Mike Bawden (who was kind enough to quote me on his blog a while back) once wrote one of the simplest yet most astute observations about leadership that I have ever read:

From this post by Seth Godin:

"The passionate worker doesn't show up because she's afraid of getting in trouble, she shows up because it's a hobby that pays."
So true.

I deal with three types of people on a daily basis:

"So I was wondering, what is that exact point where a company stops caring? Stops paying attention to their customers? Stops with the phenomenal customer service? Is it when they reach a certain sales figure? A certain number of employees?"

Excellent little opinion about success (among other things) over at Seen Creative:

"You don't have the skeleton key. There are no rules, there are no templates, there are no secret ingredients. Everything is unique and everything is dependent on its own circumstance. You can write all the books, magazine articles, or blog posts you want, but someone will always be able to prove the exception. Something will always contradict. One reason these businesses are successful is probably because their founders didn't take advice from stupid articles in Wired, or try to ride the latest meme sweeping the blogosphere. They understood that every situation is unique, and they needed to approach it as such. What's right is what works, not what previously worked."

Hop on over to Kathy Sierra's blog for her post on bravery, confidence, and getting past the paralysis of uncertainty. Very cool stuff, as always:

Tom Asacker brings us another priceless bit of insight about building brands in these chaotic times:

Some sweet, sweet words of wisdom from Advergirl:

What's the number 1 reason agencies lose accounts? I would argue that it’s complacency. The agency is coasting. They probably don’t even realize they’re doing it. But after years with a product, it’s easy to get too close to it, to lean on old insights, to produce rather than create.

Taking a strategic approach to every project is fighting the coast.

But, more importantly, it's getting to do the best at your job - who wants to be a pair of hands when you can be a leader?
* * *

I went to a going-away party for my wife’s co-worker and discovered the power and longevity of a personal brand.

At the party, a guy name Jerry sat down next to me and introduced himself. He had spent a lifetime in various manufacturing jobs, and even did a little marketing, so that’s what we talked about. When I shared that my father worked his whole career in manufacturing, at International Harvester in the Quad Cities (of Iowa and Illinois), he cocked his head quizzically and asked his name. When I told him by dad was John True, his eyebrows shot up and his eyes practically bugged out. Knowing that my dad had a reputation as a tough man with whom you didn’t want to tangle, I thought I was staring at a victim and asked with great trepidation “where you one of the guys on his good side or his bad side?”

"Individuals behave in a difficult manner because they have
learned that doing so keeps others off balance and incapable of effective
action. Worst of all, they appear immune to all the usual methods of
communication and persuasion designed to convince or help them change their
ways."
- Robert Bramson, Ph.D.

I will probably spend the rest of my life trying to figure out why some people are so vehemently opposed to change, progress or new ideas that they will exert more energy fighting them than embracing them.

Nick, over at SEENcreative, gives us this (via orangeyeti):

Making resolutions for a whole year seems so daunting... Which is probably why so few of us ever actually see them through.

Let's see... Lose weight. Stop smoking. Eat better. Learn a foreign language. Take the dog to the park every day.

Yeah, right.

If there's one thing we can probably all agree on about Western culture today, it's this: More often than not, we tend to bite off a lot more than we can chew. (Often, literally.) We supersize everything: Houses. Cars. Shopping malls. Credit. Meals... and yes, even New Year's Resolutions.

Brand Central Station's Mike Bawden posted a great piece about the connection between innovation and brands on his blog last September, which I found again by accident yesterday. Here are some of my favorite passages:

Today, I would like to share some great advice with you, courtesy of Dave Armano's Updated Manifesto:

Ask.

As we turn the page on yet another year, I just want to say thank you to everyone who reads this blog regularly. I would post to it quasi-daily even if a handful of you bothered to check by every few weeks or so, but it's nice to have so many of you swing by here daily. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You make my day. :)

Let's travel back to 2005, when Word-Of-Mouth (WOM) hadn't yet been hijacked by clueless and myopic marketers looking to make a quick buck off the promise of this strange but powerful thing called authenticity:

From a two-year-old post by John Moore on his Brand Autopsy blog:

From Change This:

Working intimately with Microsoft, this is a topic dear to my heart. (I may be shedding a bit of a tear right now.)From gapingvoid, via Logic + Emotion:

The Blue Monster was designed as a conversation starter. To paraphrase the ongoing dialogue between Steve and I:

For too long, Microsoft has allowed other people- the media, the competition and their detractors, especially- to tell their story on their behalf, instead of doing a better job of it themselves.

We firmly believe that Microsoft must start articulating their story better- what they do, why they do it, and why it matters- if they're to remain happy and prosperous long-term.

Via Jennifer Rice's What's Your Brand Mantra, Mark Hurst's brilliant little primer on the difference between Customer Service and Customer Experience:

From the daily ad biz blog:

This is pretty cool. Waste five minutes today playing with it. Why? Because it's fun, quick, and it'll tell you a thing or two about brand you.

When Yves St. Laurent died yesterday, we lost not only one of the world's greatest designers, but also one of the world's most visionary and honest business leaders.
His passion for his work, for his designs, and for the people for whom he created clothes and accessories won over greed and the mad thirst for double-digit growth that so many companies are plagued with today. When other couture houses tried to impress with gimmicks and flash, he stayed true to simple lines and understated elegance. While other couture houses obsessed about fashion, he simply focused on style.
Yves St. Laurent never sold out. You won't find the YSL logo on cheap sunglasses or bullshit leather iPod cases. Yves St. Laurent refused to let his house fall into the massclusivity trap.

From infosthetics.com:

Taking a well deserved break from drafting some brilliant business proposals for the coming year, I found this perfectly timed bit of advice in what may be Seth Godin's final post of 2007 (no worries, he'll be back in 2008). Read it slowly so it has time to set in:

At long last, the BrandBuilder blog is moving from blogspot to Worpress. (Yay!)

What this means:

1. A slightly updated look.
2. Added functionality and features for you, my readers.
3. Clean RSS, at last.
4. Comments will work smoothly for everyone again.
5. Better integration with my complete web footprint (flickr, linkedIn, twitter, seesmic, buzznet, etc.)

The Transition Schedule:

So Roby is alive and well, but we may be out of contact for a while. His unit has a new mission and a new secret FOB... so we won't know for a while if he'll still have internet access. If he doesn't, he won't be able to post to his blog regularly, which sucks.

War is hell, after all.

As a reformed meat eater (I'll eat anything that swims, walks or crawls in the water but not on land - at least not anymore) it seems strange for me to get excited about a burger joint, yet here we are. I just caught a glimpse of this incredible little Kansas "fast food" restaurant on Sundance (yes, the TV channel), and all I can say is this: I wish I didn't have to drive all the way to Lawrence, Kansas to eat there. (They have non-meat items on the menu.)

Hey, at least Local Burger gives me a reason to go to Kansas someday... Though I hope someone with deep pockets will catch wind of this incredible concept, take the time to go eat there, and make it possible for Local Burger to open more restaurants around the country - starting with wherever I happen to be living.

From Tim Coote's always brilliant and enjoyable blog:

“When people ask me how do you make it in show business or whatever, what I always tell them — And nobody ever takes note of it ‘cuz it’s not the answer they wanted to hear. What they want to hear is here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script, here’s how you do this — But I always say, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” If somebody’s thinking, “How can I be really good?”, people are going to come to you. It’s much easier doing it that way than going to cocktail parties.”

-Steve Martin.