There are a lot of brands out there but it can be difficult to distinguish between the basic vs. brilliant brands. There are two things that help a company stand out -- the product and the reputation.A lot of companies focus on their product, as they should but many don't pay enough attention to their reputation. The reputation of every company is essentially their bumper sticker for which they're known and ideally, the reputation is positive versus notorious.

Pay Attention To The Reputation

<ul><li>58% of people buy or advocate for brands based on their beliefs and values</li><li>60% of people choose a place to work based on their beliefs and values</li><li>64% of people invest based on their beliefs and values</li></ul>That's more than half of folks who expect more from brands. That's a big shift from what we've seen in the past and even more incentive for brands to ensure that their reputation is beyond reproach.

Growing Market Share & Gaining Customers

When you have a solid product and a great reputation it attracts customers, it attracts talent, it engenders <a href="https://www.inc.com/bernard-coleman/building-trust-factor-in-6-steps.html">trust</a>, and most importantly, both customers and employees will go to bat for the company. It's much easier to grow market share when you're well-liked.

The Advantages

When your brand has a good reputation, people naturally want to join. After all, they've heard good things - the mission, the people, interesting work, and the culture. They've read positive employee reviews, the word of mouth is strong and people stay at the company a long time. Those are all very attractive to talent and screams that it might be a place I want to be part of.

Talent Attraction or Repulsion

when a company has a bad reputation, it can repel talent. People won't apply and the great product you're developing is more difficult to launch due to the negative perception of the company because you don't have the people needed to build it. Furthermore, if the reputation is really bad, employees will leave faster than you can hire them. That's a real cost on a number of levels -- the resources it costs to advertise roles, the people hours to recruit, interview, hire, and onboard.

Bad Reputation

One of the most key aspects of brand reputation is consistently saying and more importantly, doing the right things. A lot of companies say one thing but do another.When companies operate in a way that is contrary to their stated values, they greatly risk diminishing their brand reputation. It's incumbent on companies, particularly leaders to model and help safeguard against situations that can hurt the brand.

Walking The Talk

Reputation is easily lost and can have an epic domino effect, because once you lose the trust of your employees, your customers and your stockholders, it can be a long way back to redemption, if at all. So do things differently, continually build a great reputation and don't lose your way.

The Bottom Line

Do things differently and do things right

Stashed ideas

Reputation Matters: Build Your Brand, Don't Break It

The red carpet event preceding the awards show is always a visual spectacle. Celebrities mill about in their best designer clothes and their outfits are splashed across televisions, magazines, and social media.In marketing, you also have to play up the visuals, because the stats don’t lie: 91% of people prefer visual content over written content. Things like videos, infographics and social media images can help engage the audience and boost brand awareness.

Visuals, visuals, visuals

<ul><li>It's not just about the logo or advertising campaigns. It's the way your brand presents itself to the market and interacts with your audience.</li><li>Be mindful of all aspects of your business from a branding perspective including product design, employee relations, and customer support.</li></ul>

Branding Is Everything

If you’ve seen the infamous 2017 "Best Picture" mix-up between La La Land and Moonlight, then, like me, you’ve probably tried to erase that cringe-worthy moment from your memory.<ul><li>Any data you provide must be accurate for your company to have any credibility</li><li>When your brand generates high quality, reliable data, the benefits include better decision making, improved productivity, lower costs, and higher sales</li><li>Always double-check your work, and be hypervigilant concerning data</li></ul>

Accuracy Is Important

Ellen DeGeneres went into the crowd and brought together some of the night's biggest stars including Bradley Cooper, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt, and more - to squeeze in for a selfieAfter posting the photo on Twitter, it received over 3 million retweets and was used as an advertisement for SamsungThis shows the sheer strength of social media when something goes viral

Social Media Is Powerful

<ul><li>The goal is to find out what appeals to your customers, then to capture their interests through narrative marketing campaigns</li><li>It's about going outside of your product or service and focusing on your company values</li><li>For example, Patagonia established a narrative as a company that "aims to use [their] resources" to save the world from extinction"</li></ul>

It's All About Narrative Marketing

Behind the heavy crystal curtains, the bevy of celebrities, and the swelling orchestra, there's a lot that a marketer can take away from the Oscars.

The glitz! The glam! And the...marketing lessons? That’s right — behind the crystal curtains, there’s a lot that a marketer can take away from the Oscars.

The Oscars: The Glitz, Glam, and the Marketing Lessons | AdRoll

Graphic design is a critical visual communication tool marketers use to convey key messages about a brand that resonates with target audiences. It’s all about producing visual assets that are eye-catching, on-brand and aligned with specific messaging.The graphic design process, then, is what a designer follows to bring design ideas to life while serving a client’s end goals.As a creative process, designing graphics involves equal parts of “creative” and “process.”

The graphic design process

Also called a design brief, this document will capture all of your client’s wants and needs and other key project specifications.Your creative brief should address:<ul><li>Company information (e.g., mission, offerings, unique value proposition).</li><li>Brand guidelines.</li><li>Target audience.</li><li>Asset type (e.g., logo design, UX design, eBook design).</li><li>Purpose of the asset and how it fits into the overarching marketing campaign.</li><li>Initial design concept or creative direction.</li><li>Production-related design specifications.</li><li>Delivery format and file type.</li><li>Project timeline, with key milestones.</li><li>Budget or cost of the design work.</li></ul>

Build out the creative brief

During the research stage, spend time:<ul><li>Understanding the specific product or service you’re representing.</li><li>Examining competitors’ design work.</li><li>Assessing your brand’s market positioning and differentiating qualities.</li><li>Exploring other visual content your target audience consumes, beyond your niche.</li><li>Considering how you might apply color theory and design trends.</li><li>Gathering inspiration images and building out a moodboard.</li></ul>You’ll use your findings to inspire original ideas, solidify the overall design approach with other stakeholders and back up the design decisions you make later on.

Research the design ecosystem

Depending on what you’re working on, the concept development and refinement stage may involve sketching out thumbnails, mockups or graphic elements. Regardless of the scale of your project, it’s important to present your initial concepts to the rest of the team. A good graphic design rule of thumb is to pitch 3 ideas:<ul><li>Provide exactly what the client asked for.</li><li>Offer your interpretation of what you think they’ll like, based on everything you know.</li><li>Pitch a new concept or idea that could still meet the brief.</li></ul>Have your client or colleagues pick one of the three, and continue refining it.

Develop and refine the graphic design concept

Once all stakeholders are in agreement and you have all that you need to proceed with the design, it’s time to execute the project.During the design stage, a graphic designer will be expected to implement best practices related to the use of color, typography, the hierarchy of information and positive and negative space. They’ll also put technical skills to the test, using the right software and other design tools to get the job done in the most efficient way possible.

Create the design

Depending on what type of team you’re working with, this part of the graphic design process may look something like this:<ul><li>Submit the design work for internal review.</li><li>Make any requested changes.</li><li>Present the updated design to your client or other decision-makers.</li><li>Explain how your design decisions align with the creative brief and the direction you agreed on.</li><li>Gather feedback from all stakeholders.</li><li>Confirm your next steps.</li><li>Make the requested changes.</li><li>Present this new version to the rest of the team.</li></ul>

Collect and implement feedback

Now that you’ve gotten final approval from all stakeholders, you’re ready to deliver the assets in the appropriate formats. <ul><li>Package them up so they’re ready for production and can be easily implemented into whatever digital or print format your recipients need.</li><li>Your creative brief should articulate what deliverables you should share. You should make sure to send the asset in the correct file types and sizes so no changes are needed later on. Helping your recipients avoid the hassle of modifying the files or asking for further support can make for a better experience for everyone involved.</li></ul>

Finalize and deliver the design assets

Graphic design and marketing go hand in hand — and generating marketing results isn’t easy without a solid strategy in place for communicating across teams and producing visual assets that meet your specificationsOnce your creative brief is approved, this serves as both your instruction manual as well as your contract for this particular project. It’s a tool you as the designer can use to keep your efforts on track. If you ever feel stumped, you can turn to this resource.

How following a graphic design process drives results

Here’s how to turn a concept into a compelling visual communication tool through the graphic design process, from the creative brief to the finished product.

This 6-Step Graphic Design Process Drives Results | Brafton

A zippy piece of software makes work feel more efficient, and the core speed and responsiveness of a digital experience is the secret sauce to making any piece of software feel like it’s working for you. But whereas over the past decade, the consumer software on our phones and laptops runs more or less without hiccups, enterprise software can still be stuck in molasses.

Slow work computers

Some businesses are built upon aging desktop PCs. ut an even bigger reason, is that nothing inside the enterprise software world is making software go faster. Take the example of Google, which in ranking its search results, examines a site’s speed to load. That sort of auditing has pushed web developers to optimize websites.But that’s already changing because the market for trying and buying software is shifting rapidly. One of the most interesting parts is there are now a lot of pieces of software you can download and start using with you and some teammates. That’s a user-led adoption curve.

Why is enterprise software slow?

One of the greatest divides between consumer software and enterprise software comes down to workflow.If you’re ordering a meal via Uber Eats, every step is perfectly sequential. You know your options, and you know when you’ve done each step successfully. Compare that to loading Excel, and staring at an endless spreadsheet. What do you do first, especially if you’re new to a job? And when do you know you’re done?With a lot of systems, it’s not clear what to do next. You can do anything at any time! But think about how consumer expenses are designed: It's this one thing next, or these three things next. Consumer UX is on rails, and enterprise UX is often boundless.

Workflows lead employees nowhere

Companies, and their software, are filled with highly specialized acronyms that you can only learn on the job.While established employees can master acronyms over time, new employees can take a long time to learn them. When buttons are labeled with acronyms, that can be a recipe for disaster if you’re training new people on the job.

Bad labels are confounding to learn

Surprise! Enterprise software still stinks.


The real reason you’re not more productive at work? It’s not boredom—it’s bad UX

Factors associated with emotion in music:
<ul>
<li>Musical pleasure: The positive feelings are beneficial to health and creative thinking.</li>
<li>Musical surprise: E.g. unexpected harmonies, or entry of a solo voice.</li>
<li>Appraisal: Evaluating music give rise to emotions such as pleasure or displeasure.</li>
<li>Action tendency: Music encourages the desire to coordinate with the music (dancing, foot-tapping).</li>
<li>Being in sync with the rhythm.</li>
<li>Memory: We listen to music that we associate with fond memories.</li>
<li>Emotional contagion: Music evokes emotions at a social level, such as concerts.</li>
<li>Imagination: What is perceived in the music.</li>
</ul>

Music creates an emotional atmosphere

Emotion is a fundamental aspect of musical experience.

Self Improvement

The 8 Components of Musical Emotion

Songwriting is a bit like dating. The first words make or break the impression.
A strong opening line in a song has to be interesting and mysterious. Like the Righteous Brothers sang in the song ‘You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’: "You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips."

Song Opening Lines

An intriguing opening line matched with a melodious hook or chorus, preferably with an intro that is not longer than 30 seconds, creates the right impact on the listener.
One can listen and relisten to their favourite songs, noticing how the first words (and the accompanying tunes) make an impact by catching our attention and pulling us in.

Writing Songs: The Intriguing First Words

<ol>
<li>Open with a question, which makes the listener think.</li>
<li>Open with a strong, bold statement.</li>
<li>Open with a time frame, like the number of days or years something has happened.</li>
<li>Open with a story.</li>
<li>Open with a beautiful analogy or comparison.</li>
<li>Use a contrast as an opening line.</li>
<li>Use a line from a conversation to get the attention of the listener.</li>
</ol>

Ideas For Great Song Opening Lines

If a song's first line is interesting and mysterious, it attracts listeners and invites them to hear more.

Do You Know How to Write Strong Opening Lines for Your Music?

<ul>
<li>In the form of heat and light, solar energy can cover all our energy needs in a clean, versatile manner.</li>
<li>Photovoltaics, or Solar panels with silicon cells, convert light into electricity as the photon rays of the sun charge up the cells.</li>
<li>Solar-thermal power plants use the heat of the sun along with lenses to focus the sunlight in a concentrated place, to heat water or other substances. This can be used for the hot water needs of households, or to drive a turbine for generating electricity.</li>
</ul>

Sunlight And Solar Energy

How are the Sun’s rays converted into power? Shine a light on the topic with our simple guide to solar thermal and solar cells.

How does solar energy actually work?

"The world is a narrow bridge and the important thing is to not be afraid" - Hebrew prayer.
The world we live in is uncertain and full of risks and it's easy to get scared and look down instead of looking forward. But if you peer over to the side of the bridge, you lose the motivation to continue, you freeze up and stop making good decisions.

Life as a narrow bridge

What does help in a situation in which you are scared: training, courage, discipline, commitment and calm.
From all of the above, courage is held by the stoics as the most essential virtue.

Fear won't help you

"It's not that astronauts are braver than other people. We're just meticulously prepared."

Astronauts face all kinds of difficult, very risky situations in space. And the margin for error is extremely tiny in those situations.
Astronaut Chris Hadfield says that the key in these difficult situations is to remind yourself that you are prepared, you gained your skills and there are things you can to make the situation better.

What preparation does

There is no problem so bad that you can't make it worse.
And that's the difference between being scared and being afraid - the latter prevents you from improving your situations and it may even make things worse.

Being scared vs being afraid

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed effort to convert retreat into advance."

Don't let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole. Don't try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand, and ask, “Why is this so unbearable? Why can't I endure it?" You'll be embarrassed to answer.

Maybe you are facing a difficult conversation you’ve been putting off for months. Or you’re about to embark on a new project that tests you to your limits. Or it could be a job change, moving to a new city, starting a relationship—any of those can provoke fears and anxieties that pin you down and you can suddenly feel trapped before the situation even unfolds. It is a timeless truth that many of the things we worry about never come to happen. But our imaginary fears can have real consequences. Fear will cloud your reality, and like other extreme emotions such as anger, will cloud your vision and obscure what is really going on. The grips of fear can be paralyzing. To learn more about Stoicism, check out the Daily Stoic's FREE GUIDE to Stoic philosophy: https://dailystoic.com/freeguide Daily Stoic is a community built around the teachings of Stoicism. If you're wondering "What does Stoicism mean?", "Who was Marcus Aurelius?", "How to be a stoic?" or "How to practice stoicism in daily life?" check out Daily Stoic's FREE 7-Day Stoicism Starter Pack. This highly curated 7-Day Guide will expand your knowledge and provide actionable tools and ideas to make you stronger, more resilient and happier. Get the free guide here: https://dailystoic.com/freeguide Stoicism is a practical philosophy. The main thinkers that the Daily Stoic focuses on in stoicism are Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca. The Daily Stoic is a guide to how to practice Stoicism in your daily life, the daily routines of Stoicism, and is a practical guide to Stoicism. This channel is Stoicism 101, it will tell you what Stoicism is and how to be a Stoic. Ryan Holiday has been practicing stoicism and writing about stoicism for more than a decade and his insights will give you guidance to practicing stoicism in your day to day life. | STRENGTHEN THE COMMUNITY | A few things can help us get stoicism to more people and bring you more great content! 1. Like the video 2. Comment. We try to answer as many questions as possible in the comments! Also, if you have great stuff to share with other viewers we love to see people discussing these ideas! 3. Subscribe. The more subscribers, the more content we can make! https://tinyurl.com/dailystoicYT | SOCIALS | Facebook https://facebook.com/dailystoic Instagram https://instagram.com/dailystoic Twitter https://twitter.com/dailystoic Ryan Holiday has influenced the modern stoicism movement greatly. His books are read by modern stoicism's practitioners like Tim Ferriss, Robert Greene, and others. #Stoicism #DailyStoic #RyanHoliday #MementoMori #AmorFati #MarcusAurelius #StoicDaily #DailyRoutine #Improvement #Happiness #philosophy #Seneca

Stoic Motivation: It's Ok To Be Scared. Just Don't Be AFRAID.

<ul>
<li>Classical conditioning: A behavioural technique where a natural stimulus is paired with a previously neutral stimulus. The previously neutral stimulus eventually cause the response without pairing it to the natural stimulus.</li>
<li>Operant conditioning: A behaviour training technique where punishments or reinforcements influence behaviour.</li>
<li>Unconscious: The container for feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories.</li>
<li>Id: The personality component made up of unconscious psychic energy used to satisfy basic urges, needs, and desires.</li>
<li>Ego: The unconscious part of the personality that moderates the id's demands, the superego, and reality.</li>
<li>Superego: The part of personality composed of our internalised ideals that comes from our parents and society.</li>
</ul>

Personality Psychology: Important Terminology

While we often talk about personality, psychologists disagree on what exactly constitutes personality.
Personality is then broadly defined as the characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that originate within the person and make a person unique. It is what makes you, you.

Defining Personality

<ul>
<li>Personality is organized and consistent.</li>
<li>Personality is generally stable, but the environment can influence it. A shy personality in social situations might take charge and be more outspoken in an emergency.</li>
<li>Personality causes behaviours to happen. You react to your environment based on your personality.</li>
</ul>

Key Characteristics of Personality

<ul>
<li>Experimental methods are used by researchers to control and manipulate the variables of interests and then to measure the results. The ideas are internal, abstract, and difficult to measure.</li>
<li>Case studies and self-report methods. Case studies rely on the observer's interpretations, and self-report methods depend on the memory of the individual of interest. These methods are highly subjective.</li>
<li>Clinical research relies on information collected from clinical patients throughout treatment. This research is highly subjective.</li>
</ul>

Personality Psychology: Research Models

<ul>
<li>Biological Theories suggest genetics are responsible for personality traits.</li>
<li>Behavioural Theories suggest that personality is the result of interaction between the individual and the environment.</li>
<li>Psychodynamic Theories of personality emphasize the influence of the unconscious mind and childhood experiences on personality.</li>
<li>Humanist Theories emphasize the importance of free will and individual experience in the development of personality.</li>
<li>Trait Theories think personality is made up of several broad traits.</li>
</ul>

Personality Psychology: Major Theories

A trait is a stable characteristic or "blueprint" that causes specific behavioural patterns.
<ul>
<li>The three dimensions of personality: extroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism.</li>
<li>Later researchers suggested five dimensions of personality (known as the Big 5 theory): openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.</li>
</ul>

Trait Theories

<ul>
<li>Sigmund Freud: He was the founder of psychoanalytic theory. His theories emphasised the unconscious mind, childhood experience, dreams, and symbolism.</li>
<li>Erik Erikson: He was an ego psychologist. His theory of psychosocial stages describes the development of personality throughout the lifespan.</li>
<li>B.F. Skinner: He was a behaviourist and known for his research on operant conditioning and schedules of reinforcement.</li>
<li>Sandra Bem: She developed a gender schema theory to explain how society and culture transmit ideas about sex and gender.</li>
<li>Abraham Maslow: He was a humanist psychologist and developed the hierarchy of needs.</li>
<li>Carl Rogers: He was a humanist psychologist and believed people have a drive to fulfil the individual potential that motivates behaviour.</li>
</ul>

Famous Figures in Psychology

Learn about personality psychology with an explanation of the theories and important figures in the study of personality.

What Personality Theories in Psychology May Tell You About Yours

It involves paying attention to something while letting go of judgments and assumptions. Don’t try to change it. Instead, be open to the experience, regardless of whether you like or dislike it.

Mindfulness

Usually we don’t even realize we’re angry until furniture is being broken. But if you know the circumstances that trigger your anger, you can avoid them or prepare yourself.

Knowing what triggers your anger

<ul><li>physical (the way your body responds when you experience an emotion),.</li><li>cognitive (the thoughts that go along with the emotion).</li><li>behavioral (the things you do or have urges to do when you experience an emotion). </li></ul>

Emotions are made up of 3 components:

<ul>
<li>Study your anger: It’s hard to prevent something if you don’t know what causes it. </li>
<li>Avoid triggers: Now that you know what causes your anger, stay away from those things. </li>
<li>Train your mind: Practice mindfulness exercises.</li>
<li>Break the loop: Address the physical elements, the thoughts and the behaviors that are associated with your anger and you can prevent it from spiraling out of control.</li>
<li>Ride the wave: Put mindfulness into action. Note the thoughts, feel the feelings, but don’t do anything that’s going to get you jail time.</li></ul>

Overcome anger with mindfulness:

Before we commence with the festivities, I wanted to thank everyone for helping my first book become a Wall Street Journal bestseller. To check it out, click here. *** There's a voice shouting. Takes a second before you realize it's yours. You feel energized. Righteous. Driving every point home.

Reputation Matters: Build Your Brand, Don't Break It

The Oscars: The Glitz, Glam, and the Marketing Lessons | AdRoll

This 6-Step Graphic Design Process Drives Results | Brafton

The real reason you’re not more productive at work? It’s not boredom—it’s bad UX

The 8 Components of Musical Emotion

Vihaan Das