Thoughts on branding and entrepreneurship

Last Saturday we had the opportunity to see the brand strategist Peter Economides @petereconomides and Business Coach Leda Karabela @LedaKa talking about entrepreneurship, branding, life the universe and everything  at Colab workspace in Athens.

Both Peter and Leda have worked around the globe for major brands and had a lot to say to aspiring entrepreneurs this weekend. Peter is currently in an epic quest to rebrand Greece, while Leda joined us just before departing for San Fransisco for new adventures.

The insights we got from that meeting were invaluable and  the timing was optimum  since we are in the process of branding our new Campaign Management Platform that aims to take mobile marketing to another level.

We came out with 3 takeways from that meeting.

First and foremost
Peter is launching  “ginetai workshop”,  a facebook community  that aims among others to connect people with one thing in mind: it can be done.
If you add to that Leda’s personal site www.yhesitate.com ...well you get the idea:

There is no point in hesitating, it is doable!

Our take on that is that people who say that something is impossible are usually interrupted by people actually doing it.

"Eat like a bird shit like an elephant" by @petereconomides or else pick ideas all over drop yours and let people find it and talk about it

— Niobium Labs (@niobiumlabs) March 10, 2012

Peter  at one point shared with the audience his favorite quote, derived from a Guy Kawasaki quote taken from his book Rules for Revolutionaries. Guy suggests and Peter agrees that we should "Eat like a bird, and shit  like an elephant."  In other words, get out there, meet people, press the flesh, consume knowledge like crazy, attend seminars,  since birds do eat a lot and from different sources. Then spread the knowledge, information, and contacts that you gained around,deliver it and people will notice in the same way that you can’t avoid elephant’s shit

Finally, when it comes to branding you have to have one point in mind ...well actually three points that add up to a triangle:

• Know Thyself …  or who you are as inscribed  in the pronaos (forecourt) of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi according to the Greek periegetic (travelogue) writer Pausanias

• Who do you want to become

• Who is your audience

That little triangle according to Peter constitutes the basis for your branding strategy .

I would add a fourth element and make it a square: who your competition is.
As proposed by Sun tzu in the Art of War the  decision to position an army must be based on both objective conditions in the physical environment and the subjective beliefs of other, competitive actors in that environment.

A branding triangle: who are you, who do you want to become and who is your audience by @petereconomidesow.ly/i/vcmJ — Niobium Labs (@niobiumlabs) March 10, 2012

see the talk here

george