Josh is a Content Associate in Prophet's Richmond office. One day he wants to go cliff diving in a wing suit. He’s convinced himself it’s a great idea.

Creating Content: 3 Rules to Effectively to Build Your Brand

It’s no secret that brands are constantly in search of ways to build connections and loyalty with their customers. However many brands are tackling this challenge by blasting meaningless messages into the ether, hoping to gain a committed following. It’s a sure-fire way to turn people off and eventually leave your messages falling on deaf ears. Strong brands engage consumers with authentic and consistent material that reflects an understanding of their interests and gets the dialogue going. These days, great content makes for great brands.

The word “content” is the catchall term for brand communication, and companies around the world are hopping on “content creation” as the way to capture the hearts and minds of customers. Every day, consumers are inundated with brand generated advertising – around 5000 advertising messages compared to a mere 500 messages forty years ago. Yet, this statistic doesn’t capture the various Tweets, Instagrams and other messages companies push out every day. Content is everywhere, and the impact is real – consumers are conditioned to filter and sort through the junk more quickly and easily than ever. …Continue reading

The Power of Real Time

At Fast Company’s Innovation Uncensored conference earlier this week, there was a lot of talk around brand messaging. There were some favorite analogies: Many people mentioned Dove’s beautiful storytelling, Translation’s engagement with pop culture and lots of talk around Kmart’s great use of humor in their viral Ship My Pants ads, but by far the most mentioned messaging move was Oreo’s response to the loss of power at this year’s Super Bowl. For the two people out there who haven’t heard of this, this year’s Super Bowl was marked by a major power outage. Within four minutes of the outage Oreo posted a clever reaction on their Twitter page: a photo of an Oreo half lit, underneath of which followed the tag line “You can still dunk in the dark.”

Oreo’s move wasn’t just mentioned because the Mondelez International VP of Customer Engagement, Bonin Bough was speaking at the event. Oreo’s Super Bowl moment was a hot topic because they epitomized something that great brands are doing these days, something that will be defining what makes your brand stand out in a crowded market: real time engagement. …Continue reading

Recapping From 40,000 Ft.

Over the last two days, innovation came to life at Fast Company’s annual New York Innovation Uncensored. Held in a dark, chilly music venue called Terminal 5, the substance of the event was in stark contrast to the vibe of the venue. With a mix of humor, emotion and great storytelling the event was full of thoughtful material sure to be the stuff that shapes the businesses of the future. Through this series of articles we will dive into all the major takeaways and shine a spotlight on some of the things we thought really missed the mark.

While reflecting on the conference on the plane home (from yep, you guessed it – 40,000 ft), it became clear that all in all, Fast Company put on a great show. Innovative business leaders from around the world spoke passionately about the processes of making impact through bringing new ideas into the world, and Fast Company kept it interesting with inventive presentation formats, making the event feel well paced and full of variety. Hosted by the hilarious Baratunde Thurston – author of the satirical book How to be Black – this year’s Innovation Uncensored was a perfect intersection of creative inspiration and powerful new thinking in the world of business. …Continue reading

Interested and Interesting, Episode 6

Not Following the Leader: Lessons from Alaska

When we’re seeking inspiration there’s no place too far, nor climate too cold to deter our discovery. In this episode we take you to Alaska and discover some compelling insights from one of the world’s oldest businesses: the fishing trade.

Barak Wright is a master story teller and accomplished audio producer. In the summer of 2012 he traveled to southern Alaska to work on a salmon fishing boat for a several weeks. Through a series of interviews with the seasoned pioneers of Alaskan fishing we learn that to truly innovate in business we must cultivate an agile, creative mind; something hard to come by on the waters of Neet’s Bay.

Special thanks to Christof Meyer – Innovation Director in the Richmond office – who introduced us to Barak Wright and made this episode possible.

From Prophet’s curator and provocateur team, Interested and Interesting is a monthly exploration of the business of brand, marketing, innovation, digital, design, and analytics. Hosts Geof and Josh introduce listeners to inspiring stories that engage and illustrate business principles in an abstract, provocative way. Our goal – to inspire listeners and liberate ideas to help drive business growth.

Interested and Interesting, Episode 6 [ 15:35 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (132)

Andy Stefanovich and Team “Create” TEDxRVA

On Friday March 22^nd Richmond Virginia hosted its first annual TEDx event. With the theme of “Create” TEDxRVA was a huge success. Prophet’s Curator and Provocateur Andy Stefanovich hosted the event at the city’s former power plant building. Andy guided attendees through the speakers and engaged, excited and challenged them throughout the day. This TEDx event was the first to feature all the content on headphones worn by the attendees. Throughout the event participants had a choice to listen to Channel A that featured the speaker content as well as a Channel B that offered supplementary content produced by Prophet’s Josh Epperson.

Events like TEDxRVA challenge us to engage with our community and peers, both creatively and emotionally. While chock full of insights from history to entrepreneurial excellence, TEDxRVA also highlighted aspects of business thinking that can often be forgotten. …Continue reading

The Carriage House Dispatches

In the constant search of interesting, inspired and compelling stories, Prophet’s Chief Curator and Provocateur Andy Stefanovich invited a team of architects to help him redesign the second floor of his carriage house. In the space of 600 sq ft. these gifted creatives will plan, design and build an office/studio/meeting place for him and his team. This will become a sacred place to work, entertain, and stay inspired. Through this series of dispatches we will explore the creative process from the perspective of these design experts. What problem solving tools do they employ? Where do they find their inspiration? How do they face difficult challenges in creative and novel ways?

On the first day of the project, we invited our creative group to a series of idea sessions around what was possible in the space. Here Andy describes how things are getting started, and what he hopes for the future of the project.

Watch the video above, and join him in the journey to answering these questions!

Could You Be Holding Your Company Back?

Debunking 3 Myths of Innovation

The word, innovation, is so over used that it’s almost lost all meaning. Yet, as with all aspects of business, innovation evolves. Innovation will remain the process by which newness comes into the world, but the how of innovation is in flux. New business landscapes, new technologies, and the wearing out of old models require us to reimage how we innovate.

When we think of innovation we might think of Silicon Valley, Google, Apple, and schools like Stanford University. We might imagine brilliance being created everyday in these places, and the fumes of great ideas spewing out the windows of well designed buildings. And in fact, these are accurate portrayals of what innovation can look like. But it’s not the full story. Many businesses have misaligned views on how to achieve innovation. Employee motivation and collaboration is essential to innovate, but often businesses lack authenticity in these efforts. Keeping up with what’s current gives you a read on what’s in vogue, yet you don’t need to follow the entire world on Twitter to change your business. Culture is important; however you don’t need to have an office full of free thinkers to come up with something new. And you certainly don’t need a Mac to think differently.

There are a lot of beliefs that pervade the world of innovation. However, many of these beliefs have the potential to hold us back. Some of these beliefs are, in fact, myths: great stories that fail the test of reality. If we’re not careful, these myths of innovation can become barriers to our growth. …Continue reading

Interested and Interesting, Episode 5

Growth from constraints: Bishop Allen and the EP a month project

Every project requires time, people and money. Most of the time we think of these things as constraints that restrict our possibilities. But what if we let these perceived constraints activate our creativity?

In 2006, Brooklyn based indie-rock band Bishop Allen took the constraints of producing an album and turned them into an opportunity. They started the EP a Month Project. Essentially, the band produced, released and distributed a 4-song EP every month for a year. The project changed the band’s approach to writing music entirely and was instrumental to the bands success.

In this episode of Interested and Interesting, we talk with the founding members of Bishop Allen and explore the story of the EP a Month Project. How did they turn the constraints of music writing into a transforming innovation for the band? How can you take the lessons learned by Bishop Allen and apply them to changing your business? [Music by Bishop Allen]

Interested and Interesting, Episode 5 [ 16:47 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (215)

Education, Renewable Energy, and Relevance

GOOD magazine’s Future Learning documentary has made the rounds. Check most blogs focused on design, education and innovative thinking and you’ll probably find it. Released in May of this year, the short is composed of several interviews from innovators in education. Their main question: How do we arm students with relevant skills for our rapidly changing world?

It’s an interesting question, and it’s one that has heavy implications for businesses. How do the relevant skills of students relate to what they’ll bring to the marketplace as adults? If we consider the constantly changing business environment, it can seem volatile and unpredictable. However, if we look at what students are learning today and use it to estimate what type of consumers and leaders they’ll be tomorrow, the environment becomes calmer.

It becomes easier to see what lies ahead. Dominating the lives of students is technology. Beyond technology is the energy used to run it. Yet, the future of energy is so mired in political and social conflict that is hard to move beyond the arguments and agree: things will change. In fact, things are changing. …Continue reading

Back to Basics

Lessons from 21st Century Craftsmen

image via Cut Brooklyn

Businesses who fail to make connections with their customers in turn fail as businesses. And oddly enough, one of the key connection points companies lose sight of is through the product itself. When a product succeeds, it is produced with the customer in mind; it is made from quality materials, is created authentically, and harnesses a unique design. If businesses can be inspired to return their focus to the products they produce, they give themselves an opportunity to get ahead of the game. So, where do we look? Who creates products that capture these authentic qualities?

No one focuses on the product in a deeper way than the craftsman.

What makes craftsmanship remarkable? It is a notably old way of doing things, and it’s an incredibly slow way of doing things. Let’s be honest, using our hands and expending significant physical energy on a single product is downright archaic. This is why industry exists; it saves us from slaving over the loom or the flames of a hearth. But a product produced by a true craftsman is valued for its superior quality, authentic origins, and unique design. In today’s world, most of our products are produced in massive factories, assembled by a large work force and utilize highly complex processes. As a result, many consumers feel that they lose a connection to the products they buy.

It’s this disconnected mass-manufacturing process has left the door wide open for a new class of entrepreneurs. What can we learn from these craftsmen of the 21st century? As it turns out, quite a bit. …Continue reading