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Covid-19


Building an Agile Brand

Building an Agile Brand

The notion of ‘business agility’ — the ability to quickly adjust business resources and assets in a way that enables your business to prepare for or react to shifting markets and global conditions has always been important — but the experience of COVID-19 and the past 12 + months have driven that point home relentlessly. As we enter into this next phase of ‘the new normal’ one thing is certain: the world and how we work is forever changed and will keep changing — building a brand that enables your business to respond is the new opportunity. What’s required? The ability to adapt to...
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Embrace Constraints to Unleash Creativity

Embrace Constraints to Unleash Creativity

Breaking the Conventional Wisdom of Creativity Creativity is often idealized as something that flourishes within a boundless environment and thrives under a lack of regulation. As creative thinkers ourselves, we’ve often fallen into the trap of dreaming of empty days with nothing to do but create, no person or particular task or restriction to attend to, no strict directions to follow…Without rules and impediments, the world of creativity and innovation would be our oyster…right? But, contrary to popular belief, constraint can actually power creativity. HBR, based on 145...
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Return on Meaning: Five Evaluation Criteria for Your Business

Return on Meaning: Five Evaluation Criteria for Your Business

Brands Rooted in Meaning Win Big Return on meaning for businesses and brands is a compelling notion. In today’s world, it’s important to reconsider the ways you matter to people that are authentic to your brand’s purpose in the larger world. Now is the time to return to core human needs and evaluate where your brand fits in. This is why savvy leaders are taking a different approach to brand strategy. They are embracing the ideals of purpose, empathy, and meaning. They are creating newer, deeper, and more enduring connections with the people vital to their brand’s...
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Brand Strategy for Turbulent Times

Brand Strategy for Turbulent Times

Business is in Flux Brand strategy matters now more than ever. COVID-19 is a health crisis first, but also, an economic one. Many businesses that we work with are feeling uneasy about the current economic situation and the long-term effects of COVID-19 on business. Financial markets are no doubt showing extreme symptoms. There is an unignorable sense of shutdown and although the world has faced other economic crises before, this time is different. Business leaders, VC funders, investors, consumers, and employees are unsure how long this will last and to what extent they must shift...
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Emotional and Meaningful Brand Connections Matter Right Now

Emotional and Meaningful Brand Connections Matter Right Now

The Time for Emotion and Meaning Is Now Battling the arduous winds of COVID-19 will take more than a shift in your communications. It will require a real change in behavior. Right now, people are experiencing a whole slew of complex and contradictory emotions. Some of these feelings are ephemeral and are changing every day; others like uncertainty are staying around for the time being. So to truly connect with people where they are, you have to speak their emotional language. That’s why having your brand behave in a more emotionally charged way and putting the focus on building truly...
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Fast Forward Your Narrative: COVID was a catalyst for change. Is your corporate narrative still relevant?

Fast Forward Your Narrative: COVID was a catalyst for change. Is your corporate narrative still relevant?

COVID was a catalyst for change. Is your corporate narrative still relevant? At the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, companies were scrambling to respond to the moment. But as recognition sets in that these changes are here to stay, we must respond to a new movement: one that moves fast, with feeling, for the future. The landscape of brand, business, and culture has been undeniably transformed. So, we must figure out how to communicate in ways that were empathetic and relevant, contextually aware, human, and sensitive. Given our new normal—a constant state of change—today’s leaders, brand...
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A Letter From Our CEO

A Letter From Our CEO

These are the words I shared with our team at our last in-person meeting before we air-hugged our goodbyes until who knows when. Our carefully thought-out plans for 2020 were instantaneously put on hold as COVID-19 took its grip. Like everyone else, we’re now creating plans for the unknown, but our approach to this pandemic is the same approach we’ve always practiced as a business. People first, empathy always. Every decision we make is made through the lens of: what is the right thing to do for our people? Our employees, clients, partners, friends, and families? I believe there has never...
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Adopting a Human Mindset

Adopting a Human Mindset

Over the past weeks, we’ve transitioned to a new life at home, the place where everything now happens with little exception; a blurred, ever-shifting diagram dividing work, our relationships, family life, and rest. In this way, coronavirus has become the great equalizer. The pandemic has also clarified the differences between how we live our lives and the support we’re able to receive, or not. It has swiftly and single-handedly altered our needs as people. It has forced us to prioritize what matters most and accept what’s out of reach. As a result, we have competing practical needs;...
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Cultivating Empathy: Essential in Uncertain Times

Cultivating Empathy: Essential in Uncertain Times

Empathy in Uncertain Times These days, everything feels unsettled. We’ve watched travel discontinue, lively offices expeditiously shift to remote work, restaurants and small businesses shut their doors, cities still and quiet, as the landscape of our global economy shifts on a daily basis. Recognition that this COVID-19 state of living, working, and doing business will not be ephemeral is settling in. We’re seeing first hand as our clients are forced to quickly adapt—make swift decisions, innovate new solutions, and reimagine the way they’ve always done business. It’s clear that the weight...
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Business Imperative: Socializing Strategy

Business Imperative: Socializing Strategy

One of the first things we learn in business is the importance of “having a plan.” Preferably, it should be a strategic plan, complete with milestones, action items, KPIs, and other important measures. This is definitely true. You need to have a plan, and you need to be socializing strategy. As someone who’s been in the consulting game for many years, I can’t count the number of times I’ve sat down with new clients only to discover that while there may, in fact, be a carefully (and expensively) constructed strategic plan, it’s a mystery to most employees. Chances are, they learned...
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