I'm an inveterate reader of newspapers and always have been. That is probably a function of the era I grew up in. It was much less TV-centri...

Creativity is a valuable and sought-after skill in our ever changing, uncertain and unpredictable world. But I hear so many people telling me they are

Whether you consider your brand building exercise a refresh, evolution or revolution, the logo is likely to command a healthy portion of the conversation. Crafting a new brand identity requires vision, restraint and execution—a combination only the most capable brand stewards achieve. Some of the process comes down to an indefinable magic—a meeting of designer and strategist; a striking of creative oil. But there are key qualities for which a team should strive for during the creative process, and by keeping them in mind, can ensure an impactful outcome.

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Here's an interesting way to re-think about how you talk about and write about your jobs. Ask yourself things like, "what was I nervous about before I started?" and " If you had to convince someone NOT to apply, how would you?" This article on what horror movies can teach us about job postings is a great read.

Good visual identity is about more than engaging colors and pretty creative. It needs to enhance your message and brand. That means getting beyond colors and fonts you like or are fashionable. Instead, think about the visuals as a way to invite people to learn more bout your employer brand.

So if our game needs to be elevated, one way it to start taking notes from the creative folk who help us choose what shoes, toothpaste and cereal to buy. Here's a good start to getting your gears turning: using dissonance to create tension and attraction. It's sometimes risky, but the payoffs can be game-changers.

Speaking of content marketing, have you started experimenting with live video yet? In a remote world, it might be exactly what you need to get people interested in what your company is doing and why they might consider applying. Here's a great how-to on how to get good at live video in a hurry.

If you are being forced to re-think your candidate experience (because you can't just have them show up to the office at the moment), here are some suggestions on leveraging human-centered design to re-invent the entire experience.

How the creative director of Spotify uses data. This is a great video, but I suggest you watch to see ways Spotify could have used data in the aggregate to tell a big boring story. But instead, it found unique slices of the data to say something interesting, about themselves, about their listeners and about the world.

Is your brand memorable? Do you know how to make it more memorable? Here’s an interesting article suggesting focused visuals to command attention and create those brand memories that last.

One of the challenges EB is grappling with in the face of mandated remote work is how to collaborate, brain-storm or just workshop an idea together. EB, because it connects all the parts of the company, is inherently collaborative, and Zoom (et al) doesn’t really get many people’s creative juices flowing. So here are some ideas on how to brainstorm when no one can share a room with a white board and those massive post-it notes.

Call me old fashioned, but I still love a good blog. And is there a cheaper way to manage a platform on which you can tell deep sharable stories that support your employer brand? I didn’t think so. Here are 5 brand-driven to make sure your blog isn’t boring.

"If this is how we consume content in our busy, daily lives, why would we behave differently in our even busier work lives?"

Okay, I’ll admit it: I’m thinking about my organization’s career site, which means that I am looking at a LOT of career sites. Which actually means that I am seeing a LOT OF CAREER SITES THAT LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME. It’s painful. Often times, they are the “best case scenario” career sites by recruitment marketing platform vendors hold out as examples of great design. At the same time, fads in web design are as long lasting at those in fashion. But here are some current design trends you should look at when you think about your site design.

Bryan Adams kicks his article off by saying, “talent acquisition professionals and employer brand leaders can often fall victim to an over-reliance on conventional thinking” so you knew I was going to mention this one. His call is to go beyond “typical employer branding” is music to my ears. It’s a call to stop being passive, to stop just focusing on polishing up and providing the “nicest” face on the company and taking a more active role in shaping the brand. Don’t tell stories, make stories. Love it.

Ready to get deep? To jump off the really high platform? Here we go. Instead of thinking about your video strategy in a “let’s make a video about the London team” way in which you try and take enough footage that shows what you’re trying to say kind of way, what if you really began to think about telling real stories. Google has some examples of hardcore marketing storytelling told via sequential videos. My money says we’re going to be spending a LOT of time thinking about building these kinds of videos in the next year or two.

If you’re looking for a good book, take a look at Brain Surfing by Heather LeFevre. Imagine if a very smart brand strategist decided to take an eat, pray, love style trip to meet the world’s most interesting brand strategists. Good stuff.

Podcast recommendation: Sweathead. It skews very agency-heavy/strategy director-heavy, and the quality of the podcast seems to hinge on the guest, but I have heard some really interesting episodes lately. I recommend The interviews with Ryan Ford, Blake Desormeaux, and Jenny Chang.

Your job posts and ads may be a candidate’s introduction to your company, so you want to be sure they both differentiate you and set the right expectations upfront. But if you’re finding that they just aren’t bringing in the kind of candidates that you’d hoped for, it may be time to get creative.Need some creativity in your job posts? (I checked and yes. yes you do.) Here are some crazy job posting ideas (an Animal Crossing office… sure!) not in a “here are great ideas to steal,” way, but more in a “share this with people who push back on changing "Duties and Responsibilities” to “Things you’ll do all day.” They need to know what the ceiling for creativity really is these days.

Five research-backed strategies to broaden your worldview — even when your world is shrinking.

For those of you sketching out you 2021 campaigns, you might be thinking about making a stand-alone landing page for an idea, an office, a team, or maybe just to collect talent leads before you need them. Turns out, taking your existing page and stripping out all the navigation doesn’t work. Landing pages have their own rules and strategies, so learn them before you deploy yet another boring page no one cares about.

Guilty pleasure: lusting over amazing visual branding work. I’ve been following Fabien Barral’s blog and work for more than two decades, which he highlights some of the best old fashioned intricate rococo and seemingly curlicue-fetish design work I’ve ever seen. If you like ornate letterpress work, this is a goldmine.

In my own day job, I am running into that age old issue: we don’t have enough employer-brand-style photos. I’d love to take some more, but… y'know: COVID. I’m not going to hire a crew to go to employee’s dining rooms or anything. Another industry struggling with this issue is (surprisingly) architectural photographers. Buildings are pretty and all, but they need people in them to tell the story. So how do you do that in the age of COVID? Some interesting perspective here.

In my own day job, I an running into that age old issue: we don’t have enough employer-brand-style photos. I’d love to take some more, but… y'know: COVID. I’m not going to hire a crew to go to employee’s dining rooms or anything. Another industry struggling with this issue is (surprisingly) architectural photographers. Buildings are pretty and all, but they need people in them to tell the story. So how do you do that in the age of COVID? Some interesting perspective here.

Jack White (White Stripes et al) is a love him or hate him kind of artist (I love him and Audra hates him). But you can’t argue with how he thinks about building music: embracing constraints, focusing on what matters, doing the same thing in different ways. If you can ignore the gear-head wonkery, this is an amazing interview from someone who has done more with less than anyone I can think of.

BBC/MoMA’s The Way I See It, in which one artist looks at a piece of art from the MoMa’s collection and talks about why it’s interesting. Great stuff.