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Showing posts with the label Branding

Talk Diet: Part of My Brand (Such as It Is), and Let’s Try Again (With More Realistic Expectations)

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Background: * “Soy-whey-protein-diet” by Peggy Greb _________________________      My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people. – Orson Welles ______________________ In late July, I woke up in the middle of the night with the worst acid reflux that I have ever experienced in my life – so bad that I could barely breathe. If you have ever experienced acid reflux, you know how unpleasant and scary it can be. Well, multiply this event by 10. I was on vacation and had (ahem) eaten some things I had should not have eaten so close to bedtime – at least without taking my Zantac 75. But I got cocky. You think I would have learned by now, but evidently not. Sooooo... When I returned from my vacay, I decided to (once again) start taking better care of myself and watch what I eat and, most importantly, when I eat it. Now I don’t want to rebrand this site back into a “diet” blog – I do have varied interests, and I want

My Life Brand... and a Fable

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My Life Brand _______________ “We all have personal brands and most of us have already left a digital footprint, whether we like it or not. Proper social media use highlights your strengths that may not shine through in an interview or application and gives the world a broader view of who you are. Use it wisely.” – Amy Jo Martin, American author, speaker, entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of Digital Royalty. Now I get it!!! The Memo, that is... For almost a year, “But I Never Got the Memo” was the subtitle of this blog... It was time to change it to reflect the brand aware and branded me. Whether or not an ordinary life like mine is worthy of branding is debatable. After all, I haven’t cured cancer, created the most-awesome-must-have tech product, or starred in a blockbuster movie. I have written and published some books and have been awarded a Fulbright Award – not too shabby for an ordinary life – but mine is not a famous life or brand. I hope that, as a te

Green Gables: The Demise of a Great Sioux City Eatery, Why It Failed, and Why Large Chain Restaurants Can Fail as Well (A Customer’s Point of View)

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Green Gables, Sioux City, Iowa ___________________________ “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” – Sam Walton __________________ Given that this blog is about branding, albeit my personal brand, I have been thinking a lot about businesses, both small and large, that fail, some of them longstanding pillars of their communities. As a customer, I am aghast at how obvious their downfalls seemed to me, that, perhaps, they were listening to the wrong experts, instead of customers. Downfalls start small. Companies begin shaving away slivers of their products and hope that customers won’t notice, but I can say with confidence that we do notice when a company tries to pull a fast one and then tries to spin it as something positive. For example, the Dial Corporation took a 5-ounce bar of soap and morphed it into 4 ounces by carving out a “convenient” curve, maki

Should YOU Rebrand Yourself?

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Mirror, Mirror, in my hand, Tell me, truly, my grand new brand? ____________________________ If you manage a personal blog, you might decide that it’s not worth rebranding, but it may be a good idea, especially if very few visitors are visiting your site. My former blog name was cool enough, but I didn’t have the matching domain in .com. Also, “Food for Thought” was taking me in a direction where I no longer wanted to go, at least exclusively; I was kind of stuck in food and diet topics, and I was beginning to find this boring. In addition, the search engines were burying my blog on something like page 15 because, evidently, “Food for Thought” is a highly competitive term. I selected “Life is a Brand” because branding is a popular topic, it fits my professional branding themes ( Brands Z and Brandite ), and I was able to register the matching .com, .net, and .org domains directly from the registrar, without paying aftermarket prices. For me, acquiring a cheap domain for th

Zomga.com -- Zomga

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Zomga.com -- Zomga _____________ “Exuberance is beauty.” – William Blake I recently acquired another unusual and cool domain – Zomga.com — one that offers some meaning, at least in the urban dictionary: Zomga is “an emphasized way of saying of omg . Often used to express sarcasm, or disbelief. Can also be considered part of the leet language and or culture.” I don’t know that the Urban Dictionary is the definitive last word on definitions, but this one actually makes sense. I can also see zomga as a cool kind of dance move, a happy exuberant dance with lots of movement, or a game. “Zomga” could also be a brand name for a company or product. I’m not sure I want to sell this one, which is why I have noted this in my personal blog, instead of my Brands Z sales site, where if you’re looking for a cool “Z” brand name to buy, you just might find it there.

Life is a Brand -- My Life Brand

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I grew up in an era where “brands” belonged to large corporations like Johnson & Johnson, Ford, and IBM, not ordinary folk like me. It never occurred to me that my personal blog might need branding, but, apparently, I’m supposed to be promoting and branding my life, and, perhaps, make a little green with it – Seriously. The whole thing makes me a bit queasy: who wants to be associated with branded-to-the-hilt Paris Hilton and anything Kardashian? With a few exceptions, my life has been rather mundane, my day-to-day activities a snore to outsiders and maybe even to family. Do you really want to read about my ailments, gripes, and gossip about people you don’t know? A blow by blow narrative of my trip to Disney World? Photos of people you don’t know? (I thought not.) I use Facebook for that. Still, I have been wanting to get away from such an intensive focus on food/dieting and start focusing on...well, I dunno. I’m not young, I’m not drop dead gorgeous, and I can

Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment