A blank page
The fear of the blank sheet of paper is well known in our industry.
An empty blog is ten-times worse.
It’s even more daunting because this blog is part of our new website, which is needed to reflect how the business has evolved since 2008. This post is the first mark, on the first page, of a new chapter for Squad.
We’ve so many ideas and ambitions – for the blog and the company.
How can I do all these justice in one post?
Of course, this mentality makes it even harder to get going.
The secret is just to start – somewhere, anywhere. Recognise that you can’t do everything on day one. Allow things to fall into place. This is true of the blog and the business.
So I’m not going to try and do everything in post one. Instead I’ll share some thoughts on where we’ll go from here.
Our new website is the result of asking some searching questions.
How is the way we build brands changing?
What do clients need from their brand partners?
Where can, and should, we fit in?
What’s the best way to structure a brand business today?
A number of books have helped us answer these questions. If you want our recommendations for who is best articulating the future of our industry then check out the list below.
What the future will hold is impossible to say.
Whatever it holds, our blog is where we’ll share our thoughts and observations as they occur.
We’ll be aiming for quality not quantity. Expect something considered every month, not daily news about what we ate for breakfast.
The style will be short and pithy, stories and anecdotes. This will not be the place for essays and footnotes.
We’ll be talking a bit about our business, but mainly around it. So expect wide-ranging coverage of brands and brand businesses.
As Christmas is nearly upon us, another post this side of the New Year
feels optimistic.
For the keenest amongst you, hopefully our reading list will satisfy
your appetite.
For everyone else, here’s to building on this start in 2014.
Follow our blog, RSS, Twitter etc to see what happens next.
– RG
References:
- The Art of Innovation, Tom Kelley
- Baked In, Bogusky and Winsor
- The Big Idea, Robert Jones
- Blink, Malcom Gladwell
- Eating the Big Fish, Adam Morgan
- Herd, Mark Earls
- Loose, Martin Thomas
- Nudge, Thaler and Sunstein
- Positioning, Ries and Trout
- Predatory Thinking, Dave Trott
- Primal Branding, Patrick Hanlon
- Screw It, Let’s Dot It, Richard Branson
- The Story Factor, Annette Simmons
- Welcome to the Creative Age, Mark Earls
