It’s been a busy, busy summer.
Business is good; my clients are wonderful.
My McMaster/Syracuse MCM Digital Branding students have been great as well, diligently “attending” biweekly GoToMeeting seminars on digital branding, with foci as varied as how to integrate digital into your organizational structure and how to apply the theories in Russell Belk’s new conceptual JCR article on the extended self in the digital world to your brand strategy. Now that the course is over, I’ll miss this group terribly.
I’ve been interviewed by various media outlets as well. I was both surprised and pleased several weeks ago to hear from the BBC World Service; Mark Whittaker of Business Matters asked me to weigh in on the “cute” rebranding of a notorious Japanese prison. You can listen to the interview here, around 41:20. (More notes on branding in Japan here.)
In the podcast space, I did a video interview on branding with Marc Binkley of Sleeping Barber, which you can find here. And I did a long interview on entrepreneurship with Mindy and Non of the Nerds For Hire podcast; it’s not up yet, but do keep an eye out. (And no, I’m not offended at being called a nerd; you can’t write a book on postcolonialism and science fiction without being one.)
Finally, I’d like to introduce the newest member of the ideas in flight team:
His name is Nathaniel and he’s pretty cute. (That photo was taken by Alex Wesson, the best photographer; if you’re in or near Toronto, check her out.) Luckily, he likes hanging out in the Baby Bjorn and making googly eyes at birds outside my office window while I work. It is very possible that I sit and read tweets out loud to him.
As an aside, part of the reason I’m making this announcement is because I’ve heard from a lot of women, particularly young women, who are worried about making the jump into marketing and/or entrepreneurship because they’re concerned about family-friendliness. Like Sarah Kendzior, who has two young children as I do, I’m open about being a parent, in part to normalize the fact of being a successful working woman and mother. If anything, it’s made me an exceptional time manager, and really, it’s made me a better marketer as it’s given me an even deeper understanding of the way people think. (And you know, no one works at 2 AM quite as effectively as a parent of a young child…)
Back to your regularly scheduled blogging about marketing pretty soon. In the meantime, I’ve got a ton of client work, and two marketing classes I’m teaching at York University in the spring for which I need to prep. You know what they say about the shoemaker’s children…