ITSS 4330- System Analysis and Design

please see attached files, one file the assignment itself, and other pdf you need to read through to answer question 2.

TheBrand Called You
By Tom Peters

It’s a new brand world.

That cross-trainer you’re wearing — one look at the distinctive swoosh on the side
tells everyone who’s got you branded. That coffee travel mug you’re carrying —
ah, you’re a Starbucks woman! Your T-shirt with the distinctive Champion “C” on
the sleeve, the blue jeans with the prominent Levi’s rivets, the watch with the
hey-this-certifies-I-made-it icon on the face, your fountain pen with the maker’s
symbol crafted into the end …

You’re branded, branded, branded, branded.

It’s time for me — and you — to take a lesson from the big brands, a lesson that’s
true for anyone who’s interested in what it takes to stand out and prosper in the
new world of work.

Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen
to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs
of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is
to be head marketer for the brand called You.

It’s that simple — and that hard. And that inescapabl e.

Behemoth companies may take turns buying each other or acquiring every hot
startup that catches their eye — mergers in 1996 set records. Hollywood may be
interested in only blockbusters and book publishers may want to put out only
guaranteed best-sellers. But don’t be fooled by all the frenzy at the humongous
end of the size spectrum.

The real action is at the other end: the main chance is becoming a free agent in
an economy of free agents, looking to have the best season you can imagine in
your field, looking to do your best work and chalk up a remarkable track record,
and looking to establish your own micro equivalent of the Nike swoosh. Because
if you do, you’ll not only reach out toward every opportunity within arm’s (or
laptop’s) length, you’ll not only make a noteworthy contribution to your team’s
success — you’ll also put yourself in a great bargaining position for next season’s
free-agency market.

The good news — and it is largely good news — is that everyone has a chance to
stand out. Everyone has a chance to learn, improve, and build up their skills.
Everyone has a chance to be a brand worthy of remark.

Who understands this fundamental principle? The big companies do. They’ve
come a long way in a short time: it was just over four years ago, April 2, 1993 to
be precise, when Philip Morris cut the price of Marlboro cigarettes by 40 cents a

pack. That was on a Friday. On Monday, the stock market value of packaged
goods companies fell by $25 billion. Everybody agreed: brands were doomed.

Today brands are everything, and all kinds of products and services — from
accounting firms to sneaker makers to restaurants — are figuring out how to
transcend the narrow boundari es of their categories and become a brand
surrounded by a Tommy Hilfiger-like buzz.

Who else understands it? Every single Web site sponsor. In fact, the Web makes
the case for branding more directly than any packaged good or consumer
product ever could. Here’s what the Web says: Anyone can have a Web site. And
today, because anyone can … anyone does! So how do you know which sites
are worth visiting, which sites to bookmark, which sites are worth going to more
than once? The answer: branding. The sites you go back to are the sites you
trust. They’re the sites where the brand name tells you that the visit will be worth
your time — again and again. The brand is a promise of the value you’ll receive.

The same holds true for that other killer app of the Net — email. When everybody
has email and anybody can send you email, how do you decide whose
messages you’re going to read and respond to first — and whose you’re going to
send to the trash unread? The answer: personal branding. The name of the email
sender is every bit as important a brand — is a brand — as the name of the Web
site you visit. It’s a promise of the value you’ll receive for the time you spend
reading the message.

Nobody understands branding better than professional services firms. Look at
McKinsey or Arthur Andersen for a model of the new rules of branding at the
company and personal level. Almost every professional services firm works with
the same business model. They have almost no hard assets — my guess is that
most probabl y go so far as to rent or lease every tangible item they possibly can
to keep from having to own anything. They have lots of soft assets — more
conventionally known as people, preferably smart, motivated, talented people.
And they have huge revenues — and astounding profits.

They also have a very clear culture of work and life. You’re hired, you report to
work, you join a team — and you immediately start figuring out how to deliver
value to the customer. Along the way, you learn stuff, develop your skills, hone
your abilities, move from project to project. And if you’re really smart, you figure
out how to distinguish yourself from all the other very smart people walking
around with $1,500 suits, high-powered laptops, and well-polished resumes.
Along the way, if you’re really smart, you figure out what it takes to create a
distinctive role for yourself — you create a message and a strategy to promote the
brand called You.

What makes You different?

Start right now: as of this moment you’re going to think of yourself differently!
You’re not an “employee” of General Motors, you’re not a “staffer” at General

Mills, you’re not a “worker” at General Electric or a “human resource” at General
Dynamics (ooops, it’s gone!). Forget the Generals! You don’t “belong to” any
company for life, and your chief affiliation isn’t to any particular “function.” You’re
not defined by your job title and you’re not confined by your job description.

Starting today you are a brand.

You’re every bit as much a brand as Nike, Coke, Pepsi, or the Body Shop. To
start thinking like your own favorite brand manager, ask yourself the same
question the brand managers at Nike, Coke, Pepsi, or the Body Shop ask
themselves: What is it that my product or service does that makes it different?
Give yourself the traditional 15-words-or-less contest challenge. Take the time to
write down your answer. And then take the time to read it. Several times.

If your answer wouldn’t light up the eyes of a prospective client or command a
vote of confidence from a satisfied past client, or — worst of all — if it doesn’t grab
you, then you’ve got a big problem. It’s time to give some serious thought and
even more serious effort to imagining and developing yourself as a brand.

Start by identifying the qualities or characteristics that make you distinctive from
your competitors — or your colleagues. What have you done lately — this week —
to make yourself stand out? What would your colleagues or your customers say
is your greatest and clearest strength? Your most noteworthy (as in, worthy of
note) personal trait?

Go back to the comparison between brand You and brand X — the approach the
corporate biggies take to creating a brand. The standard model they use is
feature-benefit: every feature they offer in their product or service yields an
identifiable and distinguishable benefit for their customer or client. A dominant
feature of Nordstrom department stores is the personalized service it lavishes on
each and every customer. The customer benefit: a feeling of being accorded
individualized attention — along with all of the choice of a large department store.

So what is the “feature-benefit model” that the brand called You offers? Do you
deliver your work on time, every time? Your internal or external customer gets
dependable, reliable service that meets its strategic needs. Do you anticipate and
solve problems before they become crises? Your client saves money and
headaches just by having you on the team. Do you always complete your
projects within the allotted budget? I can’t name a single client of a professional
services firm who doesn’t go ballistic at cost overruns.

Your next step is to cast aside all the usual descriptors that employees and
workers depend on to locate themselves in the company structure. Forget your
job title. Ask yourself: What do I do that adds remarkable, measurable,
distinguished, distinctive value? Forget your job description. Ask yourself: What
do I do that I am most proud of? Most of all, forget about the standard rungs of
progression you’ve climbed in your career up to now. Burn that damnable
“ladder” and ask yourself: What have I accomplished that I can unabashedl y brag

about? If you’re going to be a brand, you’ve got to become relentlessly focused
on what you do that adds value, that you’re proud of, and most important, that
you can shamelessly take credit for.

When you’ve done that, sit down and ask yourself one more question to define
your brand: What do I want to be famous for? That’s right — famous for!

What’s the pitch for You?

So it’s a cliché: don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle. it’s also a principle that every
corporate brand understands implicitly, from Omaha Steaks’s through-the-mail
sales program to Wendy’s “we’re just regular folks” ad campaign. No matter how
beefy your set of skills, no matter how tasty you’ve made that feature-benefit
proposition, you still have to market the bejesus out of your brand — to
customers, colleagues, and your virtual network of associates.

For most branding campaigns, the first step is visibility. If you’re General Motors,
Ford, or Chrysler, that usually means a full flight of TV and print ads designed to
get billions of “impressions” of your brand in front of the consuming public. If
you’re brand You, you’ve got the same need for visibility — but no budget to buy
it.

So how do you market brand You?

There’s literally no limit to the ways you can go about enhanci ng your profile. Try
moonlighting! Sign up for an extra project inside your organization, just to
introduce yourself to new colleagues and showcase your skills — or work on new
ones. Or, if you can carve out the time, take on a freelance project that gets you
in touch with a totally novel group of people. If you can get them singing your
praises, they’ll help spread the word about what a remarkable contributor you
are.

If those ideas don’t appeal, try teaching a class at a community college, in an
adult education program, or in your own company. You get credit for being an
expert, you increase your standing as a professional, and you increase the
likelihood that people will come back to you with more requests and more
opportunities to stand out from the crowd.

If you’re a better writer than you are a teacher, try contributing a column or an
opinion piece to your local newspaper. And when I say local, I mean local. You
don’t have to make the op-ed page of the New York Times to make the grade.
Community newspaper s, professional newsletters, even inhouse company
publications have white space they need to fill. Once you get started, you’ve got
a track record — and clips that you can use to snatch more chances.

And if you’re a better talker than you are teacher or writer, try to get yourself on a
panel discussion at a conference or sign up to make a presentation at a
workshop. Visibility has a funny way of multiplying; the hardest part is getting

started. But a couple of good panel presentations can earn you a chance to give
a “little” solo speech — and from there it’s just a few jumps to a major address at
your industry’s annual convention.

The second important thing to remember about your personal visibility campaign
is: it all matters. When you’re promoting brand You, everything you do — and
everything you choose not to do — communicates the value and character of the
brand. Everything from the way you handle phone conversations to the email
messages you send to the way you conduct business in a meeting is part of the
larger message you’re sending about your brand.

Partly it’s a matter of substance: what you have to say and how well you get it
said. But it’s also a matter of style. On the Net, do your communications
demonstrate a command of the technology? In meetings, do you keep your
contributions short and to the point? It even gets down to the level of your brand
You business card: Have you designed a cool-looking logo for your own card?
Are you demonstrating an appreciation for design that shows you understand
that packaging counts — a lot — in a crowded world?

The key to any personal branding campaign is “word-of-mouth marketing.” Your
network of friends, colleagues, clients, and customers is the most important
marketing vehicle you’ve got; what they say about you and your contributions is
what the market will ultimately gauge as the value of your brand. So the big trick
to building your brand is to find ways to nurture your network of colleagues —
consci ously.

What’s the real power of You?

If you want to grow your brand, you’ve got to come to terms with power — your
own. The key lesson: power is not a dirty word!

In fact, power for the most part is a badly misunderstood term and a badly
misused capability. I’m talking about a different kind of power than we usuall y
refer to. It’s not ladder power, as in who’s best at climbing over the adjacent
bods. It’s not who’s-got-the-biggest-office-by-six-square-inches power or who’s-
got-the-fanciest-title power.

It’s influence power.

It’s being known for making the most significant contribution in your particular
area. It’s reputational power. If you were a scholar, you’d measure it by the
number of times your publications get cited by other people. If you were a
consultant, you’d measure it by the number of CEOs who’ve got your business
card in their Rolodexes. (And better yet, the number who know your beeper
number by heart.)

Getting and using power — intelligently, responsibly, and yes, powerfully — are
essential skills for growing your brand. One of the things that attracts us to

certain brands is the power they project. As a consumer, you want to associat e
with brands whose powerful presence creates a halo effect that rubs off on you.

It’s the same in the workplace. There are power trips that are worth taking — and
that you can take without appearing to be a self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing
megalomaniacal jerk. You can do it in small, slow, and subtle ways. Is your team
having a hard time organizing productive meetings? Volunteer to write the
agenda for the next meeting. You’re contributing to the team, and you get to
decide what’s on and off the agenda. When it’s time to write a post-project report,
does everyone on your team head for the door? Beg for the chance to write the
report — because the hand that holds the pen (or taps the keyboard) gets to write
or at least shape the organization’s history.

Most important, remember that power is largely a matter of perception. If you
want peopl e to see you as a powerful brand, act like a credible leader. When
you’re thinking like brand You, you don’t need org-chart authority to be a leader.
The fact is you are a leader. You’re leading You!

One key to growing your power is to recognize the simple fact that we now live in
a project world. Almost all work today is organized into bite-sized packets called
projects. A project-based world is ideal for growing your brand: projects exist
around deliverables, they create measurables, and they leave you with
braggables. If you’re not spending at least 70% of your time working on projects,
creating projects, or organizing your (apparently mundane) tasks into projects,
you are sadly living in the past. Today you have to think, breathe, act, and work
in projects.

Project World makes it easier for you to assess — and advertise — the strength of
brand You. Once again, think like the giants do. Imagine yourself a brand
manager at Procter & Gamble: When you look at your brand’s assets, what can
you add to boost your power and felt presence? Would you be better off with a
simple line extension — taking on a project that adds incrementally to your
existing base of skills and accomplishments? Or would you be better off with a
whole new product line? Is it time to move overseas for a couple of years,
venturing outside your comfort zone (even taking a lateral move — damn the
ladders), tackling something new and completely different?

Whatever you decide, you should look at your brand’s power as an exercise in
new-look résumé; management — an exercise that you start by doing away once
and for all with the word “résumé.” You don’t have an old-fashioned résumé
anymore! You’ve got a marketing brochure for brand You. Instead of a static list
of titles held and positions occupied, your marketing brochure brings to life the
skills you’ve mastered, the projects you’ve delivered, the braggabl es you can
take credit for. And like any good marketing brochure, yours needs constant
updating to reflect the growth — breadth and depth — of brand You.

What’s loyalty to You?

Everyone is saying that loyalty is gone; loyalty is dead; loyalty is over. I think
that’s a bunch of crap.

I think loyalty is much more important than it ever was in the past. A 40-year
career with the same company once may have been called loyalty; from here it
looks a lot like a work life with very few options, very few opportunities, and very
little individual power. That’s what we used to call indentured servitude.

Today loyalty is the only thing that matters. But it isn’t blind loyalty to the
company. It’s loyalty to your colleagues, loyalty to your team, loyalty to your
project, loyalty to your customers, and loyalty to yourself. I see it as a much
deeper sense of loyalty than mindless loyalty to the Company Z logo.

I know this may sound like selfishness. But being CEO of Me Inc. requires you to
act selfishly — to grow yourself, to promote yourself, to get the market to reward
yourself. Of course, the other side of the selfish coin is that any company you
work for ought to applaud every single one of the efforts you make to develop
yourself. After all, everything you do to grow Me Inc. is gravy for them: the
projects you lead, the networks you develop, the customers you delight, the
braggables you create generate credit for the firm. As long as you’re learning,
growing, building relationships, and delivering great results, it’s good for you and
it’s great for the company.

That win-win logic holds for as long as you happen to be at that particular
company. Which is precisely where the age of free agency comes into play. If
you’re treating your résumé as if it’s a marketing brochure, you’ve learned the
first lesson of free agency. The second lesson is one that today’s professional
athletes have all learned: you’ve got to check with the market on a regular basis
to have a reliable read on your brand’s value. You don’t have to be looking for a
job to go on a job interview. For that matter, you don’t even have to go on an
actual job interview to get useful, important feedback.

The real question is: How is brand You doing? Put together your own “user’s
group” — the personal brand You equivalent of a software review group. Ask for —
insist on — honest, helpful feedback on your performance, your growth, your
value. It’s the only way to know what you would be worth on the open market. It’s
the only way to make sure that, when you declare your free agency, you’ll be in a
strong bargaining position. It’s not disloyalty to “them”; it’s responsible brand
management for brand You — which also generates credit for them.

What’s the future of You?

It’s over. No more vertical. No more ladder. That’s not the way careers work
anymore. Linearity is out. A career is now a checkerboard. Or even a maze. It’s
full of moves that go sideways, forward, slide on the diagonal, even go backward
when that makes sense. (It often does.) A career is a portfolio of projects that
teach you new skills, gain you new expertise, develop new capabilities, grow
your colleague set, and constantly reinvent you as a brand.

As you scope out the path your “career” will take, remember: the last thing you
want to do is become a manager. Like “résumé,” “manager” is an obsolete term.
It’s practically synonymous with “dead end job.” What you want is a steady diet of
more interesting, more challenging, more provocative projects. When you look at
the progression of a career constructed out of projects, directionality is not only
hard to track — Which way is up? — but it’s also totally irrelevant.

Instead of making yourself a slave to the concept of a career ladder, reinvent
yourself on a semiregular basis. Start by writing your own mission statement, to
guide you as CEO of Me Inc. What turns you on? Learning something new?
Gaining recognition for your skills as a technical wizard? Shepherding new ideas
from concept to market? What’s your personal definition of success? Money?
Power? Fame? Or doing what you love? However you answer these questions,
search relentlessly for job or project opportunities that fit your mission statement.
And review that mission statement every six months to make sure you still
believe what you wrote.

No matter what you’re doing today, there are four things you’ve got to measure
yourself against. First, you’ve got to be a great teammate and a suppor tive
colleague. Second, you’ve got to be an exceptional expert at something that has
real value. Third, you’ve got to be a broad-gauged visionary — a leader, a
teacher , a farsighted “imagineer.” Fourth, you’ve got to be a businessper son —
you’ve got to be obsessed with pragmatic outcomes.

It’s this simple: You are a brand. You are in charge of your brand. There is no
single path to success. And there is no one right way to create the brand called
You. Except this: Start today. Or else.

IndividualAssignment IV – Personal Development Exercise

Total points: 50

Part I: 50 points

Using the information learned in class this semester choose one of the two

options:

 Option 1 – Create a ~2 and ~5 year plan in linear format. You may want to use a

Work Breakdown Structure as the guide, or a Gantt chart. Must be sufficiently

complex with goals, milestones, and benchmarks to earn full credit. Short

submissions will not earn full credit. Consider:

o Where do I want to be in ~2 years?

 How do I get there?

o Where do I want to be in ~5 years?

 How do I get there?

o What qualifications would I need?

o What experience would I need?

o What genuine relationships will I need to build?

o Et cetera.

 Option 2 – Read, analyze, and apply case study “The Brand Called You” to

yourself in a personal and professional manner. Submit an analysis of how you can

apply the concepts presented to your life and professional career. Consider:

o What is the key message of the article?

o How does it benefit professionals?

o How can / will I apply this to myself?

o Et cetera.

Note: Submission should be sufficiently complex. Must be sufficiently lengthy to

earn full credit. Short submissions will not earn full credit.

Grading Criteria: Your assignment will be assessed using the following criteria.

 Content: your submission should clearly address all the required points stated.

Your writing clearly articulates methodologies.

 Writing: the writing is clear, includes well-formed sentences, proper sentence

structure, and good use of paragraphs and transitions.

 Formatting: the document includes your name and the title of the assignment. It is

professional and formatted correctly

 Citations and References: If you used external references, the full reference is in

the proper format with the necessary information. You cited those references

appropriately within the content of your paper. If you use external references, you

MUST include the full reference. You also need to cite the source within your paper.

For citations, you can either directly quote the source when the author has

something profound to say or you can reword the information from the source when

the author has a unique idea. In either case, give credit to the author for the

quotation or the unique idea but the bulk of your paper should be you expounding on

the author’s ideas with your own words and ideas. Do not over-cite your paper.

You should research the topic, process the information you learn, present your

response to the assignment in your own words, and support that response with

citations from your sources. Do not cite every sentence/paragraph of your

assignment.

 Spelling and Grammar: there are few or no spelling or grammar errors. Everyone

makes mistakes; therefore, you will receive full points if there are minimal spelling

and grammar errors. Use correct spelling and grammar.