No personality? Here's how to get some.

I don't mean you, of course! I mean your association!

A bunch of us bloggers are all passing around Rohit Bhargava's book *Personality Not Included - Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity - And How Great Brands Get It Back. It's practical guide about how to build a brand with personality in a more open, transparent and engaged world full of "accidental spokespeople".

The book is chock full of good stuff about what it means to have personality, how a company can distill their personality into a communications strategy, how to create a marketing backstory. In Lindy Dreyer's review she highlights Chapter 6, which describes "personality moments". For me, the killer chapter is Chapter 5 (Conquering the Fear Factor), where Bhargava discusses common roadblocks to creating personality.

This is a situation we are very familiar with. Here are his "Four Great Barriers to Personality":

1. Success - What we are doing is already working.
2. Uncertainty - We don't know what will happen.
3. Tradition - We have always done it this way.
4. Precedent - No-one else is doing it that way.

Sound familiar? Yeah. I hear ya. Bhargava goes on in the rest of the chapter to explain ways you can overcome these roadblocks, ways we can all find of good practical use.

In the second half of the book, he gives us real practical techniques, guides and tools we can take away and use today to start building our organization's personality.

Here's an example. He describes ten new styles of marketing, gives examples of companies using each, when it works and when it doesn't, and a step-by-step guide to how to undertake that particular type of marketing effort. Here are a few that I think are really relevant to associations and non-profits:

Curiosity Marketing - Engaging customers by inspiring their curiosity
Karmic Marketing - Doing something good without any expectation of reward
Participation Marketing - participating in a dialogue without needing to lead it
Insider Marketing - Giving consumers special access to inside information or experiences
Useful Marketing - Creating content that has value and using it for marketing

I've been reading a lot of theory, sociology, analysis around the Web 2.0 world lately, which is interesting, for sure, but I thought this book was a refreshing contrast, with lots of good, simple yet effective ideas and takeaways. 'Cause you know I like to just get crackin'. : )