I’m on a stag do in Edinburgh this weekend and I was reminded of the old adage ‘what goes on tour, stays on tour’. Now, I don’t have anything to worry about but it did make me think ‘is that even possible these days?’

With numerous ways of sharing what’s going on, from Facebook, to Twitter, YouTube and FlickR; can you really guarantee that events from a weekend like this won’t appear in the digital sphere in one form or another?

The simple answer is that you can’t. Details that paint you in a bad light will inevitably appear online and it’s up to you whether you acknowledge what is being said, or just ignore it. Personally, from a reputational point of view, I think that you should front up and embrace it, join the conversation. Only then can you exert any kind of control and persuade people you’re not really like that, that you’re a good person who sometimes get things wrong. And you never know, you might even learn something and get something out of it.

I think this same logic applies to brands. Online right now, people are talking, sharing stories and posting videos/photos about your brand. These might be negative stories, but they present an opportunity to demonstrate your brand values and build your reputation. You should be reaching out to them, embracing them and engaging with them – changing perceptions.

Lots of brain bending and furious note scribbling happing to day in the boardroom. You can read more about the value of Profiling here

Working with SMEs of all shapes and sizes, one of the things that continues to amaze me is how smaller businesses often consider branding as the sole reserve of large companies. Why is this? Further investigation leads me to conclude it is because they misunderstand what branding actually is, that is they consider branding as simply a form of marketing, a visual way of helping a company stand out.

By discovering what their brand is about and in doing so, understanding the importance of branding to their company’s success, they are often left amazed they managed without a clearly defined brand.

What is branding?

At Clock we refer to brand as the DNA of a company. It is the essential component that enables everyone within a company to work together to form a cohesive strategy. Without a clearly defined and understood branding strategy, a company struggles to deliver a cohesive customer experience.

So if branding is so critical why are so many companies being run without a brand strategy?

Often it is simply because they have never had it, therefore they don’t know they need it. The point they discover their brand lacks focus is when they find themselves competing on price and are struggling to stand apart.

We work with many companies who are seeking to define their brand positioning.

They are looking to uncover what differentiates them. What makes them distinctive and what makes them compelling to customers.

Business consultants would consider this their territory. The point is brand strategy and business strategy share the same territory. Done properly, they go hand in hand – by understanding the business vision, the strategic plan and the competitor landscape, the brand strategy is there to clearly and distinctively communicate a company’s relevance.  In other words if a company has a strong, clear, competitive brand positioning it gives customers a ‘shop window.’

SMEs not only need this as much as multi-nationals – they need it more.

They are often operating as ‘bottom-feeders’ – picking up business where the multi-nationals are not interested in going, often because the margins are too small.

By defining their area of specialism or unique operating style or personality, a smaller company can often create a space to sit free of many competitors. And in doing so, command a higher premium for their goods or services.

Now surely every company wants that?

There is nothing quite like receiving print back from the printers. In an accelerating digital world, getting your hands on tangible collateral like this really is quite exciting and always causes a stir in the office, plus the ink smells nice.

On February 15^th we hosted a brand workshop for SMEs who have recently been through a high growth programme at MMU Business School. The workshop aimed to help the attendees consider how a strong brand delivers tangible business benefits, what their brand is about and how to uncover and then exploit their uniqueness. After a brief introduction and some case studies explaining what makes a brand a Superbrand, the ambitious entrepreneurs were put to work considering why their brand should be considered a business Superbrand.

It was quite a revelation to discover that people assume branding is for larger companies and therefore they, as SMEs don’t need to focus on it – it was Clock’s job to change this perception and encourage them to think of their brand as the DNA of their business.

We focused on three areas; Quality, Distinction and Reliability. Using some creative tools (no powerpoint or laptop in sight) we asked them to start answering some fundamental questions about their business to unravel what they sell. Those selling product initially thought they were selling products, when they thought about why their customers buy from them, they soon realized their USP was to be found in the ‘softer’ side of the business, such as their level of knowledge, their bespoke solutions etc. One company provides construction services that save lives, they are an essential part of road transport safety yet they market themselves as engineers. For them, thinking about the emotional elements of their brand rather than only the rational was a real eye-opener. There was an air of concentration in the room and everyone took on the difficult task with great enthusiasm.

There were some fantastic insights revealed, areas for development noted, and one company decided to use the exercise for a training session so their staff “lived and breathed the brand as well”.

As a conclusion to the event each person was invited to talk through their board and their findings. Judging followed with prizes for the top three brands – first prize was a copy of the Superbrands Annual, which we hope will prove inspirational for the winner.

The event was run in conjunction with NW Insider Magazine and the MMU Business School. A full write up of the event will be featured in NW Insider in their March issue.

This morning I popped in to see a client to go through a few important details regarding an exhibition stand we are working on together. It was an 8.30am meeting so I stopped off at a local cafe and picked up two Cappuccino’s for us.

The client was over the moon to have been bought a fresh coffee and more importantly thought of in a way that friends would think of each other.

He was happy, we made some excellent decisions about the exhibition booth and I left an hour later with the sun shining and us both feeling happier about the day.

Looks like the the Ramsbottom space program is moving forward. We have a funny suspicion it is to be powered with beer from the micro brewery.

An interesting question was posed to us in the office this morning: what has been the best brand repositioning from the last 10 years? Immediate thoughts were around the obvious; Apple, Skoda, mobile phone technology. But when Paul suggested the Royal Family that got us all thinking.

Although we can’t walk into a shop and buy some ‘Monarchy’, They are quite clearly a brand that has managed to reposition themselves within the public’s hearts.

Most of this is down to William and Kate, the hype around the Royal Wedding and the ‘what will she wear’ conversations that dominated a lot of last April (not to mention the bonus bank holiday we all got!).

But on the whole the perception of the Royal Family has changed, given the advances in media recently we are given more access to their lives and therefore see them as people. Buckingham Palace and individual members of the family have Twitter accounts (as well as many spoof accounts) and 51,386 like The Queen on Facebook. TV cameras are following the Queens activities and interviews with her Grandchildren recently shown in a BBC documentary help us see the day to day lives and the hard work they do.

In the run up to the Diamond Jubilee the team around the Royal family have opportunity to cash in on the hype even and help secure their position as a the British Brand.

The balcony kiss (image via Associated Press).

Hey dad, I know how to work the internet.

Yesterday I spent all morning trying to upload a CSV (Comma Separated Value) file into a table in one of our client’s databases. Yes I know some of you hardcore techies are now sniggering away behind your Skylander collections, and I guess you are right it should have taken me the time to write this sentence to complete, but it wasn’t happening fast and everything I tried threw an error.

Needless to say, this frustrated behaviour continued for a good 2 hours-until a moment of magic happened.

Ray a designer who sits alongside me and was probably fed up with me swearing at my desktop, quietly suggested that I talk him through what I was doing, as a way of working out where the problem was.

Ray said nothing as I calmly talked through the problem stage by stage. By stage 2 in the process it quickly dawned on me exactly why the file had not uploaded correctly and within 30 seconds the data from the CSV file was loaded in to the database.

By simply calming me down and focusing my attention into describing the process in layman’s terms, the problem was quickly solved. Genius!

So why did I not spot this simple error earlier on in the day? Quite simply it was arrogance, driven by the belief that I and only I could solve the problem.

By bottling stuff up and believing you are the only one who can solve the problem can have you stuck fast in a frustration loop.

Frustration loops exist in various guises in many of our clients businesses and we find they are solved much quicker and with less effort when the challenges are shared amongst us.

Being able to share a clients challenges with them, however trivial can lead to new business opportunities and faster more effective results.

The key as Ray demonstrated to me is to say nothing and listen to everything even if you are no expert.

Last weekend I was sorting through some old family photo albums in the loft. Some of the photos date back to 1922 and contain the usual sepia toned family photos of past Aspden generations you would expect.

I love everything about these photo albums, mainly the fact they are tangible and were lovingly assembled by my ancestors.

After I had finished in the loft and precariously navigated the loft ladders, something chilled me to core. It was the stark realisation that when I go, there will be nothing tangible left for my child to physically flick through.

Every photo I have from 1996 onwards is stored in a digital format. I have floppy disks, random hard drives, memory cards, phones and Facebook stuffed with memories, none of which exist in a tangible sense. And although I have this digital catalogue of family photos for future generations to browse through and laugh at, it has occurred to me that there is something physical and very emotive missing in the experience of browsing these photos on screen.

I have realised that the thing I treasure the most about my old family photo albums is knowing that my mum, dad, grandma or granddad, sadly many of whom are no longer here, actually placed that photo and lovingly wrote an entry on the back. Knowing this gives me a real warmth that I think will sadly not be there for my child once I have been tipped off the boat.

Normally we don’t get sky’s like this in Ramsbottom so we had to grab a picture to prove it did actually happen.

Over the last few years I have become – along with the misses – quite a fan of gardening. This will probably shock a few people who knew me before I left my previous job as many will remember me as a big petrol head.

One of the reasons for changing my hobby was that the financial need to support a family far outweighs the need to drive a ridiculously fast car. But the biggest reason, which I later discovered whilst pottering about in the garden, is that I found I could truly switch off from the many digital distractions that switch me on during the week.

Emerging yourself in the digital world is truly tiring. The constant need to understand new technology, new standards, write 1000′s of lines of PHP code whilst tweeting and blogging can be at best, draining. So, to offset this constant binary attack, especially when the weather gives me the opportunity, you will find me at the bottom of my garden, pottering.

During a recent garden escape from things like PHP, jQuery and Linux, Nicola arrived home with some new plants, and to my dismay, I discovered that each plant pot had a QR Code printed in the side. Normally, I would have been leaping for joy at this obviously clever positioning of the medium, but I couldn’t, as the realisation hit me hard that the digital world is now invading my purposely un-digital hobby. And I maybe biased but this for me is all a bit to much. Or am i just getting old?

I’ve just got back fro the US and every time I visit, I’m reminded what great customer service looks like.

I can never work out if it’s just the way the Americans are or if they are very well trained and incentivised. To the reserved English, the glowing friendly and outward American can however seem OTT.

I’m sure the tipping culture provides some focus but it’s much more than that.  I had plenty of occasions to think that they are altogether more positive, friendly and polite than we are, it’s not every country where two young snowboarders would ask if I minded if they drank a beer on the chairlift (although it didn’t run to offering me one) however, there are plenty of folks in the UK who have good manners too – I suspect that there are just a lot less of them.

There are so many instances where I am underwhelmed by the service I receive in the UK that my default expectation is to be disappointed. How fantastic it is therefore on the rare occasions that I am overwhelmed, and how many people do I then tell about it – I can’t stop!

If this is the case then why don’t more companies on this side of the Atlantic give stand out service – it attracts a growing legion of brand advocates,  is the best form of brand development and is just good practice. Standout customer service has to be a major focus for every business that wants to succeed.