Some of my favorite brands are: Lululemon, Apple, The North Face, and Starbucks.

I can relate to these brands because I can find myself in their story.

When you sit down to craft your brand, it’s important to think about the elements of what you do that people can relate to, understand and participate in. If someone cannot find themselves in your brand, they won’t connect. Helping me put myself in your story will connect me to your brand, possibly for a very long time.

For example, let’s dive into Lululemon. I have only recently become to know (and love) this brand, but it was a short ride for me to get to know them and find myself in their work. How they talk, how they design, their color choices and their mindset are all top reasons for pulling me into their trenches, but their main attraction was their philosophy. Their story.

“Live the sweat life” and “Gear to get you there” are two simple sentences that just scream at me. I want to push myself to live the good life, which for me includes sweating, and hey, let’s look good while we’re sweating, right?

One way they share their story is through their Manifesto, which is a collection of sayings such as: Do one thing a day that scares you; Stress is related to 99% of all illness; and Children are the orgasm of life. They walk this walk through their education and community work, and help you get started with goals and a simple yoga practice.

I see myself in this company’s story, and, I am inspired by what they do and how I can be because of them. Sounds crazy, but it’s true; for me and millions of other women and men who have helped them become one of the fastest growing health communities with a retail presence. They’re getting it right.

Making this same experience happen for your company is possible. Just make sure your desired audience can see themselves in your story.

I recently read a tweet that talked about a new service offered by TED. You may be familiar with TED, the collection of filmed talks that feature “ideas worth spreading”. Recently TED released a new service called TED DVD which allows people to create something I like to call the “idea powered mix-tape”. The service allows people to build their own custom DVDs by selecting videos from a selection of TEDTalks.

You might remember creating a mix tape of romantic songs for the object of your affections. With TED DVD you can create a mix-tape of ideas for someone you admire (right in time for Valentine’s day). In the spirit of the original mix-tape, TED DVD imposes some limits – mainly, 6 talks per DVD and your DVD can’t go over 60 minutes. One more constraint is that only a selection of talks make it to TED DVD. Though I couldn’t find all of the really great TED Talks found on ted.com I did collect the following to help you create a really stellar idea powered mix-tape.

• Seth Godin on the tribes we lead - [link]
  Check out Seth Godin’s latest TED talk on the characteristics of the new tribal social unit we now belong to thanks to the Internet.
• Jamie Oliver’s TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food – [link]
  This one was suggested by Raquel. Jamie Oliver believes in the power of food, how it can hurt and heal. In his talk Jamie attacks the ‘food landscape’ we’ve created which leads children to a host of health problems.
• Birke Baehr: What’s wrong with our food system - [link]
  Since we’re talking about food, we have to talk about the food system. This short video might help if you’re running out of time on your dvd. Can you believe that this talk was done by an 11 year old? Let’s hear it for this young toastmaster.
• Shekhar Kapur: We are the stories we tell ourselves - [link]
  Where does creative inspiration spring from? How do you unleash your inner storyteller? This TEDTalk promises to deliver on both counts.
• Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce - [link]
  This talk, from the author of Tipping Point, has gotten over a million views on ted.com, possibly because of his awesome hair.
  
• Paul Stamets on 6 ways mushrooms can save the world - [link]
  Paul Stamets talks about something I find intensely interesting  - mycelium fungus which can metabolize pollutants in soil. Mycelium was able to turn soil as polluted as samples from the Exxon Valdez oil spill into safe and lively soil capable of sustaining life. Now that’s what I call inspiration!
• Stefan Sagmeister: The power of time off - [link]
  I included this as a lot of the victories we share on Monday morning in the office center around time we’ve taken off.

I hope that this Valentine’s day you can give a gift that isn’t corrosive to the teeth and is conducive to new ideas. Give an ”idea powered mix-tape”.

If you have been down to the Super Bowl Village, you probably have seen the fleet of slick Super Cars donning NFL franchise team colors and logos. (If you haven’t been down to the Village, run! Don’t walk! It’s worth it just to see and hear the zip-liners flying and yee-hawing overhead.)

Those cars were downtown until yesterday, when they made their way to communities outside of Indy including Carmel. The San Francisco 49ers car is parked right inside the Indiana Design Center’s reception area — on an oriental rug, of course. Super Cars are located at select Celebration Sites around Indiana, as far away as Muncie and Lafayette. Incorporating some social media marketing, you can use the Super Bowl XLVI mobile app and FourSquare to check in at Super Car locations to unlock prizes and rewards. It’s been said often, but the planning and execution so far have been exemplary and I’m truly proud to be a part of it.

In episode 4, enjoy as Raquel and Clay reminisce about their favorite Super Bowl commercials and campaigns. The question is, what do you think of the E Trade babies?

Thousands of people have worked together to help market the Super Bowl, which got us thinking: When should your business ask for outside help?

And in Silver Square news, we were thrilled with the success of the recent blog post, “22 Indianapolis Businesses You Should Know.” The post was a great way to get community involvement and we received so much feedback that we are already planning a follow up.

1. What is your most marked characteristic? Probably my helmet

2. What is the quality you most like in a man? The ability to squeal like a child while zip lining, no matter who is watching

3. What is the quality you most like in a woman? I respect any woman who owns her own carabiner

4. What do you most value in your friends? A love of heights, speed and adventure

5. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? I have only topped out at 30mph on a zip

6. What is your idea of perfect happiness? A world full of trees, platforms and endless bungees

7. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Coming to the end of a great, long ride

8. Who are your favorite writers? Haven Kimmel, author of A Girl Named Zippy and Emily Bronte for Wuthering Heights

9. What is your current state of mind? Stoked

10. What is your motto? Zippity do da

11. What is your greatest fear? Being ground bound

12. What is your greatest extravagance? My heavy-duty Hammerhead Trolley with 3″ stainless-steel wheels and a 5/8″ cable capacity

13. On what occasion do you lie? When I tell my mom that I have to go zip lining again in Costa Rica so I can continue my studies on the growth of the rabo de mico plant in the rain forest

14. What do you dislike most about your appearance? Harnesses are not flattering

15. Which words or phrases do you most overuse? Righteous, pontificate and zip

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Unless Barack Obama is seriously distracted from delivering on Tuesday night’s promises, you’re probably not campaigning for re-election to be President. But if you have a blog, you do have some common characteristics with our nation’s top brass.  As a blogger, you are interested in wooing supporters.

Wooing someone once can be easy, but wooing someone all the way to the voting booth — a.k.a a signed contract, the online purchase confirmation button or wherever in your process money essentially changes hands — takes persistent purpose. Sometimes creative types (guilty) get distracted by purely entertaining inspirations and lose sight of purpose in their blog posts, so here are four questions you can ask yourself before and after your post is written to be sure you’re posting with purpose.

1. Will my readers find this useful? A tenet of content marketing is giving your audience content that they can actually use. Your reader needs to finish reading your post with knowledge, inspiration or tips that they can put into action. The actions can vastly range: buying a book based on your review, exploring new varieties of apples for pie-making, revealing ways your C-level leaders can improve their communication skills or checking out a YouTube video. Evaluate the usefulness of your post to be sure there is something the reader can do with the content after reading it.
2. Will my readers think I’m smart? Your blog should establish you as a legal thought leader, an industry insider, a technology whiz or some other lofty persona. Mediocrity won’t cut it. Be sure you sound smart.
3. Is there one clear point to this post? Don’t use your blog as a stream of consciousness vehicle. Leave that to the poets. If your post seems to have more than one point, consider removing the secondary points and building those into additional blog posts.
4. What’s in it for me? Be sure the post serves a purpose for you and your company as well as your reader. For example, exploring topics and writing about them will strengthen your own knowledge on a subject. Showing your smarts improves your professional image and makes you more marketable. While your posts should focus on your audience, don’t forget that you should be getting something valuable out of them, too.

Blog on!

1. What is your most marked characteristic? A strange sneeze that always turns heads.

2. What is the quality you most like in a man? I always say I like a man with character, specifically someone who is trustworthy.

3. What is the quality you most like in a woman? Actually, I don’t see why it should be any different than that of a man. Trustworthiness is a big one.

4. What do you most value in your friends? Acceptance. I can vent, complain or act goofy or irrational … whatever … without fearing I will be judged or criticized.

5. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? I can be a bit self-critical … like obsessing over how well I’m fulfilling my motherly duties by baking chocolate chip cookies.

6. What is your idea of perfect happiness? Spending my evenings in an art studio, surrounded by paint brushes, acrylics and dozens of blank canvases … just waiting for the expressions of my imagination to spill out.

7. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Maybe not the lowest but … plenty of time on my hands and no books in sight.

8. Who are your favorite writers? The writers who have recently amazed me include Junot Diaz (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao); Zadie Smith (White Teeth) and Carlos Ruiz Zafon (The Shadow of the Wind). Let’s throw Carl Hiaasen in the mix too … just for always making me laugh.

9. What is your current state of mind? Mellow. Lately, I’ve been realizing the importance of prioritizing relationships with family and friends.

10. What is your motto? “Only a life lived for others is worth living.” Courtesy of Albert Einstein.

11. What is your greatest fear? Driving on a narrow road while making my way up a mountain makes me hyperventilate.

12. What is your greatest extravagance? A one-hour massage is my ultimate yet most cost-effective escape.

13. On what occasion do you lie? Wow. That’s a good one. I always tell my kids how much I hate lying. I guess I would never tell my hosts that I hate the dish they just served.

14. What do you dislike most about your appearance? I’m not in love with my love handles.

15. Which words or phrases do you most overuse? Well … you know … I guess it would be “you know.” I just signed up for Toastmasters to deal with that problem.