Little acts go a long way

I've had the pleasure of hanging out with Sean Bonner recently, as we've both been participating in Neoteny Singapore Camp 1 for the past few days. 

We spent a fun afternoon on Monday having some design reviews with entrepreneurial student teams at Nanyang Technological University (if you want to see a cool example of some killer startup thinking and doing coming out of Singapore, check out Phokki ).  We wrapped up the afternoon by debriefing with faculty members over some bubble tea in the student canteen, where Sean shot this photo:

This placard is affixed to each and every table in the canteen.  I like it because it comes off feeling okay and not too big-brotherish relative to what it could have been.  The messaging here is very subtle, and its author would make a great brand manager.  The use of the word "hog" makes it feel less institutional than these things usually sound like, and the quote in bold is a nice signoff.  This small sign felt friendly but focused, just like all the folks at NTU.  I maintain that, at that end of the day, the power of a brand comes down to how you make people feel, and that those feelings are driven much more by the sum of many fractal interactions than by the positioning statement on your website. 

Good marketing, my friends.

Comments

[Andreayap]

Bra-vo Diego. What an emphatic point about fractal interactions (I call it micromarketing). I'm sorry I took 2000 more words to make the same point here: http://www.ripple100.com/blog/2009/12/a-week-in-the-life-of-8-stories-personal-brands-and-micromarketing/

Bravo. I'll be looking out for Diego Rodriguez and fractal interactions...

And David Armano, great find!