Here are a few things to keep in mind. You have most of them in play (for now):

Keep on being heroic
Keep on being different to how it’s been done
Keep on being principled
Keep on being fresh
Keep on being followed
Keep on being a challenger to the rule.

Here’s what they New York Times said this morning: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/technology/when-twitter-blocks-tweets-its-outrage.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

What assumptions am I making that I don’t know I’m making? I’ve witnessed many ‘locked-down’ changes and developments from Twitter; controlling this, not allowing that, etc. Has freedom run off a cliff? When Twitter began, founder, Biz Stone said, “It’s like we’re on a rocket ship that we were just painting and suddenly it took off and we’re holding onto the ship with our finger nails.”

Twitter has been famously restless, garrulous and extroverted with a short attention span and a profound aversion to the status quo. Could it become desecrated, unoriginal, normalized and downtrodden as it chases to capture local markets that have the dexterity of gook and the personalities of ash?

Shame on you Twitter for grovelling at the sphincter of politically correct left wing and politically extreme right wing shibboleths. In other words, please be coaxed from your somnolence and find the right balance between sobriety and persuasiveness – there’s a good bird. Here’s how to fly on the right course:

Keep on being heroic
Keep on being different to how it’s been done
Keep on being principled
Keep on being fresh
Keep on being followed
Keep on being a challenger to the rule.

Word of mouth is the number one influencer of purchases and consequently interface plays a key role in our ‘social sharing’ way of life. Therefore, is interface design becoming more important than a brand’s core identity? And should interface take the lead in the approach to branding? It does throw open a good debate on the role of brand and the sum of its parts.

I’m off to the cinema (the 5th screen:).

As seen in WARC:

Increasing numbers of brand owners are pursuing a “societal purpose”, but most have not yet yielded a competitive advantage from doing so, a study has revealed.

Deloitte, the advisory group, and the Economist Intelligence Unit, the research provider, surveyed 390 senior executives worldwide, and found 82% of featured companies had a formal societal purpose.

In all, 73% of the panel agreed that their firm’s core activities made a valuable contribution to communities, while 11% disagreed with this view, and 16% offered no opinion on the subject.

Another 76% thought a societal purpose should be combined with corporate profits when measuring the value of a business, although 44% stated profit margins must “primarily” be used.

Respondents in Asia Pacific had particularly clear ideas about what having a purpose represents: 70% suggested such models were adopted by “mature” companies and 68% argued it was indicative of strong leadership.

By contrast, 75% of the African, Latin American and Middle Eastern sample saw this area as essential for future success, 71% described it as a strategy that was “here for the long haul” and 66% predicted it would attract both potential staff and customers.

Just 38% of North American contributors perceived societal purpose as key to their future success, 41% regarded it as “little more than window dressing” and 47% asserted that it reflected effective leadership.

In Europe, 56% of interviewees posited that embracing a social mission was an important long term objective. Less favourably, 22% reported such moves promised “high business potential”.

Barry Salzberg, global CEO of Deloitte, said: “We believe there is opportunity for this ‘societal purpose’ to be integrated into a business’s core activities, decisions, and identity. It is through this embedded purpose, in turn, that businesses can inspire positive economic, environmental, and social change.”

When assessing the qualities needed by future leaders, 45% of interviewees mentioned anticipating opportunities and challenges, 38% said managing change and 32% pointed to communicating about corporate social credentials.

At present, 75% of executives are familiar with their company’s statement of purpose, whereas a rather smaller 25% considered consumers to have a similar level of understanding in this area.

Moreover, while this mission influences culture and strategy at 51% of firms, a limited 37% of organisations believed it lent them credibility in the market, and 15% had already enjoyed a competitive advantage after following such principles.

Data sourced from Deloitte; additional content by Warc staff, 25 January 2012

Increasingly there are two types of consumer, those with more dinners than appetite and those with more appetite than dinners. To reverse this trend and deracinate the doom of a double dip, at Davos – where everyone’s saying “interdependent” community – requires shared responsibilities, shared benefits and shared values and please don’t try and convince the $100+trillion world economy is anything but self-indulged and survivalist. Ski and see.

This we must stop. Is part of the problem the fact we refer to ourselves as an “industry” which is self serving as opposed to focused on managing our clients business? If we took more time to truly understand our clients business, e.g., where and how they make their money, we might find more interesting things to do than muddling around with the brand strategy – which is the search for an idea. Perhaps that’s why we stay there!

Mickey, people died. You’re the boss and leadership is about holding peoples fears. Grow up. This is not about making friends.

Any successful ‘movement’ needs a core idea, leadership, talent to support the leadership and the people to create the movement. Recent developments like the phenomenal success of OWS shows that it’s not as clear and as easy as that.

Any new organizations dies a thousand deaths as it leaps and straddles forward, often going through several revisions of strategy and vision. I’ve got sympathy for OWS. They’re afraid for the first time. They brought tablets down from the mountian top, we were all enthralled and fascinated. Now this rising star is facing the grist of the mill, their significance is substantial, but their chances of survival thin as their relevance has slipped backed to core fans, little airplay is being provided (apart from their decline) and they could be forgotten.

OWS is a challenger of the rules, heroic in charting a course that’s different to what’s been done before, with principles (often too many) that’s made their stand unique and created such a massive following of millions, but now it needs to stay ‘fresh’ and sustainable. How to halt the rot is to recognize the three core elements that fuel the fire of a movement: frustration about the status quo, injustice from the 1 percent’s cadre and a hope of change. Communication and messaging need to target these to accelerate the funding program:

Build back rapport: Trust
Create relevance: Message
Instant gratification: Knowledge
Ignite passion: Action

Barry Manilow probably has the best advice, “They might not remember what I sing, but they’ll remember how I make them feel.”

The success and rapid ascension to the world stage of the Occupy Wall Street movement has forced the enterprise to realize it is a brand that needs investment and funding is paramount; so much so they could no longer be functioning within a month! But is their something more fundamentally wrong with “Occupy Wall Street” that if strategically corrected could boost their sustainable appeal and help provide the movement momentum and much needed funding?

Plato wisely said, “Necessity, is the Mother of invention” therefore, words before “but” are redundant. Skeptics and ehadists belie capitalism has deliberately created a disproportionate deluge and in its wake it punishes, intoxicates and behaves like a despot in the world’s markets, radically debilitating infrastructure and diminishing local economies both to work and provide for themselves and forcing upon all an ever-increasing sense of imperceptible vulnerability.

Capitalism is like a sow with nine teats and 15 babies: crisis is the price of capitalism, that’s the core of the problem. And what created it needs to be fundamentally improved. That we agree. OWS has a role, but it will be a vague memory without cash. Many current interpretations of OWS, (like some of their perceptions of capitalism) are malicious, mischievous, and ill informed. Demonstrably OWS brought people together and out of our frustration, sense of injustice and hope they helped start a world wide movement. That’s OWS: a platform for change. That’s truly great, but getting $50 out of someone is a lot harder.

Without a brand reinvention and clarity of purpose I cannot see OWS playing the role it deserves to play. To build trust, OWS need to reinvent themselves including changing their name. Entrepreneurial lore states that a new ‘brand’ may have 3-4 strategic revisions before it finds it’s rightful place. Occupy Wall Street carries with it an excessive amount of uneasiness if looked at literally by the public. Every inch of media has exposed OWS in a revolutionary light and edged it out on the fray: a brand declines when it’s no longer sublime. To come to the center, OWS need to shift OWS and therefore, OWS need to review their brands architecture that has spawned across cities and countries and seek to find a ‘public facing’ solution that suits the needs of a sustainable fund raising  ‘brand’ i.e., wake up running.

-Be different from what’s been done and unite consumers with employees and partners.

-Be principled by standing for a cause greater than the business.

-Be known for being remarkable and focus on the customer experience.

-Be followed by the millions who could respect the brand and see it as an icon.

-Be sustainable and fresh online by being “shareable.”

-Be a challenger of the rule and work with other categories for inspiration.

If not, then I’m puh-leazed no one could open the url on the article I wrote for Forbes.com. Phew