10 Things I learned at Brand Camp `09

I attended the Brand Camp University event this last Saturday and it was a fabulous day filled with wonderful and inspiring speakers. It was great a brain dump of information and inspiration. There was way too much stuff to detail in one blog, but here's some of the highlights of what I learned at Brand Camp 09:

1. It's time to Grustle.  Brand Camp organizer Hajj Flemings, kicked off the day talking about "grustle" – a combination of the daily Grind (what you have to do to make a living) and Hustle (the stuff you are passionate about and love to do) The key to personal happiness is finding your grustle; working at something you love to do.

2. Harley Davidson doesn't sell motorcycles.  Speaker Mitch Joel talked about the three conversations you need to have about your brand: internal, one-to-one and one-to-many. He said the internal conversation is about "finding the real you, what you're all about, what you like and don't like." His example of a brand knowing "what the real you is" was Harley Davidson, who says they don't sell motor vehicles, they sell the ability for 43-year-old accountants to dress up in leather and ride through a small town and have people be afraid of them.

3. The world's only Museum of the Weird is in Austin, TX.  While talking about his "10 Keys to Building a Powerful Personal Brand" speaker Rohit Bhargava's #3 item was "Find your Twist." The idea wasn't just about finding what makes your brand unique, it was also about finding your niche within your arena, whether that's within your field or your geographic region. Austin is proud of it's weird vibe, has tee-shirts proclaiming the city and it's denizens as being weird. Turning a trinket shop into a Museum of the Weird was someone finding their twist. Been meaning to get down to Austin for some time, now I have to go!

4. Participation is an ecosystem. One of the things Valeria Maltoni of CoversationAgent.com spoke about is the idea that there is a whole ecosystem to the act of participating in the conversations online. In the center is your content (for instance, you're blog). The first circle around that center is the people you know. The next circle out is the people who know the people you know. Different levels of participation allow you to move through the circles and expand them as you network.

5. PETA is everywhere.  Even in a focused and limited attendance conference PETA fanatics can raise their heads. Some protester shelled out the cash to attend just so she could attack presenter Ken Brown about McDonald's chicken killing processes. It was an interesting diversion and both the organizers and Mr. Brown handled the interruption well, quickly moving on.

6. People will pay to watch you burn… and that's a good thing.  Speaking of Ken Brown, he's a very high energy and dynamic speaker. He worked the crowd without any visual or audio aid. One thing he said was 'if you find your passion, people will pay to watch you burn." That goes for personal and corporate brands. If you are very passionate about what you do, it will come across and people will sit up and take notice.

7. You can get a room full of multi-tasking social media geeks to shut up & pay attention.  Paraplegic Olympic 100m sprint gold medal winner, April Holmes, had the room in silence (except for the occasional sniffle) with her moving and inspirational story. Not a single tweet went out on the #brandcamputwitter feed during the DVD detailing her journey.

8. We're living in an age of the Rise of the Brandividual.  Ford social media guru, Scott Monty spoke on how some personal brands are becoming as powerful as corporate brands. And some of those personal brands are inextricably tied into the corporate brand. Such is the case of Steve Jobs and Apple or Richard Branson and Virgin. He said 77% of people trust big companies less than they did last year (and last year wasn't exactly a banner year). they trust people they know and trusted 3rd party experts. So, a brandividual may carry more weight and garner more trust than the company brand alone.

9. Only 3 things distinguish social media.  Biggby Coffee's CEO, Biggby Bob Fish said social media appears to be just another method of message distribution except in these three ways: 1. It gives your brand personality. 2. It allows for interactions and dialog with the consumer. 3. It allows you to consolidate your media.

10. I'm going to want to go again next year.  It was definitely worth the time and money. I learned a lot. I saw some very dynamic and good speakers. I walked away inspired. I got a couple free books and a tee-shirt (which my wife already stole). Speaking of books, there were a lot of good titles recommended. I put together a list of them in a separate post you can find here.

Mike McClure, The Man, The Brand, The Yaffe Group Social Media Brandividual