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Alex's Garden Gnome Green Thumb party.Nearly everyone has an employee manual. It dictates policies and procedures, vacations and jury duty. Great! So a new employee knows the basics and you've covered yourself on all the legal must-dos. 

But wait! How does your brand relate to internal customers? What does it mean to be part of your company? How does it feel? Sound? What should an employee say when someone asks why he came on board?

That employee has hitched his star to your wagon. He's accepted your invitation because he thinks you have something he wants to be a part of. Don't let him down.

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There’s a lot of talk about the crimes at Penn State. Experts are talking about how to correct some very deep problems and move ahead, how to deal with the loss of sponsorships—and how to salvage the brand.

All this focus on outward communications is justified. There’s much work to be done, decisions to make. They should be made quickly. And actions should be decisive so crimes such as these cannot be committed again. It would appear those efforts are well underway.

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Birds and brands: both can be small and mighty

The first thing I noticed as I looked out my kitchen window Wednesday morning was that my bird feeders were pretty much empty. A bit of guilt hit me as I thought about how I’d procrastinated for the last few days on making the stop at the hardware store for more birdseed.

But then I noticed something that made me smile. On the feeder closest to the window, I saw a very tiny, buff-colored bird sitting on the feeder and—what? Feasting. That bird was so small, she could fit more than half her body into the opening in the feeder. She was making a veritable feast of the seed that hadn’t spilled out. That's the seed that most other birds would never be able to reach because they’re just too big, or couldn’t see.

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What's "inside" your brand?

A good read! This book is available for the iPad and other e-readers, so you can have it right now. What's Your Strategic Heartbeat? is more like a long article than a book. But it has some solid tips and inspiring thoughts about cultivating new ideas and innovation out of one's true brand essence.

At MB Piland, we know that when communications and promotions are created as an outgrowth of your brand's "soul," they really click. That's because they're really authentic. We help clients figure that out all the time, because it can be hard to see inside yourself without some good diagnostics. Luther's book helps you see how he identified this soul—what he calls Strategic Heartbeat—and used it to take his companies to great new heights. This is good for self-examination.