I've always thought about building an Oblique Strategies deck for EB folks. What, you don't know what the OS cards are? Designed by Brian Eno (the guy who turned "alien" David Bowie into "genius" David Bowie), they are cards you select when you're stuck. Designed for musicians originally, they had instructions designed to spark thinking like "go to an extreme and work your way back" or "change instrument roles." Sometimes they were very... high-minded like "twist the spine" or "question the heroic approach." I love it because it assumes that the right answer is inside you already and you just need to clear out the clutter of your own mind to find it. Anyway, if you're stuck, here are 10 strategies to re-spark your thinking when trying to turn around your employer brand.

Why should you think more like an anthropologist? Well, no brand can survive without feeling, sensing, and talking to their people. The anthropologist understands the development of humans in societies or cultures, which is what happens when people come together. That sounds like the sort of thing every employer brand pro should aspire to be.

Metrics, anyone? EB Rock star Shaunda Zilich writes up a nice piece on EB metrics. I was going to quibble with it until I realized that the best part of the article is unstated: Metrics are gibberish until you decide what your strategy is first. You can measure oodles of things and easily get batted around like a leaf on the wind unless you have clearly defined what you are trying to do and deciding the metrics on that. Once I saw that, I realized how great the article was.