Myth Expelled! Great Minds Do Exist in the Antelope Valley.

This Saturday, December 20th, Juan Roberts of Creative Lunacy hosted a Branding Boot Camp for the Antelope Valley. Juan asked me to make a brief presentation on “branding.” At first, I thought he meant a “how to” but on further reflection, I am motivated to facilitate a discussion about branding the Antelope Valley. Where I started with help from my amazingly perceptive husband and business partner Dave was with the question: what is the current perception of the Antelope Valley - the brand?

Well judging by what is reported in our local paper, the AV Press, it’s Gangs and Graffiti. That is by no means a condemnation of the paper, but it is sort of a self-fulfilling prophesy. According to what I am learning from a great course by Marc Allen, we will become as great as our dominant aspiration - a paraphrase from a quote from James Allen.

So what is our dominant aspiration? In practical terms, what are we doing to actively create and promote our brand as a creative community, to actively counteract and replace the negative misconceptions commonly held which seem to limit our success?

First, we have to start with a vision. If we could visualize our “ideal scene” (another construct I am learning from the Marc Allen course), what would it look like? What wouldn’t it look like?

For one thing, it would not be fragmented - a collection of sole proprietor service providers striving to get their unique message out, but in most cases offering just one component of the service spectrum - graphics, copy, printing, web design, traffic generation, etc. The advantage clearly belongs with those full-service agencies who cover more of the spectrum. I understand that competition is natural and basically a good thing. Survival of the fittest and all. But my gut asks me why should we individually struggle for a piece of the pie instead of getting together to collectively bake a new one?

So back to our ideal scene, first, we would have to create the vision, and according to Marc Allen - you really should check him out so see my post under “Transformational People” - we would do that by affirming what we want to be true. To do this, I wrote an article which I’ll bring to the meeting on Saturday, focusing on our ideal scene, to stimulate a dialogue and build a vision together. Please post a comment with your contact info below and we’ll keep you posted on new developments and opportunities for working together in the Antelope Valley. Since we have an abundance of creative genius here, the opportunity is great!.