Fresh ID » Olivier Blanchard

Thoughts on Love and Design

Kristi — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 02:48:18 +0000

All great creations, or at least the vast majority, seem to have love as an impetus. Whether it’s the painful, stabbing sting of rejection or love gone wrong, or the euphoric high of love requited with a sublime being, or the amazement a parent feels when looking at a being that they actually made, love is both a driver and an instigator to design and creativity. Due to Olivier’s (@thebrandbuilder on Twitter) admiration of the writer Steven Pressfield I recently read an interview in which Hemingway says that “the best writing is certainly when you are in love.” I also just finally saw the movie The Social Network, which portrays both Facebook and Napster as having been created out of the pain of love lost. I’ve designed many, many websites and brand identities in a frenzy of work brought on by love gone astray, so I could relate to that more than to Hemingway being inspired to weave a loving tapestry with his words when enamored with a real-life leading lady. In the movie Like Water for Chocolate a woman deeply in love with her sister’s fiancé creates dishes of food so powerful it intoxicates guests and they all feel what she was feeling as she cooked… the pouring out of her soul that she could not express with her beloved. At its essence, design’s goal is to elicit feeling that will lead to action or reaction of some kind: you will be compelled to feel something or to do something based on the mere experience of a piece of paper, tactile, film or digital impression online. That really takes some work! That is why love, or love’s lasting impression, gives power and thrust to what we create in its glow or aftermath. It gives the designer the extra edge of feeling and momentum required to take nothing, or a random group of objects, and turn it into ‘something’. When you can design something that moves someone, like Tita did in Like Water for Chocolate, your emotions transfer through the design to the audience. They then experience what you experienced when you created it and your job as a designer has been fruitful. So what about writers block, or designers block, or musician or filmmakers block? Could it be that the block is representative of a lack of emotion in your life? Are you in love with a mate? Are you feeling connected to your family? Are you present with your friends and wrapped in the warmth of your loving friendships? Are you pining for one you are not with for whatever reason? Are you excited with passionate joy about your business? Are you enthralled with a community or team or project? If you get in touch with your feelings or lack of them, you might find the block to creative expression will pass. Design benefits from something original – a unique sense of humor, a quirky twist, a strong, powerful point to make… so a mind expanded by love might be more capable of seeing what others aren’t and finding that element of surprise, wonder, or terror (for dark subjects) that captures attention and makes an impact. Love, like design, is abstract – beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What makes sense to some makes no sense to others. A commercial that makes some people laugh or cry or outraged will completely unfaze some who see it. A room design that surrounds some people with a feeling of bliss will be repulsive to others – that is the nature of design, feelings and human emotions. So the best a designer can do is strive to communicate honestly with the audience they hope to appeal to and trust that like minds will share like feelings. What is your experience with creativity? Do you find yourself less inspired when not in love, or hitting more blocks when not overwhelmed with emotions of some type? Leave a note with your thoughts, and… love be on your side.

Social Skills for Restaurants & Hotels… Hospitality Talk with Jeffrey Summers

Kristi — Wed, 26 May 2010 16:18:59 +0000

Jeffrey Summers is a seasoned consultant in the hospitality industry, and I caught a portion of his online radio show, Hospitality 101 yesterday and found it really interesting so I wanted to post it for you here. It’s a two hour show I think – our friend Olivier Blanchard is on at the end and makes some interesting points about the type of cultural differences between America and Europe, and how social media can be utilized by restaurants and hotels to achieve the same levels of relationship they have there, increasing the transactions and loyalty of customers by simply getting to know them better via ongoing engagement. So many of the lessons here apply to other industries as well, but especially if you have a restaurant, hotel, dry cleaner or other service-based business with regular clientele, you should check this show out and listen to the others as well. Also follow @JeffreySummers and @thebrandbuilder on Twitter for regular doses of social marketing advice!

UnGeeked Elite!

freshid — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:11:58 +0000

We at the Fresh ID office are extremely excited for an event coming up on May 13-15 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The event is called UnGeeked Elite and is a three day conference that highlights social media, marketing and branding forums. The event has an excellent line-up of speakers including Olivier Blanchard, Chris Brogan, Scott Stratten, Dan Schawbel and others who are all well-known social media, marketing and branding experts. In addition to gaining great insights from the experts, your ticket and attendance also gets you free copies of books by Chris Brogan, Sally Hogshead, Scott Stratten and Hubspot. All of the information about the event and speakers can be found at the official UnGeeked Elite event page. It will definitely be worth the price of admission (and if you register before May 12, you can get a huge discount)! The event is being sponsored by SOHObiztube, a great online community that helps businesses manage brand message, value and promise. Check it out at sohobiztube.com. If you are like us and can’t make it to Milwaukee but still want to attend the event, you can do so by purchasing a virtual event ticket. Attending this way will give you access to our custom Twitterface page for the event. You can check out the page here prior to the event. It will be password-protected for registered attendees only once the event starts. The entire conference will be streamed using Livestream Pro, and, of course, you can always interact with those physically or virtually attending the conference via Twitter while watching the presentations. If you purchase a ticket for all 3 days, you’ll save… tickets are available for each individual day for $99, and for the entire conference for $199. You can register for the event and purchase your ticket(s) by visiting the UnGeeked Eventbrite page. For us, this is another little milestone in the life of the Twitterface product, which we will soon be renaming/rebranding to Intefy, by the way. This is our first virtual paid event, and the first time we will be able to have people tweet from the page using Twitter’s more secure oauth mechanism. We’re very excited, and looking forward to testing this process out with CD Vann and the (truly) Ungeeked Elite!

21 Reasons You Should Attend Red Chair Portland, if You're Not Going to SXSW

Kristi — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:19:32 +0000

Two neat social media-related events are going on this week: South by Southwest (SXSW) and Red Chair Portland. Alas, most people know about SXSW… a long-standing shindig in Austin, TX that originally focused on music and film and now has loads of interactive sessions and networking events (and let’s face it, it’s pretty much THE place to see and be seen if you’re a social media consultant or practitioner of some type.) Not as many people know about Red Chair, but it’s new – this is the first event – and the creator of it is an only recently discovered gem in the sm industry. His name is Olivier Blanchard, and we are pleased to call him both a friend and business partner… he is someone that we rely on for advice, debate, discussion and who we mention in RFP’s and proposals for corporate or on-site training. We’re lucky enough to get to pick his brain at will, but his Red Chair events offer everyone the chance to get to know him personally and take whatever understanding you have of social media marketing, social media ROI or social communications and customer care to a new level of intelligence. Here are 21 reasons we think you should head to a Red Chair training in Portland this week, or a future event if you can’t make it there now: 1. Olivier doesn’t do “fuzzy math”. His slideshare presentation from a conference speech on social media ROI has garnered over 104,000 views, was featured on Mashable as a lead story, is embedded on nearly 600 websites and blogs, and has literally been used in dozens of presentations by OTHER social media consultants, to make a point with clients or close a business deal. 2. He has been an outspoken advocate FOR corporations WITH consultants who insist that ROI is just an old-fashioned term that deserves a new-fangled meaning, diluted for the social media space. Return on inanity, return on engagement, return on interaction, etc. mean little when it comes to budget spend and making decisions that are going to impact the health of your organization. He offers a site dedicated to just the topic of social media ROI at http://smroi.net 3. A former business consultant, product marketer and brand advisor, Olivier has both B2B and B2C as well as startup and Fortune 500-level expertise, working with such companies as Microsoft and SYNNEX and he knows operationally, and from the corporate level, what it means to do something as simple as start a Twitter account. You’ll never find him promising to make your video “go viral” or get you a ton of followers on your Twitter account. The short-term tactics of many consultants are not the strategy Olivier takes when helping you assess your approach to social media. 4. An active blogger since 2005, Olivier has had a front-row seat to the changes we have all made online the last few years, and has been at the forefront of experimenting with and learning about marketing to and serving customers with a mix of traditional and social methods since the first social platforms started appearing. He brings practical, real-world experience to both his training sessions and his consulting gigs. 5. He will help you, in these Red Chair events, determine a blueprint and strategy for designing a comprehensive social media program. (That link is just a very brief snapshot of what this training will include.) 6. Olivier has become a sought-after speaker the last year, and his presentations, keynotes and chats bring valuable insights to participants and are often tweeted about and written about online. 7. He goes deep and delivers real substance, above and beyond what many experts in this field offer for advice and guidance. Case in point: covering every detail of presenting your company’s brand on Twitter in images and verbage as a plan and not an accident. 8. Red Chair trainings, at least as far as I know, do not exist in this form anywhere else. This is like a crash-MBA in social media marketing and communications… without the MBA pricetag! 9. Olivier, with all of our help, wants to help people understand the real value behind using social media for business, and how to use it to transform your company culture, user satisfaction and ultimately sales. He has spearheaded the use of terms like “people to people” and “social communications” that others pick up on and use, because they make sense and add another step along the path of social evolution that all of us in this realm are defining. 10. Olivier has made me smarter. I honestly believe that everyone attending his Red Chair trainings will walk away smarter too. It’s not merely the education he imparts or the insights he pinpoints for you so sharply… it’s in his questions. He poses questions and theories that make you think for yourself and in doing so, your brain enlarges just that little bit more, that you feel you really see things in a different way, or you can imagine something new you hadn’t quite visualized before. Armed with new viewpoints, you will tackle problems and see opportunities in a different way after being exposed to this unique frenchman! 11. And speaking of France… Olivier is not 100% American. His heritage is French, with some other influences mixed in. Why this matters is because he has a lot of international, and therefore broader experience in the world than some of us do. And if social media has taught us anything, it’s that the world feels smaller than it used to – we can reach people faster and easier than we ever could before. And we need to be aware of what that means from the organizational standpoint, if we’re becoming a social company. 12. Olivier is active on his and other people’s blogs, Twitter, Facebook and Linked In. I don’t want to speak for him, but I am pretty sure that if you attend his trainings and get to know him, you’ll have a lasting and rich relationship with him and will be able to reach him as things come up that you need a nudge in the right direction with. I have seen him help countless numbers of people online. 13. Customer service managers, directors and support people: Red Chair will have a lot of information to help you build or improve a solid customer care program. 14. Executives and anyone concerned about social media and the ramifications and impact: Olivier will be covering lots of legal issues like defamation and confidentiality, as well as social media policies. 15. Ad and PR agency principals and managers: you will leave with a blueprint for how to help clients put a social media program in place, as well as concrete, actionable steps you can take to improve your own social presence. 16. Chief Marketing Officers: you will be armed with the knowledge you need to help you make hiring decisions, marketing campaign decisions and more after your Red Chair sessions. 17. Human resources managers and recruiters: Do you know how to hire a social media director, community manager or other social media personnel? Olivier has been very vocal in the community about who is qualified for these important responsibilities and he’ll guide you in making sound choices that will actually be effective for your company. 18. Social media is about integration into many facets of your operation… not just something the marketing team or your PR agency does. You’ll learn how to integrate social media into your company in a planned strategy that minimizes risks and embarrassing brand failures. 19. Olivier Blanchard has… well, finesse. His approach has been admired by many industry heavyweights, who I have seen compliment him on his style, manner of handling issues and people, and willingness to stand his ground about topics others shy away from. What better person to learn from? 20. There is an art to teaching something that sticks in your memory. Olivier blends humor with graphics with clear, concise words and his indelible style equals a pleasurable learning experience you’ll be able to relate to, comprehend and remember. 21. We value the work Olivier does and highly recommend attending his training! It will be an investment of time and cost well spent. We love what Olivier is doing with this training program so much we will be bringing it to Kansas City this summer. The date is not yet determined. His next event at the moment is not until May, so check out the Red Chair Portland sessions and if you absolutely can’t make it, see the schedule of future events at the site.

The Art of Socialnomics

Kristi — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 17:42:26 +0000

I received a new book called Socialnomics and am still reading it, so I’ll talk more about that after I’m done. This video created by Erik Qualman, the book’s author, about Social Media ROI examples is such a wonderful, fast overview to this topic I wanted to share it with you. The book and information is a wonderful companion to Olivier Blanchard’s social media ROI content and I’m excited to dig in deeper.

From Facebook to YouTube to Twitter, the opportunities for promotion and the results from using social platforms and simple word-of-mouth sharing can range from a nice addition to a significant difference in your bottom line. Co-Chairman Alex Bogusky of Crispin Porter & Bogusky puts it best when he states:

“You can’t buy attention anymore. Having a huge budget doesn’t mean anything in social media… The old media paradigm was PAY to play. Now you get back what you authentically put in. You’ve got to be willing to PLAY to play.”

You’ve got to be willing to play, to play. That should be your mantra if you are currently not using social media for sales and promotion, and are considering getting into this new medium of marketing.

We have entered the Age of Personality. Over the next few months I’ll be talking a lot about what that means in the social media space, and how you can uncover and share your own unique voice and personality in a way that will bring better results when using social media channels to talk to customers and prospects. In the meantime, tell me about your social media successes and what you’ve seen in the numbers if you’ve entered this arena. Share your stories in the comments with us!

What's Your Body Saying About Being Fearless?

Kristi — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 19:29:53 +0000

A little bird on a wire informed us yesterday there was a thought-provoking new post over on The BrandBuilder’s blog (thanks Reza!) “Be fearless!” Blanchard instructs us, in his inimitable style. How I wish I could, some days. He says that “courage is one of humanity’s greatest gifts” and that is such a beautiful observation. But what if persistent, underlying fears and hidden emotions are getting in our way, despite our best intentions? I don’t know if any of you suffer from the same issues I do when it comes to business risk, taking chances, stepping out on a limb or going for what you truly want… but sometimes I am fearless, sometimes totally uncertain (but willing to take a chance if I knew the right direction) and sometimes I am positively paralyzed with either indecision, fear of the unknown, or fear of what I imagine might go wrong. I was thinking about where these emotions and fear and uncertain meandering musings come from, and they are lodged in my body in different places. So I want to get literal for a moment… are we in touch with where, in our bodies, we are literally or figuratively having uncomfortable feelings that stop us? I have an image here of some places in our bodies where fears collect, and might cause us to hold back – maybe even unconsciously if we’re not aware we’re holding onto these thoughts and physical sensations. What’s going on in your head? Are you telling yourself the truth or semi-fiction based on hidden emotions? “We’re better than competitors… we suck next to our competitors… this is not good enough… we aren’t selling enough… we can’t get ahead… we aren’t closing deals… we need more budget… what am I going to do? I hate my job… my boss is out to get me… I can’t ever make my boss happy… I’m not making enough and can’t get another job… what if no one likes this design? What if I fail?” How many times are we smiling on the outside, with a running dialogue of fret, worry and fearful outcomes draining our mental energy? What’s going on with your mouth? Are you mostly telling the truth, or telling lies? Are you stuffing feelings and impressions before expressing them for fear of retaliation or confrontation? Are you biting your tongue, rather than lashing out at an abuser? Are you loose-lipped or gossiping, and then regret it? Do you say things in a harsh manner and then regret it? Do you praise the people who are important to you enough, or show your gratitude in your speech, or do you curse the day you (or your family, friends, employees, managers, etc.) were born most of the time? Who renders you speechless? Who do you want to confide in most? Who do you love talking to? Who do you share secrets with freely? Who do you watch your mouth with or can’t trust with information? What makes you drop your mouth open and what do you feel when that happens? What are you eating that you feel is good for you (or not)? Who do you want to kiss? What’s up with your eyes? Do you see situations clearly or dimly? Do you think you see things (based on fears) that aren’t really happening? Are you in reality about what you see, or in denial? Do you help others see clearly, or try to mask the truth and pull the wool over their eyes? Are your eyebrows raised in shock or alarm? Do you feel helpless because your eyesight is failing you? Do you feel happy with the vision you have, physically and metaphorically? How’s your hearing? Are you listening to what people really say, or reinterpreting it to suit yourself once it passes from your ear to your brain? Are you listening to what customers want, or trying to get them to hear what you want from them? Are you open to hearing new ideas from unexpected sources? Do the people around you consider you a good listener, or do they know you won’t listen to a thing anyone says? What do you long to hear? Who’s whispering in your ear? Who says horrible things to you? Who do you wish would shut up? What do you still hear (in your head) from your childhood? Are the things people say to you accurate? Can you trust what you hear, and if not, what can you do about it? How do your throat and neck feel? Is your throat inflamed or “tight” physically? This can happen when we stuff feelings inside and don’t express them. Your throat literally constricts from the pressure of this repeated behavior. Does your neck move easily or is it locked up? A lot of people carry their stress in their neck – if it feels like the trunk of a hardwood tree, you need to examine whether you have stress that is going unrelieved piling up in that area… “the weight of the world on your shoulders” needs to be diminished so your neck will be unrestricted in its movements. You need to be able to move your neck freely so you can see everything that’s around you. What’s going on in your gut? Do you have nervous butterflies? Do you feel nauseous? Are you excited? Is your tummy doing flip-flops? Do you feel like you could upchuck if something doesn’t change? Is there a burning sensation in the pit of your stomach? When people blush, the lining of their stomach has an associated reaction that can make it feel like a flame is been applied. Has something either delighted you so much that you’re immersed inside that flame, or worried you so immensely that you feel sick? Does your gut send you a warning (intuition) when you are about to make a mistake or choose a path that you should reconsider? Do you digest the food you’re eating well? If your job, your marriage, your partners or your business is giving you ulcers, listen to your gut and make changes before more damage is done. What’s going on underneath your skin? Does someone give you the creeps or make you feel dirty inside? Do you warm to the touch of the people you’re with, or grow cold when they touch you? Does the idea you have or person you’re with give you goosebumps of delight, or chills of impending doom? Is someone under your skin, driving you nuts? Do you wish you could just get them out from under there, somehow? Would you rather be somewhere else, than where you are presently? What makes you feel alive and tingly, all over? What makes you want to crawl inside yourself like a turtle and hide? What’s going on with your legs & feet? Are you always on the move, and wish you could slow down, or do you love it? Are you mostly sedentary and hate it? Do you wish you could be somewhere else? Do you want to click your heels together, like Dorothy, and Go Home, more than anything in the world? Have you stood in the spots you most want to see? Are you face-to-face with people who matter to you? Are you running away from something or someone? Do you wish time would stand still around you, so you could catch up on life’s many chores? Do you fantasize about walking out on your job, spouse, children, parents or group of friends? Are you paralyzed from the waist down, and afraid to move? Do you want to run toward something, but feel your feet are stuck in place? What is in your heart? If your mind is aligned with both your integrity and your desires, you are probably following your heart, unencumbered, regardless of doubt, uncertainty, fears or setbacks and failures. Sometimes we want to follow where our heart wants to lead us, but there are obstacles in the way: our moral conscience, the moral compass of society, what the consequences are, what other people will think, what we feel we can manage, what we feel sure about… the path may not be clear at all times or navigating it may be fraught with complications. Sometimes we do things for the reasons in our heart, though our mind or our gut nag against it. But what makes your heart beat fast? What causes it to burst with joy? What closes it and causes you to turn away? What have you denied it? Where does it ache? What happens, if you have a business or relationship failure when something was terribly important to you, inside your heart? Is it broken permanently? Do you feel it has cracks? Does it mend fully, when someone dies, or we lose a job, or a friend or lover leaves? How weak or how strong is it? What will people say about your heart, when you leave this earth? What do you want your legacy to be? Where does your heart want your body to be, right this minute? There are two ways we can deal with having all these bodily reactions, buried or repressed feelings, borrowing some thoughts from pop music below. I’m sure a lot of us have felt the way this first video describes – we don’t say what we wish to say, and stuff our emotions or bury them beneath the surface. This song is about a love relationship, but it applies to virtually any situation where the stakes are high. You may feel you’re playing it safe, but the huge gamble in living with things you’ll never say, is that you risk never having what you want. Things I’ll Never Say Or… as Eminem says, with characteristic bluntness: Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity To seize everything you ever wanted – ONE moment Would you capture it or just let it slip? Lose Yourself The mind, to me, feels more like an unruly animal we have to tame, conquer and discipline at times, in order to move past fears and have the courage to keep taking action. But is what’s in the heart the most necessary factor for Being Fearless? It feels that way to me quite a bit. If I want something, even if there are many difficulties, and my desire is heartfelt and I am being true to myself, that helps propel me forward, in business, in love, in life. I’d love to hear what you have to say about it. What do you think it takes, to be fearless and make those plans a reality and your dreams come true (or die trying?)