Archive for category branding
Ideas on when and how to fail
Posted by Peter in Uncategorized, branding, creative process, leadership, risk, storytelling on April 8, 2010
The two most artistically interesting people I know are Liz Lerman and Adrian Danzig. Liz is the founding Artistic Director of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, and Adrian the Artistic Director of 500 Clown. What do a dancer and a clown have in common? They ask the most daring artistic questions and risk their take on the answer in performance. For each, differently, failure is part of the bargain between them, their ensembles and their audiences.
Whatever question I ask Liz, she will answer with a different proposal and set of questions. This is how she creates art as well. Built into her creation process is the willingness to destroy her own premise, see what holds up, rebuild from there. Knowing what to jettison and what to keep is what distinguishes great artists. She has a book, Hiking the Horizontal: Field Notes From a Choreographer to be published by Wesleyan University press coming in spring 2011. I look forward to reading it.
Liz and I had a conversation about the difference between practice and rehearsal. Practice is skill-based. You practice the individual components of your art: plies at the barre, scales on a guitar, anatomy sketches in charcoal. The goal is perfection. Rehearsal is where you learn what doesn’t work. Rehearsal is where you try things. Where you go for the big “what if.” The goal of rehearsal is failure. If not in rehearsal where? In performance in front of an audience?
Liz and I wondered, if business is theater, then when do business performers (workers) get to rehearse.? If business is theater and process serves as the script, when and where do business performers learn what doesn’t work? When do workers get to build destruction into the business premise and come up with a better one? Unfortunately for customers, workers fail in performance when the stakes are highest. It’s hard to overcome a bad script and a lack of direction. Instead, managers often double down on the ideas and processes that got them in trouble in the first place. Management rarely questions their premise. Artists always do.
Branding Lesson–Build destruction into your own argument, see what holds up, and build around that. Repeat.
500 Clown (there are three of them), also asks big artistic questions. What makes them so unique is that their approach is to stage failure. Yes they use rehearsal to try things and fail, and they aim to demonstrate in performance that failure is part of the human experience, and survivable. A clown by nature subverts authority. To 500 Clown traditional theater itself represents authority. The script is authority. The fourth wall is authority. All must be subverted by clown-play. They’re clowns and clowns screw things up, of course, because they’re human. A clown by nature is also resilient!
The 500 Clown belief system goes like this…
500 Clown believes that life is worth the risk.
500 Clown wants to respect the actor as the primary artist, and not just serve as a mouthpiece for the writer and director.
In live performance it’s the actor, not the writer or director, who charges the moment. The objective is to feel something and do something authentic. 500 Clown wants to show that having a profound experience in public is survivable.
If we succeed, we show the respect for the audience and allow them to have their own profound experience.
* * * That is what good branding is and does! Oh, that business would regard their workers as the “primary artist” versus the owner (author) or manager (director) * * *
500 Clown recently performed 500 Clown Macbeth in Baltimore at the Creative Alliance. Their interpretation is based on a very simple premise: clown want crown. It takes them up to two years to develop a piece. It takes so long because they keep asking big questions and starting over. Their director doesn’t provide answers. She helps them decide what to jettison and what to keep. There is no single right answer. There is what works and what works more provocatively.
500 Clown deconstructs classic text, aims high and leaves no wiggle room artistically. They keep their edge by making the audience central to the storytelling. The risk of failure is high.
No one creates instant community better than 500 Clown. No one takes risks, and profits from doing so, more than 500 Clown.
Branding Lesson–Aim high and leave no wiggle room. Put your audience inside the story.
IGNITE Baltimore
Posted by Peter in Uncategorized, branding, creative process, storytelling on March 8, 2010
In five minutes and 20 slides (rotating every 15 seconds), I present “Business is Theater” at Ignite Baltimore 5. I make the case for how well theater best practices apply in the world of business.
Have a look and listen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUGw5yC7P48&feature=PlayList&p=0CADB93695631416&index=
Here’s a link to Ignite Baltimore:
I’ve attended a few Ignites as a spectator and thought, “Hey, I could do that!” So, I sent in a proposal based on a previous post. It was more challenging than I thought.
Imagining the slide show and finding suitable slides are two different things. Whether or not to time your presentation to the slide rotation is another important strategic decision. I did not. I let the slides and my presentation each make their own case.
Choosing whether to follow a script or ad-lib according to themes was also a big decision. I tend to ramble when I’m nervous so I scripted my presentation and rehearsed it many times. I’ve noticed that most ad-libbers talk fast and try hard to be funny. They tend to come across as amateurs. I will admit that one-in-five sparkles. But it was a risk I wasn’t willing to take. Nor was I going to memorize my script. Once you go up on lines you’re doomed. It ain’t community theater. No one will prompt you. My goal was good rhythm, the right tone, and timing it to end during the final slide. You may decide whether I succeeded or not.
While you are asked not to make your presentation in the form of a commercial, I did use two existing theater companies as examples when making my case. One is a local theater with a production running now, and the other (from Chicago) will be presented locally in two weeks. I used them because it seemed wise to make the case (theater is a great business model) locally rather than abstractly. I plugged their productions, not my branding business.
In other news, I had public readings of two plays I submitted to the Baltimore Playwrights Festival (BPF) two Saturdays ago. Public readings are performed by rehearsed actors for the highest rated submissions to the festival. After each reading an open discussion is held with the playwright and the director. While the BPF evaluators may recommend plays they deem worthy of staging, the handful of participating local theaters decide which scripts they are willing to produce. I keep my fingers crossed.
It was a lot of fun hearing the characters come to life in front of an audience. Much of the feedback was useful and I am revising and rewriting both pieces. One is a 50 page urban one-act, and the other an anthology of three short plays all set in rural southern New Mexico.
Ideas for future posts include:
- Practice versus rehearsal
- When leadership matters most or a what to do when a one man shop gets an intern
- Critical response or dealing with feedback
I hope you’ll watch the Ignite presentation (see first link) and let me know what you think.
Business as Theater
Posted by Peter in Uncategorized, branding, creative process, leadership, storytelling on December 8, 2009
One of my favorite theater companies, Single Carrot Theatre, has been selected as a “Startup to Watch” by the Baltimore Business Journal. I’m delighted but not surprised. Every play that Single Carrot produces is a start-up venture. For each production they assemble a unique team of leaders, designers, techies, and performers around a core concept–the script. Each production must be branded and marketed. The audience must be delighted with their experience in order for Single Carrot to earn the right to produce again.
In business, as in theater, you are judged by your performance. In both your customer (audience) is central to the story. Theater best-practices can improve leadership and brand performance. Theater best-practices can help organizations connect with their audiences down deep were they make important decisions…emotionally.
* * *
- The business leader is the author or playwright
- Business processes serve as the script
- A manager is the director who reinforces only the behaviors that serve the story
- Employees are the actors who perform the story
- Their work is theater
- Their performance is the business offering
- The customer is the audience
* * *
Corporate Culture = Compliance
The major difference between business and theater is that in business the goal is profit (or shareholder value). In theater, profit is a by-product. The purpose and reward of theater is transformation or moments of unity in which the audience and the actors are one.
Theater Culture = Commitment
* * *
In the Baltimore theater scene Single Carrot is unique. Single Carrot is an ensemble theater. An ensemble is a group of complementary parts that contribute to a single effect. Sustaining the ensemble in not just their cause; it is their strength and point of differentiation.
Branding Lesson–Be different
When I asked them what their vision is they said they wanted to create a first class theater company of the future (on a shoe string!) They want to become significant by putting Baltimore on the American theater map.
Branding Lesson–Aim high and leave no wiggle room
The ensemble’s purpose is to stay together. They do so (counter-intuitively) by creating opportunities for each member to flourish on their own terms as artists and businessmen and women. Each ensemble member believes that they will realize his or her personal vision for success faster as an ensemble member loyal the the Single Carrot cause, than they would as freelance actors, designers, and directors who migrate from theater to theater in search of opportunity.
Branding lesson–Embrace paradox or…sometimes the shortest distance between where you are and where you want to be is the path of most resistance
What about leadership or the director’s role? The director must believe passionately in what the story represents. The director helps the creative team and actors to signify the meaning of the story to the audience. The director does this by establishing the world of the play. The world of the play is composed of systems. For example, a system can be the play’s genre, period in history, or language. Making sure the ensemble understands and adheres to the world of the play is the director’s responsibility. The best way to help everyone stay true to the world of the play is to establish a metaphor for the production. The metaphor limits the way everyone thinks about the play. The director never imposes his or her “concept” on others. Theater is a culture of commitment not compliance. A good director doesn’t say much, encourages as much as possible, and says yes to every creative idea. A good director relies on the actor’s intuition and helps the actor channel their intuition through the systems that make up the world of the play.
In theater nothing is arbitrary. Every sight, sound, and movement exists in complete obedience to the world of the play. The director sets up systematic and unified limitations and then gets out of the way.
Branding Lessons–Limitation frees creativity
* * *
Contact me when you are ready to:
- Create like a writer — America needs innovators
- Lead like a director — Your greatest assets are your story and your people
- Perform like an actor — Experience flow and sustain peak performance
The History of Branding
Posted by Peter in Uncategorized, branding, creative process, leadership, risk, storytelling on September 23, 2009
The history of branding goes something like this:
This is mine:
This is better:
I am like this:
When your audience intuitively understands what “like this” means, then you have a winning, sustainable brand.
Case Study: Branding Water
Step #1 — Uncover your Brand DNA
Do research…Find people who have a relationship with water and ask them to choose words, phrases and concepts that best describe water. They might say that water is:
Liquid
Useful
Gives life
Cleans
Erodes
Floods
Powerful force
Gentle healer
Contradictions abound as they do in people and organizations. Many I hear include: Are we about classic plays or cutting edge theater? Are we about funding, programming, or education? Is it our founder or our mission that is compelling? Do we have to choose one over the other in order to clarify our brand?
While water is many things, at its core, it is two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule. This fact will never change. Water is H2O
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Step #2 — Elevate your purpose
Everything in nature has a purpose. What is water’s purpose? To help grow crops? Clean wounds? Quench thirst? Carve canyons? Wipe out coastal villages? Sink the Titanic?
Some of these are applications of water in its various forms, and some are byproducts of a higher purpose. Water’s purpose is to return to the sea.
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Step #3 — Boldly declare your difference
What makes water unique? What can water claim other non mineral essential elements cannot?
Water, when faced with an obstacle, changes direction. When faced with circumstances beyond its control, like heat or cold, changes form to mist, steam, or ice. Water yields to problems. Water is both yeilding and unstoppable. Water always finds its way to the sea. When it arrives it starts the journey over again. Water is unstoppable!
Step #4 — Create a compelling brand driver
The fact of water is H2O. Water’s purpose is to return to the sea. Water’s difference is being unstoppable.
In water’s case, what does it mean to be unstoppable? What is water’s strategy? What drives its unstoppable march to the sea?
Water changes what it encounters. If it cannot, it changes itself. Water has the power to change the shape of the Earth. It can be a destructive force or a gentle healer. Water is a source of energy and a mode of transportation. Water can be inspirational, physical, mysterious, multi-dimensional, and metaphorical. Water is always changing.
More on the Brand Driver…
Brand Driver establishes difference:
By clearly defining your relevant differentiation in the marketplace, the Brand Driver gives your brand a unique and ownable focus.
Brand Driver focuses strategy:
It directs all strategic and creative expressions of your brand
Brand Driver hones vision:
It establishes clear goals for the future and sets guidelines for getting there.
Brand Driver propels transformation:
It shows how the organization must change in order to deliver on the brand promise.
What about logos and tag lines? You’re not there yet. Logos, tag lines, symbols, message points, and communications strategies all spring from the brand well. Do steps #1 -#4 (dig the well) and then you can begin to establish the parameters of your brand. And then you can execute strategies and tactics. Your brand platform will be the well from which you draw your communications strategies and marketing campaigns over time.
Stand for something people feel passionate about.
Posted by Peter in branding, creative process, leadership, storytelling on August 25, 2009
As a leader, you are your organization’s principal story teller. Employees, customers and stakeholders all look to you to set the theme and develop the plot. Tell a great story and they all want to become characters in it. Every interaction and transaction becomes charged with meaning and drama. In a good story, threats and setbacks are sources of narrative suspense, motivating protagonists to fresh feats of ingenuity and daring. If you want your employees to act like heroes then you’ve got to provide them with an epic.
So, what story is your organization currently telling? Is it keeping your audience on the edge of their seats? Is it inspiring your staff, enticing your customers, or holding your stakeholders in thrall? In many organizations the story changes many times before it reaches its intended audience. The message and its meaning get watered down as it moves farther and farther from the source.
I can fix that.
Your brand must stand for something people feel passionate about. I can help you to harness the power of stories to improve brand, organizational and team performance. Harnessing the power of stories creates consistency between your plans and your actions.
This blog has two purposes:
- To establish my credibility and difference (from expensive agencies) when you are looking for consultants who can help you energize your brand and elevate your message.
- Further the conversation about how the impact of storytelling can ignite passion, improve performance and create prosperity, even in challenging times.
The pages are about my business offerings, and the posts are conversations about branding, storytelling, leadership, and the creative process.
I’m not an expert on web/blogging best practices, but I won’t let that stop me from learning as I go. I am an expert on bringing the best practices of theater to business. If stories connect author with audience the same dynamics help business leaders connect with customers, employees and investors or stakeholders. Theater is a powerful form of storytelling as old as humankind.
Join me on an exciting journey where we learn from artists how to move people in the direction of our vision. We’re not going to play it safe or try to be all things to all people. We dare to be different, authentic and consistent.
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