denise lee yohn: brand as business bites™ /

Several weeks ago Bloomberg BusinessWeek published an article about Steve Jobs entitled, The Last Pitchman.  It documented Jobs’ seemingly inexplicable ability to sell practically anything, as evidenced by his glorious pitch for the iPhone 4, a “new” product which the news media had already gotten hold of and detailed weeks before.  I tore the pages out of the magazine as is my habit with content which proffer good fodder for blogposts.

Although the article was fascinating, I struggled with how to make sense of it — until last Sunday when I read a New York Times interview with Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box.net.  Levie used to do magic shows as a teen, and he says some of his most important leadership lessons come from the hobby:

“…it’s all about getting in front of people and telling a story, something that people buy into that is hopefully entertaining.  It’s all about capturing people’s imaginations and getting them excited about what’s possible.”

I realized that’s exactly what makes Jobs such an effective pitchman – magic.   (more…)

I’ve finally gotten around to reading “The Opposite of Fate:  A Book of Musings,” a book released quite awhile ago by Amy Tan, the author of best-selling novels like The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife.  Like all of her other writings, this book has been a delight to devour.  Not only has it entertained me and helped me understand Tan (and therefore myself), but also it has inspired me.  Tan includes many insights about story-telling and communication in general which I believe can be applied to developing brand strategies. (more…)

Today I’d like to do a little experiment.  I have an idea for a new brand tool but my thoughts aren’t fully fleshed out.  So I thought I’d use this blogpost as a way of reaching out to like-minded folks who might be interested in refining and fleshing out the idea.  The following post outlines my idea as well as questions and points for feedback.  I hope you will be eager to participate and actually read this as invitation to collaborate on something that could be quite exciting.

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Sunday’s NYT featured an insightful analysis of “Survivor,” the reality-show pioneer from CBS, currently in its 16th season — the piece recaps the show’s rise to popularity and its current slow decline.

Once again, Hollywood has provided an excellent lesson in brand-building (more…)