New Language

• Cultivate: Attract and nurture community members, develop a comprehensive strategy for defining roles, and create demographic and ethnographic profiles.

For me CULTIVATE is really about identifying the roles, profiles and ambassadors that make up the brand. The brand is about more than the expression, more than the experience, more than the ephemeral, in my mind the brand is about the people that make up the brand community. The people who work on the brand, in the brand, around the brand, for the brand, and those who choose to interact with the the brand. Who are they and how do we realistically CULTIVATE (target) them? Not academically or empirically. But really. Really? I've developed branding exercises specifically for the purpose of identifying how the brand community is structured and who is involved in the community.

• Fascinate: Engage members with creative and informative content relevant to the community core and track the effectiveness of new products, services, etc.

OK. Engage to FASCINATE is a little vague right? The point here is that we now know who we are talking to and what their position is relative to the brand community structure so it's time we connect with them in language and images that make sense to their community. Not slick sales materials and advertising fluff, but an authentic voice that gives life to the community through their eyes (not our own). I'm as guilty as the rest when being too close to a topic or project and falling into making assumptions about the receiver of my information. When I use the word FASCINATE I really mean it though. Capture the wonder in their hearts and minds and suddenly "engage" is no longer vague. To engage is to touch. That's right touch their hearts, minds, calendars, clocks, wallets, etc.

• Illuminate: Educate community members to the organization’s new offerings through eLearning environments for mature levels of sophistication.

Fast forward from 2002 when I wrote the first white paper... eLearning is everywhere. Blended learning is everywhere. Virtual classrooms and offices are everywhere. As I expressed seven years ago, the speed of the information and the availability of the information have been leading to more and more advanced levels of user sophistication. ILLUMINATE now means SHARE as much as learn. Please just don't SELL. We're all too old for that now. This ability to share information among one another has lead to word of mouth storms. My friend Pete Blackshaw coined the term Consumer-Generated-Media years ago to describe what was happening when users create content on web sites and become the publishers as the web site owners merely act as host. I use ILLUMINATE as a replacement for advertising because in my own mind that is the purpose advertising serves...to TEACH us. Through social media and these more sophisticated expressions we are teaching each other every day. It can be the best place to get your car washed, grab a bite, find expertise or which detergent to buy. Our friends are illuminating the many options we have and their previous experiences with those brands.