In her talk, which has been viewed almost two million times since it was posted last month, Susan makes a compelling case that the open, collaborative world we embrace today is not always set up to harness the best work from introverts.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As we’ve moved toward more open office plans, collaborative processes like design thinking, and into a digital world now dominated by the word “social,” Susan wonders who is looking out for the introverts? Should introverts feel guilty about wanting to do their thinking and working alone? And can introverts do great work in group settings?

I spent more than a decade working in the inherently collaborative world of open source software. I regularly lead brand positioning and strategy projects as open, collaborative, social exercises involving entire communities of people in the process. So Susan’s talk made me ask myself a tough question:

By emphasizing a collaborative, social process am I risking leaving introverts—and their best ideas—behind?

It’s no secret that I am a life-long introvert myself. I am much more comfortable writing or reading a blog post in my living room and discussing it via comments or Twitter than I am sitting and talking about it with someone over coffee or, worse, at a social gathering like a party or a conference.

So I get where Susan is coming from. Deeply.

In her TED Talk, she at one point pleads, “Stop the madness for constant group work.” When she said this, it hit me pretty hard. The first thing that came to my mind was the one gazillion design thinking ideation sessions I’ve either run or participated in over the last 7 or 8 years.

I’ve personally never had much trouble speaking up during ideation/brainstorming sessions. But I also suspect I am a relatively mild introvert compared to others I know. I started to wonder what the hard-core introverts were thinking during these sessions (and if you were one of them, feel free to tell me below in the comments).

Did they feel like they were being talked over by extroverts? Did they feel like they were out of their element, or needed more time to process their thoughts before blurting them out and having them recorded on the wall? Would they have preferred to contemplate on their own instead of thinking socially as part of a group?

Then another thought stuck me: I’ve met a lot of software engineers over the years, and while not all of them are introverts, many of them are. Frankly, I don’t think too many extreme extroverts could stand to sit in their office and stare at a computer screen all day. But for some introverted software developers, this is bliss.

Yet open source software is developed in a collaborative, social process… run in many cases by introverts.

Why does that work?

For me at least, the answer comes down to the difference between virtual and in-person collaboration. Open source software developers do much of their collaborating online. Often this is because they are geographically dispersed around the world. But I’ve also seen developers sitting two feet away from each other communicating via instant messages or email.

Online collaboration has two key advantages over in-person collaboration for introverts:

1) It allows them to avoid stressful in-person social interactions.

2) It allows them to take their time, contemplate, and think deeply before responding.

Over the past two years at New Kind, I’ve personally been doing less and less in-person design thinking ideation sessions, instead hosting more open, collaborative sessions online. Sometimes they are efforts like the hackathons I’ve run for the Management Innovation Exchange that involve hundreds of people collaborating from all around the world. Other times they are client projects where the collaborating happens via Basecamp or another online tool.

I’ve found I enjoy facilitating sessions online much more than in-person sessions, and I think it suits my personality better. Because the collaboration happens asynchronously, I can take my time crafting thoughtful responses and generating ideas. I can wait until I’m in the right frame of mind to participate, and most importantly, I can work with others, yet be alone at the same time.

I suspect some of these same advantages also translate to participants in online group sessions as well. And for this reason, perhaps many introverts are more comfortable in collaborative projects online than in person. Some of the best ideas I’ve seen emerge from online collaborative exercises come from people who usually remain completely silent in meetings.

In many cases, online collaborative projects provide the best of both worlds—you can collaborate and build off the ideas of others, but still take the time to process your thoughts before you add them (and as a special bonus, you don’t have the stress of in-person social interaction).

If you consider yourself an introvert, I’d love to hear about your experiences participating in collaborative projects online vs. in person. Do you agree with Susan Cain’s assessment that collaborative group projects are not designed to get the best out of introverts? Do you find yourself making better contributions and contributing more in online projects? Or are online collaborative groups just as bad for you as in-person sessions, and you’d rather just work completely on your own?

I’d love to hear what you think.

In the New York Times Magazine yesterday, Adam Davidson wrote a great piece about it. I pre-ordered the book and look forward to reading, but in the meantime, the New York Times article hints at some key conclusions the authors reach. From the article:

“…the wealth of a country is most closely correlated with the degree to which the average person shares in the overall growth of its economy… when a nation’s institutions prevent the poor from profiting from their work, no amount of disease eradication, good economic advice or foreign aid seems to help… If national institutions give even their poorest and least educated citizens some shot at improving their own lives — through property rights, a reliable judicial system or access to markets — those citizens will do what it takes to make themselves and their country richer.”

A relatively simple concept: Nations that give citizens opportunities to improve their lives—to create value for themselves—give them the incentive to create value—both for themselves and for the nation collectively.

According to the summary on the authors’ website, the book highlights examples of the theory in action around the world and throughout history, “from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa.”

So how might this theory apply to the study of how organizations can build passionate and sustainable brand communities? If we think of brands as nations, what might make them fail or see great success?

Michael Porter wrote a now-famous piece in HBR last year entitled Creating Shared Value that to me articulates the business equivalent of the principle. Here is how Wikipedia describes Porter’s concept of creating shared value:

“The central premise behind creating shared value is that the competitiveness of a company and the health of the communities around it are mutually dependent. Recognizing and capitalizing on these connections between societal and economic progress has the power to unleash the next wave of global growth and to redefine capitalism.”

I think there is a strong connection here, and I would frame it as simply as this:

Brands (and nations) that exist only to extract value from their communities are, in the long run, less competitive and less sustainable than brands (and nations) that exist to create and share value with their communities.

Think about the brands you interact with on a daily basis:

- Which of them are clear value extractors (i.e. they unabashedly exist in order to extract as much money as they can)?

- Which of them are extractors in “shared-value clothing” (i.e. they hide their true selves behind a veneer of shared value)?

- Which of them truly create and share value with the communities that care about them?

If you are like me, some specific organizations immediately come to mind when you see the three categories above. Humor me for a second as I remix the quotes I shared from the New York Times article earlier, but putting them in a brand context:

“…the strength of an organization’s brand community is most closely correlated with the degree to which the average community member shares in the overall success of the organization and community… when an organization prevents the average community member from profiting from its work, no amount of PR, advertising, or charitable giving seems to help… If organizations give even their average community members some shot at becoming more successful — through providing innovative products, experiences, and connections to new people or opportunities — those community members will do what it takes to make themselves, the organization, and the overall brand community richer.”

I suspect that organizations interested in building passionate brand communities have a lot to learn from Why Nations Fail.

And I’ll let you know what I personally learn once I’ve had a chance to read it.

Over the past few months, we’ve been running an effort we call a “management hackathon.” We ran our first hackathon experiment last year, with a small group of about 60 management innovators attempting to uncover how to enable communities of passion in or around organizations (if you’d like to read the report highlighting our findings, go here).

Our newest effort is called the Management 2.0 Hackathon, and for this one we’ve gone much bigger. This hackathon is a collaborative effort to come up with innovative management hacks based on the principles that have made the Web one of the most adaptable, innovative, and inspiring things humans have ever created. Our goal is to take the best lessons from the Web’s success and apply them to reinvent management practices in organizations.

There are now over 750 contributors taking part from six continents. For fun, here’s a map showing where our participants live and work:

Over on the MIX website, I’ve written a few blog posts highlighting some of our recent accomplishments.

Here’s a link to a post about the navigator tool we created, highlighting examples of organizations that are already using the principles of the Web to innovate today.

Here’s a link to a post I just wrote late last week with some of the most innovative hack ideas that have been suggested by contributors.

Sound interesting? If you’d like to participate in the Management 2.0 Hackathon and share and help develop management hacks with us, it’s not too late. In fact, we’ve had almost 50 new participants join in the past week alone.

If you want to start hacking with us, go here to create your account and read the instructions for our current sprint. It’d be great to have you on the team!

The other day I was sitting in the New Kind office, and was inspired to take the picture you see here. I thought it did a nice job capturing what ‘default to open’ looks like at New Kind.

The first thing to notice when you look at this picture is that everyone is sitting in the same room together.

No one at New Kind has an office. We all share a big open space. Now having said that, what you see here—everyone sitting at their desks—is pretty rare. While we are together by default, if someone gets a phone call or has a meeting, they typically get up from their desk and head into one of our dark conference rooms for privacy and to ensure they don’t annoy everyone else.

With the exception of our big collaboration space, all of the conference rooms at New Kind are gloomy rooms with no outside windows, so unless folks are on deadline and trying to escape distractions, they are not places to linger longer than necessary. That’s a good thing because it tends to keep us together. And if we are sitting at our desks and trying to avoid distractions, headphones are our friends (In fact, I’m writing this at my desk while listening to the new Sleigh Bells album).

Not only does everyone—including our Chairman and CEO—sit in the same room together by choice, but as you can see from the picture, everyone also has the same inexpensive IKEA desks and file cabinets. Yes, we have titles at New Kind so that we can interface successfully with the outside world, but they sure don’t get you much inside the office.

The last thing I’d like to point out that really shows what we mean by ‘default to open’ is that there are two people sitting in this picture, Adrienne and Billy, who are not technically New Kind employees, but do work with us regularly. Adrienne is a fantastic designer and the genius behind the amazing food blog AdrienneEats. Billy is a writer and social media expert with a Klout score second only to Nation of the people in this picture (impressive!). Neither of them is in the office every day. In fact, some days you’ll see other people sitting in those seats or elsewhere in the office with us.

When we first formed New Kind, we had a vision of the company as a community. The core concept behind New Kind was very simple:

We wanted to

1) do meaningful work
2) with people we like.

That’s it. So we regularly invite people we like to sit in the office with us, whether they are New Kind employees or not. New Kind is a community, open to those people who share our worldview. Often the folks who work with us in the office are collaborating with us on projects. Sometimes they are working on projects for other clients. We don’t really care, we just like having them around.

Do you have a similar setup and philosophy in your office? Tell me about it!

I am excited to help our clients reach their full potential in the world of social media. “Full potential” in social media means utilizing social media channels to build a community around your organization. That has to be the end goal for any effective strategy, and the only way to build that community is to engage in two-way communication.

“A Facebook strategy”… or “Twitter strategy”… or “Tumblr strategy”… isn’t a strategy. Those are tools of the trade, great tools, powerful tools, but tools all the same.

Four years ago when I first started working in social media, we were thinking about our Second Life strategy, as well as considering Orkut and MySpace. Today, few brands would consider any of those platforms. Many of the other services that we used then are either out of business or were absorbed by more dominant companies.

The social media universe today is ever changing. I give presentations on social media often, and I can’t tell you how many times I have seen people tense up when I mention a new service.

“Path? What’s that?”

“Do I really need a Pinterest strategy?”

“Does anyone use foursquare?”

These are common questions, and all of them make sense from a brand perspective. After all, most organizations do not have the resources to build an effective presence for every service that exists, and I would never recommend that you launch on a social network where you can’t sustain your efforts.

My advice is to pay attention to new services as they emerge because you never know which one will take off. But the far more important task is to develop a plan that will fit in with any and all social networks.

I always tell people it isn’t the services that matter, nor the tools, it is your viewpoint on what you are trying to accomplish and how that is ultimately the most important.

Services will come and go. Platforms will fade. It is the principles behind how to use social media that are not going away. Over decades, people had become accustomed to one-way communication as speakers communicated from podiums and we took notes, television shows and news only generated conversation inside of our living room or around the water cooler, if that, and we read the news that editors decided that we should read.

One-way communication was the way to go in this world. Brands worried about control, always, and the ultimate goal was to deliver a message to us common folk. The goal was decidedly not to hear back from us.

Today, however, television broadcasts weave in Twitter and promote hashtags. People tell the world what they are watching on GetGlue. We expect our political leaders to communicate through social media, and actually answer our questions from time to time. More and more of us use services like Flipboard to digest the news that we want to read, as opposed to the news that others want us to read.

No matter what services come and go, the genie is not going back in the bottle. Two-way communication is here to stay, as is consumer generated content. Your organization must navigate the social media universe with that in mind.

For now, virtually every business (I might argue every business) needs a website, a Facebook page, and a Twitter account as part of its strategy.

But if you have compelling visuals and value showing your story? Instagram might be a good fit for your brand, as it has been for Kate Spade, Starbucks, and others.

Do you have content that translates well to video? Consider YouTube or Vimeo as the home for your content.

Do you have a physical location and wish to extend rewards to frequent customers? Foursquare might be essential.

Pinterest is the fastest growing social network of the moment, and Tumblr the fastest growing microblogging software. Both might fit within your overall social media strategy, but you have to decide where your customers are as well.

One of the best examples of that decision making recently was Chobani Yogurt’s decision to sign up for Pinterest. They only made the call to sign up for Pinterest once they saw their consumers using the service, and then they wisely made the decision to ride the wave.

Your organization needs to keep up with new services, not because you have to be on all of them, but because you need to keep up with your own customer base.

One of the more exciting aspects of social media is that we can actually engage in a conversation with our customers. That is what you have to do to succeed. It is a little scary and hard to control, but can enormously rewarding for the brands that seize the moment and dedicate themselves to building community.

Those brands will be the ones that win the 21st Century.

Nation brings a unique background to New Kind, having worked with political campaigns, social causes, and professional sports. Most recently he served as Digital Director of the United Football League, increasing the fan base of the UFL over 1000% across multiple platforms.

Nation, a UNC alum with a degree in Communications and specialty in Media Production, will serve as New Kind’s first Director of Engagement. In that capacity he will work with our clients to expand their presence and effectiveness engaging communities through the use of digital tools and strategies, including social media.

As a seasoned corporate executive, I believe Nation brings an attribute to our team that cannot be underestimated.  At 25 years old, he provides a healthy dose of youthful exuberance in the way he approaches building communities, especially when it comes to embracing the newest social media tools.

Most every organization has a Facebook page or a Twitter account. But it takes much more than a social media “presence” to remain competitive today. You must have a clear digital strategy that seamlessly connects your digital efforts and communities with everything else—inside, outside, and around your organization. In Nation we have found a Millennial for whom use of the social media comes naturally, yet who also understands how it fits into a larger organizational framework.

Nation also brings another important attribute to New Kind, a genuine passion for making the world a better place. I’m confident that his commitment to and passion for the use of social media will be infectious to all of us on the New Kind team and most importantly, to the clients we serve.

So please join me in welcoming Nation to New Kind. You’ll be hearing more from him soon.

One of the many interesting things about Dr. Kahneman is that, as a psychologist, he actually won his Nobel prize in economics. If you are interested in learning more about how that happened, go here.

Over the last few months, Kahneman’s book has been sitting near the new Jim Collins book Great by Choice in the rarefied air of Amazon.com’s top 100 books list (I reviewed Great by Choice a few months back here). So I thought it was interesting that Kahneman challenged Jim Collins and his book Built to Last in Chapter 19. It was a pointed attack not just on Collins but the entire genre of success story-inspired business books.

Since I spend quite a bit of time reading these sorts of books, I was really interested in his viewpoint. I mean, have I been wasting time reading that I could just as usefully spent watching reruns of Tosh.O or Arrested Development on TV? Is there real value in studying successful businesses and leaders or is it just an illusion?

Here’s what Kahneman says:

“The basic message of Built to Last and other similar books is that good managerial practices can be identified and that good practices will be rewarded by good results. Both messages are overstated. The comparison of firms that have been more or less successful is to a significant extent a comparison between firms that have been more or less lucky. Knowing the importance of luck, you should be particularly suspicious when highly consistent patterns emerge from the comparison of successful and less successful firms. In the presence of randomness, regular patterns can only be mirages.”

Ouch.

Kahneman cites Philip Rosenzweig’s book The Halo Effect (which is now on my reading list) and quickly jumps to the punchline of that book:

“[Rosenzweig] concludes that stories of success and failure consistently exaggerate the impact of leadership style and management practices on firm outcomes, and thus their message is rarely useful.”

So are we to believe Kahneman and Rosenzweig? Is there really no value in studying the leadership and management practices of great companies?

Even after reading the whole book Thinking, Fast and Slow and understanding the psychological principles that trick my brain into applying great importance to these sorts of success stories, I still find the conclusion a hard one to accept. And then Kahneman throws the knockout punch:

“Stories of how businesses rise and fall strike a chord with readers by offering what the human mind needs: a simple message of triumph and failure that identifies clear causes and ignores the determinative power of luck and the inevitability of regression. These stories induce and maintain an illusion of understanding, imparting lessons of little enduring value to readers who are all too eager to believe them.”

Okay, I get it. Kahneman views me as a sucker. And who am I to argue with a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist?

But I just can’t help it. I think there is plenty that we can learn from the lessons of innovative businesses like those that Collins profiles in Built to Last. Kahneman may be right that these books suffer from an illusion of academic rigor that breaks down under close study. And yes, they probably need a disclaimer (“The author makes no promise or guarantee that if you follow the principles outlined in this book you will become Google overnight. Individual results may vary.”).

But what these books lack in academic rigor they make up for in one simple area: they inspire people. To not settle for what they see today. To try something new. To learn. To grow. To believe.

They create the possibility of hope. “Others have done it. I could too!”

So in that sense, Kahneman’s critique is somewhat akin to an adult telling a three-year old child that there is no Santa Claus. My view? The analysis is technically correct, but emotionally bankrupt.

Where success story business books fail the analytical brain, they often are just what the emotional brain needs.

So I don’t know about you, but I’m going to keep on reading business books. By constantly refueling my head with new ideas, I’ll always have something to learn and try. I’ll continue to be inspired by authors like Jim Collins, by companies and leaders who have seen great success, and I’ll suspend my academic doubts in the hope of learning new lessons that might just work.

I’d love to hear what you think. If you believe Kahneman’s critique of Collins and the genre is on the money, or if you believe instead that there is still value in sharing and learning from business success stories, let me know in the comments section below.

But from what I can tell, HP didn’t do the unveiling.

Instead, the new brand identity was showcased as a case study on the website of Moving Brands, the lead agency hired by HP to work on the creative vision for the HP brand, a project that began in 2008. Not only is the final work product fantastic, but the process the team went through to design the identity was also incredibly smart and current.

Here’s a short video from the Moving Brands website that showcases the new identity:

Click here to view the embedded video.

To me, this is a really wonderful example of thoughtful identity work done right. The UnderConsideration article in particular does a nice job of breaking down the process they used. Or watch this video from the case study that shows how the process worked from the inside:

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you’ve been following tech news, you may have seen that HP, which has been a wee bit shaky in the leadership department over the past few years, in September hired former eBay CEO Meg Whitman to take over the top leadership spot after the very short tenure of Leo Apotheker.

One can only speculate if, with the changing of the guard, this project was cancelled or moved to the back burner (TechCrunch calls it “The Radical HP Rebranding That Never Was”), but an agency revealing a company’s new identity to the world on its behalf is something I’ve never witnessed before.

An agency gone rogue or a carefully scripted unofficial test of the new identity? Hmm…

One way or another, I must say that after suffering through the last couple of years of major brand identity launch flubs like The Gap and Tropicana, whether on purpose or not, this identity rollout (as weird as it may sound) feels perfect to me.

Why?

Because it is so different than the old skool agency “Big Reveal” of a new identity (“Look what’s behind this curtain! It’s a shiny new logo!”).

I hate the Big Reveal.

First off, the Big Reveal smacks of agency arrogance. Our agency geniuses have gone behind closed doors, deeply breathed in the raw sewage of your current brand… and what has emerged? Why these beautiful, fresh, sweet-smelling brand flowers (and we threw in a spiffy new font for you too… just because we could!).

Second, the Big Reveal always implies a product that is already finished when people first get to see it. Even the patron saint of brand identity Paul Rand was famous for presenting his designs as “take it or leave it.” IBM took it, as did UPS. Steve Jobs did too, after getting put in his place by Rand.

This way of revealing brand identity may have worked in the past, but it faces some very real challenges today in a world driven by social media. The new Gap logo was revealed to the Gap brand community the old way and then quickly rejected through the power of the combined community voice on blogs and social media networks. It never stood a chance.

We will see this kind of community-driven brand influence more and more over the coming years as the communities that surround brands gain more and more power over their direction, and the companies that own them can control less and less.

Which is why I like how this new HP logo came out, whether the company meant for it to happen this way or not. Rather than inflicting a new logo on us that we’ve never seen before as a done deal, we were presented—informally—not just a logo, but the entire story of how the identity got to this point, transparently, openly, and, most importantly, before the decision had been made.

I love when brands are built collaboratively with the people who care most about the brand, both inside and outside the company. By being revealed informally while still a work in progress, this new HP identity feels to me like the beginning of an open conversation with the HP brand community.

Who knows whether HP will stifle that conversation, ignore it, or become an active participant. Only time will tell.

But I have to hand it to the folks at Moving Brands who led the process. This is either a clever way to get some feedback for their client and start a dialog before a bigger commitment is made or it is a ballsy attempt to win over the HP brand community with high-quality work and then enlist the community’s help to force HP not to abandon the project.

Either way, I love it. It’s great design work and a pitch-perfect roll out strategy for the times.

Let’s see what happens next.

HP? Your move.

For those who have not heard of the Eisenhower Fellowship (a truly great organization) its purpose is to “engage emerging leaders from around the world to enhance their professional capabilities, broaden their contacts, deepen their perspectives, and unite them in a diverse, global community – a network where dialogue, understanding and collaboration lead to a more prosperous, just and peaceful world.”

The organization is led by John Wolfe, a former US Foreign Service Officer,  Assistant Secretary of State and US Ambassador to Malaysia.  In the late 90’s I was fortunate to have served as a private sector member of the US Delegation to the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) Meeting in Singapore and met Ambassador Wolfe at that time. The organization could not have a better leader.

I am also privileged to personally know a number of Eisenhower Fellows who have participated in the program from North Carolina and they are the best of the best, so I was very excited when New Kind was asked to participate in their meeting.

I was joined in the presentation to the Fellows by my New Kind colleagues David Burney and Matt Munoz.

My presentation dealt with “Leading Through Adversity,” a situation that all leaders face at one time or another in their career. I shared some real life examples of challenges I faced as an executive early in my Red Hat career and how I dealt with them.

My colleague David Burney talked about the changing management paradigm around the concept of “openness.” In particular, he explained how the management of the best corporations and organizations in the world was evolving from command and control to an environment where the best ideas win, without regard to the hierarchical rank of the person offering them. He also shared the importance of leaders being able to effectively tell their organizations’ stories.

Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to work for some of the world’s best known and successful companies led by some of the world’s greatest leaders. It was always amazing to me how some executives were able to climb the corporate ladder, but still were unable to effectively tell the story of the company.

At New Kind we pride ourselves on being able to help complex organizations tell their stories simply, so that their employees, executives, stakeholders and most importantly, their customers understand why they exist. We believe that stories are at the very heart of any movement, whether social, political, or even the type that helps Apple sell more iPhones or Starbucks sell more coffee.

My colleague, Matt Munoz used his time with the Eisenhower Fellows to offer a primer on design thinking and how it can be an important tool for leaders of high-performance organizations. He cited the 2010 Global CEO survey’s finding that “CEOs now realize that creativity trumps other leadership characteristics.”  He explained how design thinking focuses on the use of creativity as a tool to solve problems.

The Eisenhower Fellows were given an opportunity to test some of the concepts that they heard from us in breakout groups as well.

Judging from the feedback that we received from the Eisenhower Fellows, both at the conclusion of our session and through subsequent emails that we have received from around the world since the meeting, the participants understood our messages and considered our presentations a valuable use of their time.

We learned a lot too. And it was a great honor and privilege for us to have the opportunity to share our philosophy about what it really takes for a leader to be successful in the 21^st century, especially with such an important group of leaders from around the world.

How to find brand ambassadors

Start by identifying the people inside your organization who have the best relationships with each community. These people are the best candidates to become your brand ambassadors. The ideal brand ambassador is already an actual community member, actively participating in conversations and projects with other community members.

While an employee of your organization, this person shares common values, interests, and experiences with other community members. It is less important what position they hold within your organization and more important how they are viewed by the community itself.

After you’ve identified possible brand ambassadors, reach out to them to see if they are willing and interested in expanding their personal roles in the community to include being representatives of your brand as well. Some might already be playing this role, others might be playing this role and not realizing it.

Don’t force or pressure people. The ideal candidate will be excited to be considered and will be passionate about the opportunity, so if your best candidate doesn’t seem interested, try to find someone else who is.

Creating brand ambassadors from scratch

If you don’t have anyone in your organization who is already a member of the community, you’ll need to have someone join. Choose someone who understands your organization’s story and positioning well but also already shares interests, values, and experiences with the community in question.

Have this person attend meetings, join mailing lists, participate on forums, and otherwise begin to contribute to the community first as an individual. It will take a little longer to get started, but it will be worth it if your brand ambassador has a deep contextual understanding of the community before they dive right in officially representing your organization.

Brand ambassadors as faces of the brand

You should ensure that your brand ambassadors deeply understand your brand positioning so they can live it (not just speak to it) in their activities within these external communities. If you are developing many brand ambassadors at once, consider hosting a brand ambassador bootcamp where new ambassadors can practice telling the brand story and get aligned on the overall positioning of the organization. Also use this as an opportunity to emphasize the key role of these ambassadors in developing the brand experience and keeping relationships with the community healthy and productive.

You may have some communities where there is a whole team of ambassadors, not just one. For example, at Red Hat, a large team of developers represented Red Hat (and themselves) in the Fedora community. Invest as many ambassadors as you need in order to provide the best possible support for and adequately communicate with the community.

As you recruit brand ambassadors, you extend the internal core of the brand. Although it is wonderful to see your core group getting bigger, extending your reach is also an important time to ensure consistency. Be very careful to take the time to educate all brand ambassadors well so the entire brand orchestra stays in key.

Brand ambassador philosophy

Wikipedia defines an ambassador as “the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization.” Usually an ambassador lives and operates within the country or organization where he is assigned.

Your brand ambassadors should channel the same philosophy. While they are members of your organization, they should “live” within the communities they are assigned to as much as possible while representing your organization within that community.

Great brand ambassadors are loyal to the organization and to the community at the same time. They develop relationships of respect, honesty, and trust within the community, which allows them to clearly and openly communicate the priorities, desires, and needs of both sides.

Brand ambassadors are not just mouthpieces for the organization, but should also maintain their own personality, interests, and opinions in the community—often distinct from those of the organization. In places where they are representing their own opinions and ideas, they should provide the proper disclaimers. With a little practice, this is not nearly as difficult as it might sound. The key is maintaining an authentic personal voice while being open, transparent, and human in their communications.

Don’t think someone in your organization has the right makeup to be a good ambassador based on what you see here, even if he or she has good relationships within the community? Don’t make him or her an ambassador. The brand ambassador is a representative of your brand to the outside world, and the job carries a lot of responsibility and requires a high emotional intelligence and diplomatic sensibility to do well.

So take the time to find, train, and support brand ambassadors within your organization. With some attention and focus, you may soon find that your network of ambassadors becomes one of your organization’s most valuable assets.