* How to Develop Your Brand
As Tony Hsieh of Zappos would say, your culture is your brand.
You can spend a lot of money in advertising and posturing about who you are, or you can demonstrate it through your behavior.
Behaviors (as well as shared attitudes, values and goals) form your culture. Your culture informs/defines your brand.
.....core values you’re committed to to form the foundations of your culture?
Zappos culture, for example, is based on these 10 core values:
1) Deliver WOW Through Service
2) Embrace and Drive Change
3) Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4) Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5) Pursue Growth and Learning
6) Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7) Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8) Do More With Less
9) Be Passionate and Determined
10) Be Humble
A similar list can be found in the core values of Agile Boston:
* Serve Others
* Be Purposeful
* Create Results
* Create Relationships
* Increase Learning
* Communicate Honestly
* Create Fun
* Be Focused
* Be Committed
* Be Courageous
I’ve found this kind of intentional culture design to be truly transformative, and actually enjoyable. It creates psychological safety to know what’s actually valued by a community, so you can lovingly ‘call bullshit’ on others when they’re out of alignment with those values, and quickly correct situations that lead to unnecessary drama.
* How to Develop Your Community
This goes hand in hand with developing brand and culture.
I’m going to again reference the things covered the other day in the Memes, Manifestos and Movements post, specifically the insights about cultural/community development put forth by Dave Logan and Eric Raymond.
Dave’s advice was:
* Listen to the conversations around you
* Speak in terms of collective values
* Actively triad
Eric’s advice included:
* Name things
* Find the Deepest Yearning
* Use Cultural Capital
* Develop Mission Awareness
In both instances, the keys to weaving together and activating a network/community had to do with strong communication and leadership.
One of the things that came up in the interview discussion was how to better make the community visible to itself and foster collaboration within it.
Here are a few ideas in response to the original questions:
1. Raise awareness of organization’s presence in the world
Build relationships with people and groups in alignment with your mission and values.
What your organization cares about or represents already exists in the world. People are already doing it, or talking about it. Find them. Give them props. Be excited that you’ve found each other! They are your tribe, and will help you spread the word.
Partner with projects and events that reinforce and support your stated objectives.
Collaborating and teaming with other groups within the network demonstrates an actual commitment to collaboration and teamwork. Show your awareness of who’s out there already making things happen, and honor them by finding ways to support their efforts, share resources, and not waste time duplicating work.
Celebrate wins with the whole ecosystem.
I’m reminded of Kevin Kelly’s post about Brian Eno’s concept of “scenius,” which is defined as ‘the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene.’ It talks about the ‘network effects of success’ as being part of the operating principles of a scenius. “When a record is broken, a hit happens, or breakthrough erupts, the success is claimed by the entire scene. This empower the scene to further success.” If your organization is trying to position itself within an ecosystem, share news of your own successes while also participating in the successes of the kindred spirits in your network.
2. Make goals and objectives clear to the public
Help others locate themselves in relationship to your story.
Have a clear vision, mission and values on your About page. Be explicit about what you want and what steps are currently underway to actualize those things. Give examples of accomplishments, and how you measured success. Show how the efforts being undertaken from other independent entities within your ecosystem are by default also supporting your own goals.
3. Make it easy for aligned partners and projects to engage
Design structure for interactions.
Provide some clear entry points and tiers for engagement. (To donate, click here. To promote or share with your networks, do this. To participate in a project, see what help is needed here. To submit a project, follow these submission guidelines. To join the conversations, go there. To let us know about your community, introduce yourself here. etc)
Provide some standards and guidelines for what quality and excellence looks like. (If you’re fostering dialogue, set the ground rules for engagement so there’s a bias towards sharing, learning and growth. If you’re looking to promote collaboration across projects or communities, help define the protocols of communication and documentation that promote interoperability.)
Have the question “How can I help you?” at the top of mind and heart when engaging with others in the network.
4. Weave smaller communities together into a larger global ecosystem
Uncover the bigger picture story, and tell it.
Talk to the people in these communities, and look for common patterns in the beliefs, values, language, and practices within them. Connect the dots and help shape the narrative, find common ground, and discover the vision that everyone is already sharing.
Tell people what’s in it for them.
I’m a believer in enlightened self-interest, the idea that we can act in a way that serves both ourselves and others at the same time. I see this as similar to a non-zero-sum game, the concept that we can have outcomes that don’t require one player to lose in order for the other to win. (In fact, it’s theorized that as networks and society becomes more complex and interdependent, we realize this strategy actually makes more sense in enabling everyone to get what they want.)
People are already pursuing their own goals. They may be unaware of the other players, unsure of why coordinating with those other players might actually make their own goals easier to reach, or how to do it. Help tell that story.
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