captured your visage and dulcet tones digitally, it is time to compare what you have shared with ... yourself. This might also be described as looking yourself in the mirror. You’ll notice things you’ll want to improve about the words you spoke, but more importantly, you’ll figure out what you omitted. This is Iterative Analysis at work—slowly extracting the whole picture. You may decide to bring-in more of your associates and cohort into the mix, so that they can offer up their expert opinions and charming stories.
The fourth action is “adornment.” Just as you would clothe your clone, so must you gather information to support the new “version” of yourself. Ways of describing things in text form. Links to relevant topics, articles, examples. Imagery or other video of your organization and its services and wares. These are the things that connect people together and are the tools and output of working with the public.
Nearly done, it is time to synthesize and distribute. Using Diverse Perspectives on information, we can tell your tale and discuss your world in thematic summaries, specific topical vignettes, location-relevant nuggets, chronological references, through collections of things you make, peddle, keep or ponder, and finally even with direct personal commentary or assorted “human” subjects. These diverse perspectives give the public an ability to encounter the “world as it is”, but slice it in a way they want to experience it. You are carving up your story in a way that is suitable not for different experiences people have had, but rather based on the way they prefer to retrieve information. This gives the public the power, but it is still your best foot which is being put forward.
The “iterative” final step is to project this Knowledge Store onto the world—share it on the web, through kiosks, through mobile devices. It is an iterative step because ideally, you continue to change and grow, and find new things you may have missed. “Publishing” is the wrong model: “releasing” or “offering” is more accurate. You have the opportunity to tweak and revise forever … always putting your best foot forward … always getting closer to the fullest picture of who you are and what you can do.
Along the process of cloning yourself, you’ll also discover more about what makes you who or what you are. You’ll expose and discover facets you need to improve. Then, you’ll improve them and share that best-foot with the world. You’ll be able to see yourself through many slices (diverse perspectives), and you’ll have the toolset for critiquing what you see (iterative analysis).
Of course we aren’t talking about a medical procedure or mad-science. We’re talking about techniques and technologies that can multiply the force of your time, share your knowledge, and help improve you over time—just by giving you the ability to extract your essence, face it, polish it, and share it.
So, when you can’t be everywhere at once, and you need to create a new targeted marketing item, or you are figuring out how to improve your efficiency, you’ll always have your Rich-Media [Clone] self, available on the web for you and everyone else to see. A persistent salesman; a permanent brand manager; the face of the organization; the answer to everyone’s questions; and a tool to improve yourself.
The first step is extraction, the last step is sharing. What happens in the middle will change you. And everyone will be able to see it.