Since being converted in the late 1980s by a year spent in Japan work on marketing projects there (and actually going back to the first marketing book I ever read Hugh Davidson' Offensive Marketing) I have found myself at odds with large parts of the profession on 2 main issues:

-branding/marketing is vital but only when done at the lowest possible (not the highest possible) cost
-any global company's total investment in branding is about designing 1000's of system connections, not separating perceptions; I hate the distrust that compounds when image-making and reality-making divorce each other; from that moment on both an organisation and leadership lose context, and compound value destruction, both monetary and of other human kinds such as chances to learn or the ability for globalisation to be a locally good thing for every society
 
http://www.valuetrue.com/home/glossary.cfm?letter=c
Back in 1995 we open sourced Brand Chartering to work so that people, leadership teams and every group collective intelligence and network in between can questiuon context passionately and openly untiul they are all working from the same scripts. True systemic connectivity of communications, actions and leadership systemic decisions- the ones that compound what futuire happens. However, it can only work if a climate of trust-flow is ciruclating all around.
A journalist is just finishing a book on how to measure whether trust-flow is systemic, as well as to explain to any investors with slightly more interest than speculators why losing trust-flow is at least as serious as leaking cash-flow. That will be out in 2005, though I can advance individual chapters on 1:1 request.

Meanwhile, I have realised that there are a lot of non-owned but vitally valuable properties that can benefit both from Chartering's toolkit, and valuetrue mapping of triust-flow.
I will be posting a short series on tehse : 1) Water, 2) Cities, 3) The World's largest publically owned media. I also look forward to your suggestions of other brands the public owns
chris macraewww.valuetrue.com
posted by ..., 8:19 PM  permalink