What's your model?

We are helping a web-based startup develop a comprehensive brand strategy for their business, which has ambitious goals for changing the ways consumers think about diet and nutrition. We're tackling the work in a series of day-long workshops, with homework assignments in between.

We spent much of our first workshop using the Business Model Canvas to help the team get very clear about their customer segments and value proposition. The canvas is a great tool, and it did its job: by the early afternoon a clear strategy — different in subtle but important ways from what the client had in mind — had emerged. Along the way, we created a customer empathy map (below right) to develop a shared understanding of the concerns of people the company will serve.

During this week's workshop we will begin to look at the implications of this business model for the company's brand identity. More on that later.

On storytelling

I fell down one of those Internet rabbit holes and ended up with a collection of quotations about stories and storytelling. Some of them are pretty good, so I thought I'd share them here. Hit pause if it goes too fast.

This is the work that makes us grateful.

We've just finished a client video, and — as always — I find myself struck by the courage and generosity of the people whose stories we tell.

The video is for ServiceNet, an organization that provides a whole range of mental health and housing services throughout the four counties of western Massachusetts, and it describes the experiences of three clients whose lives have been touched by the agency.

Every time I sit down to interview someone on camera, I'm grateful for that person's willingness to share, and to trust us with, his or her story. That's never been more true than with these three people — Penny, Becky, and Pomp — who speak with great honesty about their lives.  

That takes guts. Have a look and see what I mean.