calvin & jobs on personal branding.

to lighten up all the lengthy posts i've been doing the past two days, i give you a funny: calvin & jobs. you're welcome. and no, even though the tiger is missing, no animals were harmed in the making of these cartoons.

walmart's new transparency: hiding more from you.

well, that's just so special. right on the tail of the TSC Is Less Than Direct logo, and the problematic Missing M mantra of Quiznos, comes the 'refreshing' logo of Walmart (note, it's now one word; we're taking the human element out, he is dead after all...).

people. srsly. learn your symbols.
just like ">" can be read as "less than," the "*," or asterisk, often denotes fine print. and i'm sure we all know the incredible amount of fine print that Wal-Mart (oh, i'm sorry, Walmart) can accrue. just as perhaps the "less than direct" was inadvertent honesty, so possibly is the asterisk. i can't think of a better symbol to embody all the cover-ups and discontinuity of the worldwide empire.

WALMART*
* unlivable wages
* shitty benefits packages
* destruction of open space
* non-environmental interests
* monopolistic regime
* culture death
* lack of sustainability
* faux-interest in change

...i could go on. but i'll let you. so, in short, i think the new facelift is entirely appropriate. it symbolizes everything Wal-Mart has become: a faceless, humanless entity only interested in giving the illusion of change while hiding as much fine print as possible. yeah, sounds about right, logo designers.

revisiting facebook, jobs, millenials

in light of this post, i'm revisiting this post.

i wonder if this is going to change.

me, i am a brand. i embrace my inner brand and utilize it. i am the CEO of the brand of the girl Riot™. however, even CEOs get to go home. no one is Cheerios, or BMW, or Adidas all day long. even Adi, Adidas' founder, shares the responsibility with other well-titled folks. at one point, you go home. you sleep. you see friends. you connect with other people. you know... a la the point of social media: being social. and after hours, i'm sure they don't all sleep in Armani and talk jargon in their theta-state.

what gives you the right to inspect a person's private life for their job?

isn't that what applying is about? references, presentations, self-craft. now we're pushing away from that, toward transparency. "twit-pitch me. tell me what you're after and how you can help me--i'll do the background check. nevermind that you can't control what pictures other folks put up of you. nevermind that you can no longer access accounts to things you created, age 14. nevermind what exploration you did in your youth years that made you a good creative--i don't want to see it."

then how transparent are you, really? you want the real person--but only after they've covered their tracks? deleted their pics during those college years everyone had but everyone is supposed to deny? it's a shame facebook wasn't around when you Xers and Boomers were younger. are we handling this like 50s prudes asked to sit in on a sex addicts' meeting in a church basement? if you don't want the "full story" then why are you looking? keep it to the "legit" side of things. we craft those.

sure, check out their blog, their website, their portfolio, newspapers who reference them, other blogs who link to them. i'm not saying don't Google search. i'm saying to assess your digital detective choices--chances are you won't find that information solely on their facebook accounts. to me, that level of invasion borders on pervy. all 100+ pics of me on facebook? i haven't uploaded one. not one. i don't care if it's "personal and public"--it's discerned as a private space for friends (unlike, say, Twitter, which is searchable, Google tracked, and anyone can follow). just like your brand is not my friend, my employer is not my friend unless i invite you in. those spaces are not about you. they're about me.

and i'll be damned if you want me to censor my life to fit your desk job. you wanted a forward-thinking creative, you wanted experience and intellect--this shaped me. this is who i am. and yes, my stuff is on private. but then you're going to want to know why it's on private, aren't you? i'm supposed to connect with friends but not with employers. can i have a "only folks born 1986 or later can access this profile" option? why do i have to keep my personal life private if the whole reason of having the profile is to share?

moreover--will this disdain for (supposed) transparency change as more millenials enter the work space?

and if you think just cos i can do a keg-stand that i'm going to do one with your client, then i'm really concerned. my maturity isn't directly related to my flip cup abilities (which, mind you, are stellar). don't ask for transparency (look at personal sites) if you don't want it. my brand is excellently crafted. my personal life isn't. and if you can tell me how to control all aspects of your personal life, that's really a blog post worth writing.

so i return the question to you all:
how well do you expect someone to cover their tracks? what are you really looking to get out of trawling potential employees' facebooks and myspaces as opposed to their blogs, LinkedIns, websites? ...what are you really expecting? --and will those expectations change?

[post script & further transparency--i had a really engaging conversation with Jason Falls about his post; this is not an affront on his views: i actually highly value and understand them, and respect him, which is why i engaged in the conversation to begin with. after all, my facebook is on private. i'm just arguing that it shouldn't have to be.]

(brand, celeb) tags... and why.

so, despite being one of the first people to know/use the new Noah Brier app (see? see? sneaky cred there right... haha), i haven't commented on it yet. i wanted to say something useful other than 'oh, well, that's cool, check out brand tags.' unfortunately my analysis takes a few days.

--reaction #1:
"this is really cool."
again with the "duh" moments, it makes sense that how people perceive your brand is what the brand is worth. i learned that in my second year of college. but it was an innovative way to track these thoughts people have around brands.

--reaction #2:
"this could go really badly."
meaning, anytime you bring '1 word/phrase' + 'anonymity' into the picture, you wind up with some pretty stupid results. but since the feedback works like word clouds (even if the popular words get so big it interferes with my screen), i suppose it evens out. would have been nice to be able to say why, i chose a word, etc, and have those explanations link from the main tag cloud. that way whomever wants to know more is able to do so, and perhaps get perspective on why an experience was great or poor for me. i understand the virtues of the concise nature and the top-of-mind response, but a secondary optional screen asking why would also be helpful.

--reaction #3:
"enter celebtags."
i don't know if celebtags functions as the Dorian picture to brandtags or vice versa, but the point remains: similar implementation, and yet, the responses are vastly different. what does one say about the other? why does every female celebrity get tagged with slut or whore or bitch? why does this not have a way of asking people to think about their assumptions...?

understandably, thanks to tabloids and the nature of being in the public eye, celebs are more often fodder for malignant feedback than any other entity short of Wal-Mart. and even then, if folks had to choose between hating Paris Hilton or hating Wal-Mart, i'm not sure who would win (lose?). and here, in case you're not sure, you can actually punch out the celebs you hate most. ...yeah. anyway.

similarly, people are brands. that's also another "duh" that not everyone has embraced. like brand value, there are reputations and representations; not always are the two in sync. is hating Paris Hilton the same as hating Wal-Mart? yes and no. even as we try to make brands our "friends" and affable, people-like entities, celebs are actual people. this produces very different top-of-mind results.

Wal-Mart responses run the gamut from american to white trash, south park to nascar, affordable to cheap, evil to value. juxtaposing these statements shows the range of emotion and perception--all of which may be true, but certainly there is a range. things that are affordable to some are low quality to others. evil to some is a necessity in some areas where there are no other supermarkets.

yet, Paris Hilton responses are much more flat and one-sided, ranging from airhead, bimbo, and bitch to sexual references, skank, slut, whore, herpes, and blow job. "rich" appears but small, and "heiress" appears once, but even smaller--only one person said it. this does not by far offer the whole picture, regardless of how you feel about Paris Hilton.

is this because you can interact with a brand and you can't interact with a celebrity? i can walk into a Wal-Mart and have an experience, but i can't party with Paris Hilton. does that give me a more limited understanding of Paris Hilton? or does it not matter--i have perceptions of brands i've never interacted with, like Sonic. we get 5 or 6 Sonic commercials by me and the nearest Sonic is in New Jersey. i have never been in one, but i still have brand thoughts about it. more along the lines of "far away" than "blow job," however.

a parting gift: the George W. Bush worldwide brand.