The first time we read the resume, we were impressed. It didn’t tell us just about the person’s skills. It created the picture of a gentleman who loves reading books, has a lovely family, and is warm and friendly.

This resume stood out from the pile we had received and this was the first person we called for an interview.

Did we make him an offer and did he join our team? We’ll tell you that just a bit later. The point we are making is this: his resume was so different and impactful, that it felt like a mini-conversation with the person. If a resume can create this sort of first impression, doesn’t it say something about the person?

Many of us reduce our resumes to just a list of skills sets and achievements. Yes, it’s important to talk about them. But how about bringing in a context or an example that tells a story and interests the reader?

Jennifer Hay  talks of the advantages of storytelling in career contexts in her blog. “Telling stories in a way that draws attention to your career achievements is a natural fit. Engaging stories about how you solved problems, created opportunities, and nurtured productive teams make the difference between moving forward and staying behind,” she says.

A good story in a ‘bio’ helps get people to “believe in you”, says Michael Margolis of Get Storied. He lists the route to take to re-jig your bio and create a new one that’s more about you and not just a set of keywords.

Which brings us to the reason we got so impressed with that resume we spoke of earlier. It had a human touch. It told us why and how this person could fit in to our team in a very engaging way.

We made him an offer, he accepted it, and did a great job of a star project. A happy ending to the resume story; we hope yours has such an ending too.

Have you ever worked on your website’s content?

If yes, you may have faced the confusing question: how much and what content to use on the pages? You may have seen marketing call for minimal information and the product teams pitch for every single detail to be used.

Where does the balance lie and what’s the best route to take?

According to traditional notions of usability, you need to have the right amount of information readily available for the reader to see on a page. No point asking him/her to click through multiple pages and creating multiple levels of navigation.

A progressive disclosure approach is different. According to Wikipedia, “Progressive disclosure is an interaction design technique that sequences information and actions across several screens in order to reduce feelings of overwhelm for the user. By disclosing information progressively, you reveal only the essentials and help the user manage the complexity of feature-rich sites or applications.”

So, you determine the detail of information to share with the reader at every level. Here, the focus in on what information you reveal and at which point in the reader’s journey – when – on your website.

It could mean multiple levels of click; they’re effective as long as the information shared at each click ‘stage’ is relevant and interesting. Susan Weinschenk roots for this point using the New Zealand Tourism site as an example. She says, “People are very willing to make multiple clicks, in fact that won’t even notice they are making the clicks, if they are getting the right amount of information at each click to keep them going down the path.”

A progressive disclosure approach works if you have a lot of information to share and can create smaller chunks, that become more and more detailed with each click. But it’s important to let visitors make the choice. They should see the basic information at a glance and on the landing page, and then click on the tabs (if they want to) for details.

It’s like reading the newspaper. The headline gives you the gist of the article; you read the rest of the story only if it interests you and you want more details.

Just had to share this amazing video by two guys, shot in 10 days around the world.

At a recent brand communication workshop, a question left us thinking. “If a brand is about experience, when does the experience begin? When selling a product or service, when making a sales pitch or during customer service?”

If you are a brand that takes this definition seriously, then the experience begins whenever a user/ potential user/ stakeholder interacts with your brand. It begins when a potential customer calls your office to ask about your office timings, when your employee is networking at an event, and even when your office assistant gives the vendor his cheque.

So, as marketers and brand managers, you need to focus on much more than your brochures, websites and ads. You need to focus on the people who are your brand ambassadors – your colleagues and team members. For what they say and how, creates an impression about the brand they represent.

Start at the bottom

You call a travel agency. The receptionist politely takes down your contact details and promises to get an associate to call you in an hour. And the associate calls too. Aren’t you impressed? Contrast this with an agency where the receptionist curtly says, “We aren’t open yet. Call after an hour.”

Take-away: your support staff is often the first point of contact for many customers. Train them to interact well with all stakeholders – it is the first step towards creating a positive brand experience for your audience.

Get the small things right

You ask both agencies for a particular holiday package. One calls to tell you that they can’t support your requirements and offer similar options. The other agency can’t support the requirements either, but they don’t call at all. Which agency are you likely to call the next time you need help with travel plans?

Take-away: a good brand experience isn’t merely built on product sales or post-sales service. It’s built on interactions and impressions. Call or mail if you’ve promised to. Keep people informed. Follow-up and respond. These simple basics can make or mar the way people think of your brand.

Build impressions not leads

You don’t take the options the agency gives you. But they still wish you luck with your travel and ask if you need any other services. They give you additional information necessary for your holiday and offer to guide you to other service providers. Won’t you have a good word to speak about them?

Take-away: focus on building positive impressions and not just leads. It’s ok if you can’t make a sale. The positive impressions add up to make a great brand experience even before you’ve sold a product or service. And this could well get you that million dollar project.

When clients ask us to streamline their communication, we begin with a simple, fundamental step: get the style guide going.

Here, we introduce you to this essential document and explain why you need it.

What’s a style guide?

A style guide is the Bible for your company’s communication. It tells you the style to follow for your text (and often even design), just as a fashion style guide tells you the colours to combine, the accessories to use with outfits and how to step out looking your best.

Newspapers and magazines have their own style guides, which define how they write and format text. (Read this Wikipedia note to know more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Style_guide)

Why use it?

Every time you go to your favourite restaurant, don’t you expect them to get your favourite dish right? The colour, the flavour and serving size all have to be consistent time and again. Never mind if they have a new chef or they buy a different brand of ingredients.

It’s the same with your communication. It has to appear consistent, no matter which member of your team comes up with the core idea. A style guide is really handy when:

• You have new members joining your team.
• You work with different agencies.
• There are internal debates about how to use a word right. Is it e-mail or email?

The style guide lists it all – you have a ready reference.

What should it cover?

Many style guides cover the basic rules of writing (grammar, punctuation, tense, etc.). But a style guide becomes unique to your organisation when it states how you treat text. For instance, does it include a period mark in abbreviations? Do you write 10 am or 10 a.m.? See how Yahoo and Associated Press treat some aspects of text or writing differently. (http://styleguide.yahoo.com/resources/web-editors-toolbox/differences-between-yahoo-style-guide-and-associated-press-stylebook)

Some points your style guide should include:

• Treatment of the company name. What is the full name? What abbreviations and usages are ok? For instance, can Creative Solutions Pvt Ltd be abbreviated to CSPL or CS?
• Use of key phrases, relevant to your domain and work. Do you refer to your vendors as service providers or partners? Do you say underprivileged children or vulnerable children?
• Dos and don’ts. Such as using competitors’ names in messages, conventions for naming documents, captions for pictures… think of the few aspects that make a difference to your company’s communication and list them out.

A style guide can be long and exhaustive. But that intimidates users rather than encourage them to refer to it. So, cover the key points necessary for your organisation and suggest links for more extensive reading.

Remember, a style guide is not set in stone. It’s an evolving document. Review and edit it periodically, based on your organisational requirements and changing usage. See how The New York Times accepts Kolkata as the new spelling for Calcutta in its revised stylebook. http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/the-latest-in-style/

Remember the goal statement on your resume? The one that goes something like this: to excel in my role and serve an organisation to the best of my abilities.

It’s so general that it doesn’t tell the reader anything distinct about you. What a potential employer would like to know is how do you intend to excel in your role and what role are you talking about.

A vision statement is a bit like this goal statement – redundant if it seems general, but says a lot about your company if written well.

A good vision statement should tell your audience about your enterprise’s larger dreams, the ‘big’ goal that motivates it. It should give readers an idea about the field of your work and what you wish to achieve. Is it healthcare, entertainment, sports or food? Do you want to fight malnutrition and make children healthier? Do you want to see affordable, digital entertainment systems in every house? Or do you want to be the company synonymous with luxury holidays?

Ford once had a vision statement that read: democratize the automobile. A simple statement without fancy words or fluff; yet powerful enough to motivate.

Vision statements don’t have to sound serious and stuffy. They just need to state the big dream in simple words. John F Kennedy stated his vision in the 1960s in very simple terms – we will put a man on the moon and return him safely within the decade.

An effective vision statement has clarity of thought and is specific to your organisation. Leave out the descriptors – innovative, exemplary, superior – and the general pegs – products and services, serve people, and so on – unless you can qualify them. If you want to bring innovation to the garment industry, talk of how it translates into gains for customers. Is it affordable, easy-to-maintain clothing for everyone? Or is to make khadi a fabric of desire for all?

And, don’t fret if you don’t have a vision statement yet. If your company and your team have a vision, an inspiration, and a goal to work towards, it’s just a matter of articulating it right.

Staid versus boring.

Glamour versus intelligence.

Staying with the times versus staying ahead of the times.

The battle lines are drawn and the salvos have been fired. The Times Of India versus The Hindu battle has begun.

Corporate history has seen many a battle of the brands. Remember the Mac versus PC series? (Adweek has listed them all out here) Or the Coke versus Pepsi series (Brand New has kindly documented them here) There was the Avis versus Hertz battle too, legendary stuff in the US advertising history.

Unlike in traditional battles, where there are clear winners and losers, in corporate brand wars, results are measured by market shares and audience perceptions. Tricky stuff these, to measure and read. And when the product is a habit-sensitive one, like a newspaper, getting a piece of the pie from your rival is more difficult.

What then, can rival brands hope to gain from a confrontational campaign? It’s a piece of the conversation, mind share more than market share. At least in the short term.

Most people love watching a fight. And if it’s got the biggest names involved, the excitement only increases. The Times Of India versus The Hindu campaign may have begun in Chennai, but it has resonated across the country. The Hindu’s campaign has made many people sit up and take notice of the brand, shaking off its conventional and boring image. The Times Of India seems to have lost round one to the rival, but it’s managed to get people talking about it too.

The real loss is perhaps for the other newspaper brands that have got left out of the conversation. What are they doing to get noticed?

In 2006, BMW ran an ad passing a jibe at Audi. Audi answered. Subaru jumped into the fray too, increasing the competition and fun. If only the other Indian newspapers would add their two bits to this bout.

What would a bunch of corporate executives be doing at a happy gathering of writers, novelists, and readers? Brushing up their story-telling skills. According to a recent Economic Times report, Wipro sent some its executives to learn the art of story telling at the Jaipur Lit Fest. The company even plans to use the story format for its client pitches instead of PPTs.

Wipro has perhaps recognised the power a story holds over most people. Young or old, at work or at home, with friends or with strangers, we all like listening to stories. It breaks the ice, makes interaction easier, and lets us visualise what is being described – a great way to stay involved in the communication.

Using a story as part of corporate communication or marketing communication is not entirely new. Think case studies. Without the impressive statistics and quantified results, they are essentially stories.

Think ads. They are short narratives about a product solving a problem, of a person finding what he was looking for, of how lives changed after using a product or service. They have colour, action, emotion, and even elements of mystery, fantasy, and glamour. Compare them with corporate PPTs, filled with dry, verbose vision and mission statements!

Posters, ads, brochures, have all been used as story-tellers. It’s now the corporate presentation’s turn to share a story and engage viewers, making business meetings more lively. On a hot afternoon, in the middle of a hectic day, it’s easier to warm up to stories than to seven-digit numbers and corporate data. (Also read our earlier post – What’s in a story)

From slide decks to story boards – should be a welcome transition.

Many years ago, a thin, bespectacled old man wrapped in a piece of Khadi, led the campaign to free India from British rule. A few months ago, it was the turn of another bespectacled old man, walking in the former’s footsteps, to lead India against corruption.

We look at brand Anna Hazare and what it can teach us.

Anna’s popularity soared as he became the symbol for a cause the entire country identified with.

Lesson: let your brand stand for a simple value/ ideal/ notion, which makes it easier for people to relate to it.

During the peak of his campaign, his team used various media channels to connect with the public. It gave the campaign and the brand ample mind-space.

Lesson: use the right media channel for better brand recall.

Things became a shade less rosy, when members of the Anna team began to express different views on the same topics.

Lesson: ensure your brand speaks the same language consistently; confusing or contradictory statements hurt credibility.

Multiple statements on multiple issues – from a minister being slapped to campaigns during elections – kept team Anna in focus, but began to subtract from the overall impact the brand had earlier created.

Lesson: communicate with stakeholders but don’t create a communication clutter.

The recent second fast didn’t create as much of a stir as the first one did. The crowd response was weaker too.

Lesson: don’t take your audience for granted. The same strategy may not work twice.

According to media reports about the event (fast in Mumbai), it was a case of Anna retiring hurt, thanks to the lukewarm response. But brand Hazare is still potent enough to grab the headlines. Let’s wait and watch to see if it takes a stronger hue – after all, the Lokpal Bill is yet to be passed.