Stuff to Rock Your World.

The Best Defense is...Offensive?

I am intrigued by political campaign communications...The campaign ad guys poll, analyze and generate ideas that sometimes make you wonder, "where in the world did THAT idea come from?!" Like today's ad issued by John McCain's campaign, comparing Barack Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Whoa! Now that's different...! 

Alas! Some bright mind realized that Obama has "celebrity" status  ("biggest celebrity in the world") like Paris or Britney, but he's inexperienced to run the country. SLAM! They show huge crowds coming out to chant for Obama...but similar to Paris and Britney?! I just don't get the connection...as I suspect most of the general public won't get either.

The interesting thing about this ad is it shows Obama as a handsome fellow, with  HUGE crowds chanting his name...Wow, there's huge momentum here - maybe I need to really pay attention, if all those other folks are for this guy, maybe I should be, too.

The ad guys then go for the zinger: Obama is against offshore drilling (as if that's going to reduce our dependence on foreign oii?) and for raising taxes...Psht! "Inexperienced to lead...the Real Obama"...says McCain who approved this message.

...take a look, and judge for yourself - are you convinced by this piece?

Let's face it, McCain has a tough challenge ahead running against Obama who, indeed, probably does have celebrity status. I'm not sure that this is a weakness, however, since Americans LOVE their celebrities - they'd vote Oprah in to the presidency in a heartbeat and they follow Britney and Paris more than they do their Sunday preacher. McCain, on the other hand, is a much older man who is being painted as "Bush's third term guy." Looks like defense to me.

It's interesting, then, that McCain's campaign chose the approach of shining a spotlight on Obama's strengths, and then using oil and taxes as the hammer. Somehow I think that the power of the earlier images do more for Obama than the messages hurt him in the latter part of the spot. 

The Obama camp quicky responded: "Just another of McCain's false, negative attacks..."

Ah! It's gonna be a long campaign season - what fun!

--C.L.C.

The Brand Called YOU

I love helping friends and acquaintances with their job searches. I also volunteer as a panelist at the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce Job Forum to help job seekers in their quest and I'm always open to giving an informational interview. It's not that I necessarily have any super-expertise in the matter, but as a communicator and a marketer I have skills that are easily transferrable to helping with career strategies. I can look at a resume and see if it has captured the essence of the person described on paper. I can listen to what someone is doing to search for a job and suggest alternatives. 

Recently I had breakfast with a friend and we chatted about her job search. I looked at her resume, and it just didn't capture who she was. Which led me to ask, "What is your personal brand? What distinguishes you from everyone else with similar skills and abilities?" She was stunned to realize that despite having paid a career coach for assistance, this question had never been posed to her.

Like the products we buy, the celebrities we closely follow and the places we visit, brands are everywhere. Why wouldn't we also look at ourselves to consider what is our personal brand? Personal branding is the most effective way to cut through the clutter and tell the story about YOU. What are your skills, strengths, values and passions? 

William Arruda and Kirsten Dixon have written a great book called Career Distrinction about this subject. They outline a process to arrive at defining your personal brand:

1. Extract: Know yourself to grow yourself (vision, purpose, goals, values and passion); get external feedback on your brand and leverage your strengths; figure out who comprises your brand community - and your target audience - and how to assess your competitive differentiation; and finally how to tell your brand story.

2. Express: Create your career-marketing tools; express yourself; assess your online identity; and build your brand in bits and bytes.

3. Exude: Be on-brand in all that you do; get a visual identity; and finally increase your career Karma.

The process of self-reflection is not always an easy one, nor is it one that happens quickly. But digging deep to define your key qualities helps align YOU to your goals so that you can stand out in a crowd!

So, what are you all about?!

--C.L.C.

Things older than McCain...

There is no end to clever ideas - or even clever propaganda for that matter. Knowing that race and gender may play a role in the selection of the future president, an Obama supporter has developed a new blog focused on John McCain's age. THINGS YOUNGER THAN REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (OH, AND DID I FORGET TO MENTION “WAR HERO”?) JOHN MCCAIN... gives you a perspective of how long McCain has been around...

Did you know Keith Richards is younger than McCain?!

And the Los Angeles freeway? Yup, younger than McCain...

The Golden Gate Bridge, SPAM, Pat Buchanan, Bugs Bunny, Mount Rushmore, Israel, Dick Cheney...you got it: all younger than McCain.

Yikes, when framed like this, who knows if this helps or harms?! What is clear is that times have certainly changed, and campaigns must adapt and be nimble. A touch of creativity helps.

-C.L.C.

My Origins Rock!

I just found out that I've been invited once again to lecture in Pisa in September at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna - a couple of days with executives from the Tuscan Health System. I am so excited - there is nothing better to be back with my "peeps"!

Few are not familiar with the quirky and zany, yet wonderfully loving uniqueness that is the Italian spirit. This particular little clip personifies my peeps to a "T."

This magical people spawned the likes of Botticelli, Giotto, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raffello, Marconi, Galileo, Pavarotti, Fermi, Colombo, Vespucci, Marco Polo, Fellini, Donatello, Bernini, Brunelleschi, Cellini, Palladio, Alighieri...

I'm so proud of my origins. And maybe now you understand me a bit better as well...

--C.L.C.

Watch Who You Hang With Chaser...

Yesterday I wrote about the dangers of associating with people who can drag you in the mud. I also mused about how the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy might impact Barak Obama.

Well, today a visibly angry Barak Obama said "Enough!" to his former pastor. “I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday.”

While previously Obama had defended Wright for what he said were snippets taken out of context, Wright’s appearances over the past couple of days appear to have been be the last straw. Today Obama did not excuse him. “Yesterday I think he caricatured himself, and that was as I said, that made me angry but also made me sad,” he said. “There wasn’t anything constructive out of yesterday. All it was was a bunch of rants that that aren’t grounded in truth.

“I’ve known Rev. Wright for almost 20 years. The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church. They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs and if Rev Wright thinks that’s political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn’t know me very well and based on his remarks yesterday, well I may not know him as well as I thought either,” he said.

A textbook response from the presidential hopeful who today drew the line in the sand. Today, for the first time, he admitted, “There’s been great damage. It may have been unintentional on his part, but you know I do not see that relationship being the same after this.”

The story is probably not over, but the moral remains - watch who you hang with and know when to call it quits when enough is enough.

--C.L.C.

Watch Who You Hang With...

Personal branding is another topic of great interest to me. I mean, we are each so different and quirky in our own way, so managing our brand and other people's perceptions of us is important. This is especially true for those in public life.

Take Barak Obama, for example. Imagine his dismay when a spotlight was cast on his former pastor Jeremiah Wright. ABC News found several racially and politically charged sermons by Wright, including his suggestion that past U.S. policies were partially responsibile for the September 11 attacks. His statement, "God bless America... No!... God Damn America...for killing innocent people...for treating her citizens as less than human," and his assertion that "[t]he government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color."

Obama quickly took a hit in the polls as a result of his past association with the good pastor. Spurred to distance himself from the controversy, Obama delivered his "A More Perfect Union" speech in which he condemned Wright's remarks and tried to put them in context, although he didn't disown the man himself.

And now Wright has taken his show on the road, going to "war" with the press to get his message across. But along the way he is also doing a great job at keeping the controversy alive and I'm sure this is causing consternation in the Obama camp since they probably would love for the whole thing to die. On Friday Wright appeared in an interview on PBS with Bill Moyers and last night he gave a keynote at the fundraiser for the Detroit-chapter of the NAACP. And this morning he met with the National Press Club. He chided the media for not listening to his entire sermon and for missing the point of his remarks and that there is a deep misunderstanding about African-American tradition, the black church and black theology. Wright continues to be painted in the media as a controversial figure, fanning the flames towards his association with Obama.

Okay, he has a point. But up to a point if it's your reputation to which he is stuck...

Whether you are a public figure or not, there are three important lessons here: One - be careful what you say to begin with because the wrong sound bite is usually the one that gets repeated and it may not reflect your true intent. As soon as you begin to explain, you lose. Second - your personal brand can be impacted by your associations. Third - when the person with whom you are associated delivers bad sound bites that will impact your reputation and personal brand, move swiftly to protect yourself because it typically means guilt by association...Address the situation head on like Obama tried to do.

I guess there's a fourth lesson as well - if your buddy continues to try to make his point (which certainly could be extremely valid - and here I'm not commenting on the merit of his argument), try to convince him that it's "enuff already!" Zip it. Zip it good. Or the controversy will just die a slow death because the media (and human nature in general) loves controversy. And maybe you'll go down with it...

Time will only tell how sticky the 'ole reverendo's controversy will be to presidential hopeful Barak Obama.

--C.L.C.