Earlier this week the Department of Energy (DOE) launched its new web site and I have to say, I’m very impressed!

In comparison to the online presence of the majority of government agencies, Energy has taken the best of Web 2.0 and successfully applied that philosophy to the way they present themselves to the public.  The end result is an open and intuitive web site that clearly and powerfully communicates DOE’s mission and the diverse range of vitally important energy projects the agency oversees. Additionally, the use of several social media platforms to connect and engage with DOE, and their urging of the public at large to actively participate, is what truly gives the site its Web 2.0 ethos.

Clear navigation, transparent headings for their sub-pages, plenty of white space and clearly defined information areas (via layout and design) all contribute to the openness and clarity of the site.

The prominent positioning of the blog entry on the Home page and the various social media pathways open to the public to engage with the Department of Energy, especially via Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s Facebook Page, as well as Twitter, You Tube and Flickr accounts, speaks to their willingness to connect with the American public.

Finally, the use of localization and segmentation tools via their “More From Energy” and “I Am” sections, gives any visitor the ability to quickly get to the information they want to access.

All in all, a fantastic site.

I’ve been told by several Federal clients that their agency prevents them from blogging on behalf of their organization. I can understand why this may be the case: the Government, like most of us, is afraid of what might be said and how they could look to the world. While I definitely understand this concern, we’re encouraging our Government clients to embrace blogging as an opportunity to enhance their agency image, promote and share the expertise of their best and brightest, recruit others with similar interests, and gain valuable public insight.

And we’re not talking about the formal, heavily controlled blogs that we see many agencies putting forth. Rather we’re encouraging our clients to welcome and value the open, honest feedback that is inherent in a Web2.0 environment.

Employees should be encouraged to share expertise on their agency’s blog, on other industry-related blogs, or even on their own personal blogs. Besides the ability to glean valuable feedback from these interactions, employees can demonstrate that Federal employees have unique insights and abilities, which can draw others (including bright recruits) to the agency. Blogging can also be a means to earning praise and public recognition, as well as publishing credit, along with straightforward satisfaction for their efforts — essential to enhancing job satisfaction and retention!

There are downsides, of course. Negative things will be said, but the positives outweigh the negatives, and in today’s increasingly Web2.0-driven society, employees, especially Generation Ys, just expect to communicate in this way.

Of course, we’re biased. We’ve been blogging for awhile (both professionally and personally) and swear by its ability to reinforce one’s online presence and credibility. That said, we’d love to hear from any of you working in the Federal sector; please share your opinion on whether or not you believe blogging would benefit your agency! Don’t worry, we can keep comments anonymous. What are the organizational hurdles keeping you from blogging?

After posting my thoughts on Google Docs versus Word, I got caught up wondering how many other players were in the game.

Richard MacManus put together a great rundown that shows there is more to the world of document creation than Google and Microsoft. Digging through his article and following some of links, I found that some folks are liking specific apps from some of the lesser-known players more than the comprehensive suite offered by Google. Right there is power of brand, eh?

Clearly I aligned myself with the Google tribe, and by doing so went straight to their offerings in whole. So I’m basically no different than the folks I chided for aligning with Word simply because it’s the biggest and most familiar—also brand power. Well, what’s different is that my brand of choice happens to be innovating in ways that appear more forward-thinking.

A few weeks ago I took a jab at Google for diluting their brand. In that post I alluded to Yahoo!’s similar moves that came years before Google’s. In this month’s Fast Company, Robert Scoble starts off recalling how Yahoo!’s VP of communications admitted, about a year ago, that the company had a “thin layer of investment spread across everything we do, and thus we focus on nothing in particular.”

Scoble continues by describing how Yahoo! is trying to right the ship. Jeff Yang is back as CEO and focusing on, as Scoble writes it, filling the “cool stuff supplier” role he once did. That new focus is good. Sure, they once concentrated on searching, but now they seem high on Web applications. Give search to Google and rebuild around Web apps if that’s what’s cool today.

Scoble mentions three Yahoo! applications specifically, all centered on community building and content sharing. What I like about the applications he describes is that they are not locked to a particular site.

All three—Flickr (photo sharing), del.icio.us (Web bookmark storage and organization), and Upcoming.org (a calendar of events tool)—offer a way to syndicate content to other locations, like to your blog or organization’s website.

Die, static website, die!

Big-budget organizations may certainly buy applications like those for the sake of customization, privacy, and accountability, as part of a larger content management system install or whatever.

But what gets me excited is how these free applications can help the small-budget folks. Imagine you’re leading a little nonprofit running long on cause but short on funds. With these three applications as part of your site, you can very easily keep your calendar of events up to date, promote other sites/pages, and publish photos—AND you can make all of that content available to others via syndication.

And you can get free help. With the Flickr app, your supporters can populate your Flickr application by tagging their pix with a tag you specify. Del.icio.us and Upcoming let you create networks that promote and syndicate content from your supporters. Let the people talk for you!

Yahoo! fearlessly continues to revise its brand, which can help you build yours.

I walked into a 7-11 looking to indulge my health food habit, and was sidetracked by a bag of Doritos sparsely decorated with white lettering against a white background: X-13D. The potential eater is invited to taste test, figure out the flavor, and enter a product naming contest online.

A brilliant marketing ploy that I couldn’t resist. After the first chip I felt like the proverbial Violet Beauregarde: is that mustard I taste? Ketchup? Onion? Yes — and pickle, beef, and bun. A cheeseburger!

An interesting experience — not exactly pleasant, but interesting. And the contest website, like the product branding is intriguing, and a great example of the power of participatory marketing. Users can generate clues, advertisements, and enter the contest. Is “Cheeseburger Paradise” too obvious?

The stakes can get very high:

The company, Purdue Pharma, agreed to pay $600 million in fines and other payments to resolve the criminal charge of “misbranding” the product

Caveat brandor!

Thanks to its beefy advertising campaign (whose reach made it nearly impossible to avoid), I recently checked out MINI Cooper’s Hammer & Coop advertainment effort.

Featuring a series of extremely well-produced ($$$) Starsky & Hutch-meets-Knight Rider-style webisodes (supported by a bunch of fun features like its Action Name Generator), MINI’s Hammer & Coop site is jam-packed with kitchy 70s retro fun.

The webisodes are Will Farrel-movie-style stupid. They objectify women. They make MINI drivers look like morons. The positioning is risky. The images are somewhat racy.

But they made me—a member of MINI’s professional, 30-something, hipster Gen-X target audience—laugh out loud. More than once. I liked it so much that I even sent the link to some friends. And most importantly, they reinforced my perception that MINIs are FUN.

Which is exactly what MINI’s brand has always stood for.

Last month’s Fast Company featured a piece promoting the idea that “if you want people to like you, first decide who needs to hate you.”

“Most marketers feel that if they make a bold statement, they risk not just alienating customers—but also their boss, and their boss’s boss,” says Charles Rosen, founding partner of Amalgamated ad agency. “That fear takes the edge off of all communications.”

So in order to create a powerful brand identity—the kind with messaging that delivers more than a flaccid “hey”—a brand must be willing to define who ISN’T in its audience. This level of targeting enables a brand to take more risks so that it can actually stand out and reach the right audience.

My dad and his friends probably wouldn’t laugh at or even like Hammer & Coop.

But my dad also wouldn’t be remotely interested in buying a tiny non-luxury car. Which is EXACTLY why Hammer & Coop is so surprisingly smart.

Word on the street is that Subway restaurants are moving into the pizza market. While some ponder the potential threat to pie shops like Domino’s, I’m thinking, What about your brand consistency, Subway? Aren’t you the “Eat Fresh” folks? Haven’t you been riding high on the success story of Jared Fogel, who lost plenty of pounds thanks to his sensible Subway diet?

I don’t care if the pizzas are made in the store and topped before my eyes. It’s still oiled dough with cheese on top. No way Jared would have succeeded if he was crushing a pizza a day.

No fast-food establishment so saturates the country with such a healthy brand. Mom & Pops aside, if you’re seeking a moderately calorie-controlled cold-cut sandwich, you go to Subway. If you want a burger, you could end up at numerous spots. Same with pizza.

Brand performance is about finding your niche, digging in, and gaining ownership. Thanks in no small way to Jared’s well-known weight loss, Subway’s had mad success. Why, I’m wondering, would it risk devaluing its hard-won identity by expanding services beyond fresh sandwiches?

Ahhhhh…greed.

A few weeks ago, I came across this piece in The Washington Post:

. . .when the Yale law student interviewed with 16 firms for a job this summer, she was concerned that she had only four call-backs. She was stunned when she had zero offers.Though it is difficult to prove a direct link, the woman thinks she is a victim of a new form of reputation-maligning: online postings with offensive content and personal attacks that can be stored forever and are easily accessible through a Google search.

Which got me thinking: When was the last time I Googled myself?

While self-Googling, a.k.a. “egosurfing,” was once shunned (or at least not admitted publicly) because of its seemingly narcissistic intentions, it’s quickly become key in managing one’s professional reputation. As stated by George Lichter, President and CEO of SEO-famed InfoSearch Media:

“. . .a simple Google search can bring up all sorts of information, both positive and negative. . . .People need to be in control of their ‘personal brand.’ A prospective employer or school admissions committee isn’t going to respond well to a blog page littered with party photos. According to a recent study by ExecuNet, seventy-seven percent of executive recruiters run background checks on candidates by using search engines.”

So, have you Googled yourself lately?

Just a few months ago Time named “You” the Person of 2006, based on the boom of social and professional networking sites like MySpace, LinkedIn, and Friendster, as well as the growth of personal blogs and websites. But this boom also increased the number of opportunities for “You” to come up in search engine results—which means that the first impression you give potential clients, employers, or industry peers may very well be crafted by the links that come up after your name has been entered in a Google search.

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“Halfway Sara.”

As a kid, that’s what my dad would call me any time I claimed to complete a job that wasn’t really done—like when I claimed to have “finished” mowing the lawn even though I’d neglected the big patch of green behind the garage. While a decent effort, it didn’t really achieve the desired end goal—hence the “Halfway” label.

Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of “halfway branding” efforts, in which companies seem to invest the time and money creating sharp designs and taglines, but neglect to fully create the brand voice needed to truly complete their brand’s identity—to personify their brands.

And I’m not the only one who’s noticing—per this recent Brand Story post:

There are lots of examples of companies that consistently use identity design to reinforce their brands, but far fewer brands seem to give as much thought to the voice of their communications. MINI does it exceptionally well, across all mediums. The Economist and Apple too. Harley Davidson does a pretty good job (there are exceptions). Saturn used to have unique voice—before it was assimilated.

But what’s the brand voice of Marriott? Cascade? Pepsi? Dell? Citi? Buick? Is there anything unique about the way Kroger, Budget, Hershey’s, or Delta speak to their customers? None of these are bad, but none of them speak in a special way to their customers.

Think about it…what takes a consumer from simply liking a product to actually identifying with and fully embracing a brand? Seems to me it’s pretty much the same qualities that make someone fall in love and identify with certain people: appearance and personality—a brand’s design and voice.

Companies like MINI, Apple, and Harley Davidson have such über-loyal followings because they don’t just look cool, they consistently sound cool—fully personifying their brands as the cool kids in class that target audience members want to hang out with.

So it’s vital that all components in a branding effort incorporate the personality and convey the feel needed to truly create the desired brand perception.

What else do you think results in “halfway branding” efforts?