In the past year, protecting copyrighted material has inspired heated debate. In fact, since the inception of sites like Facebook, StumbleUpon, and Pinterest, website owners have begun to question the wisdom of leaving their content open to sharing.

In the past year, protecting copyrighted material has inspired heated debate. In fact, since the inception of sites like Facebook, StumbleUpon, and Pinterest, website owners questioned the wisdom of leaving their content open to sharing.

Website overhauls often cause a rousing and lively discussion leading to long meetings, lists of lists to be collected, strategic decision-maker input, and sometimes even talking to the end users about the site. And it seems inevitable that all of these goals and ideas need to be wrapped in a cleaner and newer interface design with a dash of the latest marketing trends. And it has to be better than your competitors (or other departments). Then the technology questions hit.

Often those in the industry (graphic designers even!) think a designer’s job is to do that and only that—design. That is, the job is supposed to be to create a design that visually communicates the brand strategy and receive the “thumbs up” from the client. Check. Check out . . . well, not quite.

I went to the Masters Golf Tournament this week in Augusta, GA. I could go on and on about the tournament itself, but I'll just talk about branding for the purposes of this blog. We can talk golf in another blog elsewhere.

A merger acquisition is fraught with all kinds of difficulties, from operations to HR, to finance. There's lots to figure out, even about how to do delivery. Not until all of this is taken care of do people usually begin to think about marketing, and then eventually, branding. I'd like to suggest that it should be done the other way around. Branding should come first. And then worry about your marketing, your advertising, your finance, operations and HR.

Last week Cam Beck wrote about the Myth of Brand Engagement, which he sees as the last thing your audience really wants. He starts with the strong claim that "The sad news is that your company's brand isn't nearly as important to your audience as it is to you." But, then he backs off and says that brand engagement is "...important, and it can be done". What's the real story?