On trust, founder fall-outs, and 6 steps to getting things back on track

Originally published on Venturebeat – Aug 22, 2014

Relationships are built on trust, and they require work to keep alive and well.

In his book The Trust Edge, David Horsager outlines the eight pillars he believes enable trust to occur within a relationship. The eight pillars are clarity, compassion, character, competency, commitment, connection, contribution, and consistency. Should any one of these start faltering, a relationship can quickly start falling apart and possibly lead to permanent damage.

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Economic Incentives for Change

I was having a coffee chat with a friend of mine recently about how some environmental changes aren’t happening fast enough because the motivations to do so are perhaps not as aligned with short-term public & commercial benefit. It was one of those fun conversations where lots of ideas were thrown around.

One that came up, however, while we were on the subject of how to improve the climatogolical decline we are suffering, was on how to help reduce carbon emissions from airplanes.

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Brand Tourism & Attention to Details

As a hobby, one thing I love to do when I travel is visit commercial establishments (be it coffee shops, stores, services, etc) that have excellent brand consistency. I call this ‘brand tourism’.

What I mean by brand consistency is where you get a feeling, as a customer, that every detail is thought through to reflect the values and vision of the founders. The more attention to detail, the more I enjoy the brand tourism experience.

This attention to detail typically includes how products are created/selected, how customer service is, and how people experience your product or service (packaging or locale).

To give you two visual examples of places in San Fran that I really enjoy for their visual attention to detail and store brand consistency, check out these two photo stories I made –

Taylor Stitch – A clothing store that has a very San Fran Hipster feel to it. – http://stories.iconografi.co/taylor-stitch

Four Barrel Coffee – Although these days the experience is perhaps slipping according to a few due to the popularity it has, its decor and how they hire staff has been very good. – http://stories.iconografi.co/four-barrel-coffee

I’ve chosen to share physical locations as examples (vs. apps) because they can set a good example upon which to base software products. Around San Fran there are several other really good example.. The Mission Workshop bags store and Triple Aught Design store to name a few others.

So, as you think about building out your website, imagery, icons, etc, ask yourself, am I making my brand consistent across all aspects and details of what I do?

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