Over the weekend I attended the 10th annual Reputation Institute Conference in New York City. A number of interesting people from the academic as well as the professional side of corporate reputation showed up to discuss how we can understand and build corporate reputation.

One of the founding farthers of corporate identity work over the past decades, Wally Olins (Wolff Olins, UK, now Saffron) was awarded for his inspiring work of a lifetime. Wally has recently been working with country and city branding. We had a brief conversation of the brand of Denmark. What it is all about?

It seems to me that most danes have really been defining the danish brand by the homogenous character of the culture. Not so much by any common belief or vision. Recently the danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen talked about "branding Denmark". I think he meant doing PR-work and ads. But it being first and forremost the way we act and talk that will define danish culture as a country brand we have to think much more about how we act in our everyday. The way we think and our underlying beliefs has to be discussed. But who is creating the discussion of danish beleifs and are the danes ready to understand the perception of our reputation?

Next week there will be a danish edition of the Reputation Institute Conference. You'll not be meeting HP, Johnson & Johnson and Chevron (or Wally Olins for that matter), but I'm sure there will be lots of interesting input and thoughts on corporate reputation. Go check it out.

Chevron and Novo-presentation, Wally Olins receiving the first Hall of Fame-award, Professor Mary Jo Hatch and Wally Olins, Kimmo Liponen from Nokia

Day one: People armed with shovels and dressed in Kansas from top to bottom enters the yard, Gasværksvej 4E. They look determined.
Day two: People (still armed) are digging, restructuring the bushes.
Day three: People measuring up
Day four: Seriously measuring up. Seriously.
… and then today two wagons loaded with huge grass-rolls enters. And now people are rolling these giant grass-carpets out in the yard! Somewhere in Jutland a field is lying disfigured and maltreated.

Yesterday I flew home from NYC with Continental Airlines. The cab-driver was rude and didn't understand a word of what I said. I succeeded in guiding him to Newark. Not a problem being the standard with New York cabs and a reason to feel OK. Then things got funny. The e-ticket screen didn't work. A staffer had to punch in a code in order for the machine to realize my passport is not yet expired. TSA handled me and everyone as cattle so that was great too. In my opinion safety hasn't gotten any higher in spite of their extreme attempts to scare every traveler off (a friend of mine tells me you can get a job at an airport quite easy and two weeks later you can drive a truck with what ever you like into the airport and access airplanes - why bother going through the metal detectors if you wanted to fill up a plane with nail clippers or scissors or kalashnikovs?).

Moments later I fond myself at the gate with a friend from the Reputation Institute Conference. We soon learned that the plane was delayed. "We'll inform you every twenty minutes", they said. That didn't happen. What did happen was some alarm going off every 20 minutes without any further explanation (Fire? Terrorist attack?). If you want a career in music (or anything demanding your ability of hearing) don't wait too long at Newark.

Finally another plane was ready. We boarded. Iben told me there was mold on the tomatoes. And vomit on the carpet. There was vomit on carpet number two as well. The third carpet was from business class and clean. She didn't eat any tomatoes (or carpets for that matter). Neither did I. I slept throughout the flight dreaming of travelling with everyone but Continental Airlines...

(I'll try and upload the video-clip that I made on my mobile later...)

Under et foredrag for en gruppe efterskoleforstandere i sidste uge, var dagens tema efterskolernes fremtidige udfordringer. Diskussionen kom selvfølgelig også til at handle om den politiske situation og den uvished, landets efterskoler må forholde sig til lige nu. Hvad skal der ske med 10. klasse? Og bliver der i fremtiden stillet nye undervisningskrav til elever i 9. klasse? Og hvilke konsekvenser kan det få for efterskolernes undervisningstilbud i fremtiden?

I rapporten "Hvorfor efterskole - og hvorfor ikke?" kan vi blandt andet konkludere at mange unge ikke ved hvad det vil sige at gå på efterskole, og derfor i mange tilfælde anser det som spild af tid. Det samme må gøre sig gældende for de politikere, der ser det som deres fornemmeste opgave at få sluset de unge igennem uddannelsessystemet hurtigst muligt. Fælles for dem er at de ikke ser nogen værdi i det ekstra år, unge tilbringer på en efterskole. Modningsprocessen, de sociale konpetencer, udvinklingen af evnen til at indgå relationer, forståelsen for andre mennesker. Det er svært at måle og veje værdien af et efterskoleophold, og heri ligger også en udfordring for  efterskolerne i fremtiden.

Spørgsmålet efterskolerne skal stille sig selv er det samme som alle organisationer skal stille sig selv: Hvorfor er denne organisation sat i verden? Hvad er det vi kan, som gør en forskel? Hvad er det der gør os uundværlige? Med andre ord: Hvad er vores eksistensberettigelse? Og vigtigere endnu - svaret skal ud over rampen! Der ligger tydeligvis en udfordring i at få både politikere og potentielle efterskoleelever/forældre til at se efterskolernes eksistensberettigelse i fremtiden. 

Efterskolerne har brug for et fælles projekt. Et projekt der i praksis viser at efterskolerne går en forskel. Både for enkelte elev, men især på samfundsplan. Et muligt projekt, som også kort var oppe ogvend under foredraget, er at efterskolerne gør en samlet og koordineret indsats for at fremme integrationen af unge med anden etninsk baggrund. Højskolerne har netop fået tildelt økononmiske midler til at løfte en del af opgaven. Det viser at projektet har politisk opbakning og hjælper til at løse et problem, der har politikernes bevågenhed, og det kan hjælpe til at ændre fokus fra hvordan efterskoler står i vejen for uddannelsespolitiske målsætninger til hvordan efterskoler kan hjælpe bidrage til løsningen af integrationsproblematikker.

Projektet har alle muligheder for at få efterskolerne på både politikernes og mediernes dagsorden. Det er netop hvad efterskolerne har brug for nu for at få en styrket position i den politiske debat. Projektet kan have mange former og formål. Det vigtige er at efterskolerne bliver enige om et fælles projekt, der konkretiserer skoleformens eksistensberettigelse i samfundet i dag. Engang var én af efterskolens store opgaver at give de unge på landet en sidste dannelsesrejse inden de begyndte deres arbejdsliv i landbruget. Hvad er efterskolernes fornnemmeste opgave i dag?   

These days companies are doing all they can to get their customers involved in co-creating their products.

CUSTOMER-MADE: “The phenomenon of corporations creating goods, services and experiences in close cooperation with experienced and creative consumers, tapping into their intellectual capital, and in exchange giving them a direct say in (and rewarding them for) what actually gets produced, manufactured, developed, designed, serviced, or processed.”

Companies that have tried this successfully include MasterCard with their "Priceless Campaign", L´Oreal´s "You Make the Commercial" and our very own Danish Lego.

Why are we so interested in letting corporations pick our brain for good ideas? Here is a few ideas...

Status: people love to be seen, love to show off their creative skills and thinking

Employment: in an almost ironic twist, CUSTOMER-MADE is turning out to be a great vehicle for finding employment, as it helps companies recruit their next in-house designer, guerrilla advertising agency or brilliant strategist.

Does this mean companies are letting us the customers have the overall say in what we would like to see them produce...? Not really because there is not much customization and personalization in this method because the company decides the framework of the co-creation and they also only allow some parts of their products to be co-created by us.

Read more about this phenomenon in the fantastic newsletter (you have to subscribe to) from: Trendwatching

garbagescout.com

Recently I've been working with the implications of corporate brand identity gaps; for instance the differences between the vision of management and how tasks are worked out in a bussy everyday life among colleagues in the organization. As you may have experienced yourself, most companies experience that sort of difference. And until recently I've mostly been concerned with diminishing those differences as most of my clients experience either "they don't understand the vision" or "my boss has no idea what's going on". Being two ends of the same tie the gap seems to be there. And most times it is clear for any customer that somethings the matter; gaps of understanding between different departments or parts of a business is not only difficult for anyone trying to get the job done. Most times it's also reflected in the customer experience being differences in expectations and received value.

But the other day I was reminded how gaps can be useful and should in some cases be kept - maybe even nurtured. The tension of gaps between the everyday as you know it and the audacious goal in a new vision or the gap between the view of customers complaining and the staff on the receiving end has great potential for movement and growth.

In Majken Schultz' comment there are certainly a number of questions to be answered (note by the way the layer of meta-reflection: We are discussing how we can find value in listening and co-creating by doing just those things through the weblog) when it comes to the understanding of authenticity and the identity of organizations.

So far I've become aware of a number of perspectives or beliefs on authenticity in the context of organizational and communicative work:

- The correlation of thought and action (or what you say and what you do, also popularly referred to as "walk the talk")

- The connection to heritage (we used to be a design-company, hence it is authentic to discuss organizational identity in a design-perspective)

- Being consistent without regard to context (this seems to be a bit too rigid; a more post-modern understanding would be that you can be very different at your grandmothers dinner and at a late night party with your friends but still be authentic in both cases)

- Authentic means doing something good (there is a moral or ethical undertone to authenticity)

When I connect authenticity and the ability to be authentic with customer-involvement it's because I'm trying to find effective ways for companies to understand their outside world and use it to get an understanding of the differences between what an organization believes it is and how it is perceived by it's customers or users. And in a fast-paced, competitive world these processes has to build understanding fast, effectively and on an ongoing basis.

GEL is short for "Good experience Live" and is a conference, and community, exploring good experience in all its forms -- in business, art, society, technology, and life.

The conference started in New York but this year the first European version (EuroGel 2006) is coming to Denmark in September at the Black Diamond. The conference is trying to "create an environment that allows our multi-disciplinary community to explore the idea of "good experience" in a variety of contexts".

The conference consists of a lot of interesting speakers. Look at some video of the former speakers here...Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wickipedia or maybe Yuri Lane "Human beat box"!? - it looks like its going to be an interesting day in the black diamond this year.

These helmets seem to be girls biggest protest against scooters. Now that I have tried these things on several times, I think it's time to introduce some light and shade into the helmet discussion.

- Yes, helmets are not suitable for any hairstyle! But as long as you keep it simple, it's not like your hair is all messed up, wet and greasy or anything.

- No, the shop assistents don't laugh at you when you go into a store, wearing your helmet (at least not to you face). I have been to several shops, wearing my helmet, just to see if they would collapse in laughter. They didn't.

- Yes, it's quite difficult to say hello to an old friend, unless you can get off with a handshake. Kisses on the cheeks are out of the question - I've tried.

- No, I don't take my helmet off very often, once it's on! I sometimes forget that I'm wearing a helmet, untill other people point out that I look a bit funny. So...

- Yes, I look funny wearing a helmet, but I don't mind. I probably made someones day...

…That is what Nelson Mandela said about the movie “Tsotsi”. I went to the movies last night to see “Tsotsi” and I must say: Go! Go! Go! On Thursday it will disappear only to return on DVD in a couple of months. Tsotsi made a great impression on me and was not only a visual experience but also an emotional – almost existential experience.

The story takes place in a shantytown just outside of Johannesburg where Tsotsi (the lead caracter) has lived since he was a child. His world is a mixture of loss and brutality. It is a story about the difference between “having” and “not having” and about being capable to give love and take responsibility for another human being even though the odds are extremely bad. And it doesn’t really matter that the theme is classic-sentimental and the story kind of simple because Gavin Hood (A Reasonable Man 1999 and The Storekeeper 1998) has made an impressive film, which manage to balance between clichés and authenticity. Athol Fugards novel (the novel behind the movie) was written in the fifties but could have been written today as well. And that is both frightening and sad.
I bought some sweets just before the movie started and I payed with a 500 bill. The girl by the desk gave me back as if it was a 200 bill but I was in a hurry so I didn’t notice until after the movie. That’s a damn shame and I will probably never see my 300 again. But I woke up in a fully equipped apartment and I didn’t have to kill someone to get my coffee on my way to work.