Half-baked thinking: What's your brand?
Mar. 17th, 2005 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsThis afternoon, sparked by a television show (yeah, this one, what did you expect?) I started thinking back on the training I had received as a member of the Franklin Covey dayplanner cult. CompuServe was big on this; we received three hours a year of "refresher" training in how to use the big, bulky thing, which I carried with me everywhere. These days I'm down to a David Allen project list and a calendar, blessed be, on a Palm V that fits in my pocket.
But sometimes, Allen recommends that you do the Covey thing-- not as often as Covey would like, which is every week, every day if you can-- but once every couple of months, one should step back from the immediate task of Getting Things Done and consider one's objectives, one's goals and, in the Covey terminology, one's roles.
I dug up my old list and there, at the top, was father, then husband, employee, writer, programmer, and adviser. I've had to drop the bottom one, for I no longer hand out unsolicited advice on agony blogs and newsgroups. There simply is not time enough.
As I was thinking about this list of roles, the "who am I" question came up and then I realized I had another role: blogger. And then it clicked: I'm Elf Fucking Sternberg, I've been on the Internet for seventeen years, which is longer than some of my readers have been alive, and I am a brand.
But what is the Elf Sternberg brand about? What do you get for brand loyalty? This is the question I must figure out. How do I build brand integrity into the name "Elf Sternberg"? Is it a multiple of brands: is there one about a secularist father trying to raise children, another about the erstwhile programmer, another about the relentless writer, another about the wine and anime and chocolate and cooking fanatic? Do they need separate identities? What are the deliverables for each, and how do I improve the quality of those deliverables?
This is something I will probably be spending some energy thinking about, because I perceive that it is valuable to me. I have only a short time on this Earth, my transhumanist optimism notwithstanding, and I need to do something with it.
As a short interim, I really, really wish that LiveJournal had tagging. "This post is about" and a collection of one-word tags that would let people filter. "Show me all of Elf's posts about anime" or "Show me all of Elf's posts about fatherhood" would totally rock! as a feature.
But sometimes, Allen recommends that you do the Covey thing-- not as often as Covey would like, which is every week, every day if you can-- but once every couple of months, one should step back from the immediate task of Getting Things Done and consider one's objectives, one's goals and, in the Covey terminology, one's roles.
I dug up my old list and there, at the top, was father, then husband, employee, writer, programmer, and adviser. I've had to drop the bottom one, for I no longer hand out unsolicited advice on agony blogs and newsgroups. There simply is not time enough.
As I was thinking about this list of roles, the "who am I" question came up and then I realized I had another role: blogger. And then it clicked: I'm Elf Fucking Sternberg, I've been on the Internet for seventeen years, which is longer than some of my readers have been alive, and I am a brand.
But what is the Elf Sternberg brand about? What do you get for brand loyalty? This is the question I must figure out. How do I build brand integrity into the name "Elf Sternberg"? Is it a multiple of brands: is there one about a secularist father trying to raise children, another about the erstwhile programmer, another about the relentless writer, another about the wine and anime and chocolate and cooking fanatic? Do they need separate identities? What are the deliverables for each, and how do I improve the quality of those deliverables?
This is something I will probably be spending some energy thinking about, because I perceive that it is valuable to me. I have only a short time on this Earth, my transhumanist optimism notwithstanding, and I need to do something with it.
As a short interim, I really, really wish that LiveJournal had tagging. "This post is about" and a collection of one-word tags that would let people filter. "Show me all of Elf's posts about anime" or "Show me all of Elf's posts about fatherhood" would totally rock! as a feature.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-18 04:02 am (UTC)Memories?
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Date: 2005-03-18 04:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-18 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-18 04:45 am (UTC)-D
You are indeed!
Date: 2005-03-18 06:29 am (UTC)Some wheels started churning and a little later I said "Would that be Elf Sternberg?! THE Elf Sternberg?"
I decided I was *definitely* in over my head, but that maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. ;)
So yeah - you have branding.
Congratulations!
Date: 2005-03-18 07:25 am (UTC)I hope that you have some brilliant inspiration and find a way to create great and wonderful things for yourself, your family, and your friends out of your newly discovered situation. You have done a great deal to provide enjoyment for others with your writings and your amazing openness and honesty in your blog. I occasionally find myself inspired, by your musings, to go off and do interesting things I would not have attempted before.
Thank you again, and best wishes for you and your family =))
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Date: 2005-03-18 07:52 am (UTC)I'm half tempted to buy it for you and squat on it until you decide it's a good idea. :-)
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Date: 2005-03-18 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-18 03:18 pm (UTC)Uncle Elf Reviews Everything!
Date: 2005-03-18 05:08 pm (UTC)If you read through a few, the similarities are eerie; as is the scaling of the same.
--Gon
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Date: 2005-03-18 07:02 pm (UTC)You wanted tagging, good sir?
Date: 2005-03-18 07:31 pm (UTC)Also, while I'm here... http://en.wikalong.org/index.cgi?HomePage and http://del.icio.us/ should give you some new toys to play with ^_^
And yes, you're a brand name. My newest sweetie doubleblinked quite a few times and stuttered when he discovered that I know you. (Not that you likely remember me, though how many cleavages /have/ you thrown chocolate into at furry cons? ^_- )
Then why not make a suggestion to LiveJournal about it?
Date: 2005-03-18 11:49 pm (UTC)A suggestion like this one might be akward however, as it would create 'yet another database' and the databases that actually run LJ are something they're very cautious about adding to the complexity of, mostly because it was the bottleneck for the entire site until they rebuilt things into a new structure and re-coded numerous things to work well with said new structure.
But, the worst they can do is say 'sorry, no time for the coders to work on this' as they have to a couple of my suggestions I sent in, and kick it back into the queue to be re-examined again later.
Re: Then why not make a suggestion to LiveJournal about it?
Date: 2005-03-21 03:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-21 03:10 am (UTC)Re: You are indeed!
Date: 2005-03-21 03:14 am (UTC)I guess the question is, now that I've grown up and gotten, well, real, what do I do with this brand? I'm kinda thinking around the problem, trying to see if it fits right.
In some ways, the question is, "How do I make a living at being Elf Sternberg?" I like being a programmer and facing the interesting problems at work, but sometimes I wonder what else I could do.
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Date: 2005-03-21 03:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-22 08:14 am (UTC)