Nonfiction Brands

This is Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Noor podcast. We will accomplish our goals through sharing experience, improving tech skills, increasing business knowledge, and embracing life. Let's dive into the next episode. Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season of interviews and we are into part two of our interview with DP Knuten, a very experienced marketing professional. We wrote a book, Nonfiction Brands, and we are talking about that. We had our introduction in the first episode, in the first part of this, and now we're starting to get into the meat of the story. This is a great example of where people that have experience, particularly many years of experience can be invaluable as far as their stories, the lessons learned, and even how they communicate some of those core concepts to the listener when they are in this, we'll call it teaching mode, which DP obviously is very good at. So I hope that you get, again, even half as much out of this as I did. And without any further dilly-dalling, let's get back to our discussion with DP. I do want to touch on the fictional and the nonfiction branding, particularly since you have a book with that name. And I've never come across those names at least before and may or may not even the concepts. So what's sort of an overview of what is maybe the definition of the two or the differences between a fiction and nonfiction branding? Well, bear with me a sec as I go into a little bit of a story. This goes all the way back to when I worked at McCann Erickson in Atlanta, Georgia on Coca-Cola. I got a creative brief, which is the couple sheets of paper that describe what the job is. It was going to be a print ad. It was going to be you have to mention this, that, and the other thing. But instead of giving me what we look for called copy points, which are similar to specifications, copy points. It's on Friday, August 15th from nine to five. Quantities are limited, one per customer. Those are copy points. Now, they aren't artfully told. They're just these are the facts. You got to weave into the story instead of having clear copy points. All it said was write some stuff. I'm like, what does that mean? Write some stuff. So I go to the account manager's office and a little bit pissed off and I go, dude, what is this? And then I said words that stuck with me in my head for another 20 years. I am not a fiction writer. And what I meant by that was I'm writing advertising. And here's the thing. I don't have a problem with polishing a weak thing to make it shine, but I will not lie about it. If a candy bar is going to make you fatter, I'm not going to say that it's a diet candy bar or something like that. I have to tell the truth. And even if that truth is gussied up so that it looks shiny like a diamond, it's still true based on a true foundation. And so that idea sat in my head for a long, long time, literally 20 years. And when I started thinking about the type of branding I do, I don't do fiction branding. And we're surrounded by fiction brands all the time. What you know, the ones that have the fake backstory about someone inventing it and all this stuff. And it's just not factually true. Or they just make stuff up out of whole cloth. I don't do that. I refuse to do that. And when it comes to a personal brand, I think that's death to do that. What I mean by that is, OK, so personal brand, my brand, DP Knuten, what is the foundation of my personal brand? One, I'm creative. I will never give you a spreadsheet or analytics on anything. That's not my world. I'm not an engineer. I'm not a data scientist. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I'm saying that's not me. And if I said I was, I would be lying to you. The other thing is, I'm a collaborator. I need to work with other people. Why? Because I work in a world that's both visual and verbal. And while I've developed a facility for the visual side of things, I still need an art director or a graphic designer who's better than me, who's better with typography, who's better with color, who's better with visual ideas to work with me so that two plus two equals six. And then finally, my last word of what I like to call the key three for myself is provocative. The thing I've learned over time and it's been told to me by coworkers, colleagues, and clients is that I'm a pain in the butt, but in a way that makes you think I'm provocative on purpose. And I don't mean to be, but I also want to make sure that I'm testing your ideas. You know, and the other thing is, if you're coming to me with an idea, my job is to take your idea and make it better, to plus it up into a even bigger, better, greater idea, very much in the Walt Disney definition of what plusing is. To do that, I have to ask pointed questions that reveal the truth. So there are my three words, my key three, creative, collaborative, and provocative. These are completely true to who I am, good, bad, and ugly. And if you don't like it, find somebody else that might be more to your liking because what you see is what you get. And what I am branding myself is, is 100% aligned with who I am, what I do, and how I do it. Assuming you're at a point where you're sort of a blank sheet, you don't really have a personal brand. And you could argue that I think everybody, once you start drawing breath, you start creating a personal brand. But if you're getting, especially from a professional point of view, you're just starting out or you're just jumping into an area, maybe a side hustle. Like, for example, let's say you suddenly decide, hey, I want to go into photography. I want to do that for a while. You don't really have that piece. You don't have you as a photographer yet. So now if I want to go do something, I want to build a personal brand, either from scratch or where maybe I just haven't really branded it before. I've got a bucket of stuff, but I haven't really tried to organize that. Where would you recommend or how would you recommend maybe the first steps of doing that? Well, you kind of hit it right there, which is, let's say that I decided I wanted to become a professional photographer. I don't have the technical skills or I don't have the demonstrated technical skills. I don't have the long 30 years of experience in that. And yet my three key my key three words, creative, collaborative, provocative, still apply. And that's the key thing when you're developing a personal brand is to don't get too in the weeds. Stick to the first principles. For example, developers, I've worked with a number of them. They tend to be very methodical. Some are more kind of out there creative. Others are very rectilinear flowchart, you know, decision tree oriented. It has to go this way, et cetera, et cetera. That is if you're that person. And unfortunately, this is a podcast, so you don't see what my hands are doing. But if you're rectilinear and everything's a 90 degree angle or a decision tree or a pathway, that's one thing. But I know you all know some developers who are kind of like the the the caterpillar on the mushroom in Alice in Wonderland, who are like one pill makes you smaller and there my hands are waving up in the air like wafting smoke and stuff. And guess what? Both of those types of developers are needed, but both are completely different. If you the rectilinear everything in its place developer, cast yourself or tried to brand yourself as I'm a visionary developer. I come up with fever dreams that turn into multimillion dollar applications. You're lying. If, on the other hand, you're that airy fairy. Developer who's a little bit more out there and more conceptual and absolutely requires a partner who can translate what you're thinking into actual code. Then you need to present yourself as that because you need both. I mean, I'm a huge Apple computer fan. And if you look at it going back to the very beginning, you know, back in the garage, you got Steve Wozniak, who is an engineer's engineer. And then you've got Steve Jobs, who wasn't a coder at all. He was a marker. He was he was this guy who had this big vision and he could see what Wozniak was doing and the impact of it. And guess what? Wozniak needed Jobs, but Jobs needed Wozniak. And if and let's not even talk Microsoft, because then you've got the fact that Steve Balmer was a sales guy. You know, you've got Bill Gates, certified genius developer, engineer, all that stuff. And then they bring in the sales guy. And I think we all feel the same way about sales guys. They bring it on themselves. Well, and they don't care, baby, because they get the big fat checks. So now that we know somebody's got, let's say they've had this, you know, the self actualization moment and they figured out which what they are. And so you've got this this picture of yourself that you now say, OK, this is this. I'm going to move into a brand. What do you say? How do you how do you brand that? How do you how do you brand that? How do you get that out and and start projecting that? Well, the first thing to do is kind of do the foundational work, you know, develop things like the key three. What are the three words, concepts that are first principle concepts that define you as a human being and specifically if you're in the development space as a developer, you know, and don't say, well, I use this specific language because that's no, no, no. I mean, that that doesn't matter. Well, it does. But that's easily explained. That's that's the bottom of the resume stuff. Why should I be calling you is what a brand is about. Why should I call you? And so the place to start is to literally get out a piece of paper. And I suggest it be paper, not on screen, because you need to doodle as you do this. You need to think, OK, what am I good at? What do people and the thing is not what do I think I'm good at, but what does the world keep telling me I'm good at? I'm you know, and it could be something like you're really great at coordinating a team of development divas. You know how to speak their language, but you also know how to herd those cats. Oh, OK, that's an incredible thing. Let's let's find a first principle idea that goes with that, which is that you're an organizer of difficult people and processes. OK, so that the people and processes that's required just about everywhere, and it's not reliant on any specific language or framework or anything like that. The fact that you can deal with difficult people and processes in a way that gets stuff done on time and under budget and things like that, these are the things that people want to hire you for. You know, the tying your shoes part of being able to code or do that type of stuff, that's kind of like, well, I expect you be able to do that, but I need you to take my this corral of divas that I've got and move them forward so that we get this thing done in a way that doesn't, you know, burn through our runway of startup cash if that's what you're looking at, you know? So what are the things that the world keeps telling you you're great at? Not just good at because, yeah, I'm a pretty good coder, but I'm really great at getting stuff done on time. Even if I have to work. You know, seven days, 24 seven to get it done because I do not miss deadlines. There are people who will pay you for that. Oh, definitely. So what I'm hearing is that you, you know, once you figured out your bucket, you know, like from a developer point of view, I'm a JavaScript developer. Then you look at what distinguishes you within that bucket is not now that you, because the bucket is the bottom of the resume kind of stuff. Oh, but you know, this is these are the things that this is how you categorize me, but more specifically, the higher things are, you know, higher up, not necessarily H I R E higher thing, but they're probably related are the things that distinguish you. These are the things that make me stick out. These are how I contrast from the normal bunch of sheep or herds that herd of cats. This is what makes me different. Exactly. And that becomes the thing that becomes the story you talk about and present and communicate over and over and over again. And there's an old saying in marketing that we, I love to tell clients all the time. Which is the second you get tired of your advertising and your marketing, great. The audience is finally starting to see it, meaning you don't change. Think about it. Coca-Cola's logo is the same logo they have had since 1886. Pepsi messes around with theirs all the time, but Coke doesn't. Why? Because one of Coke's core key three ideas is authenticity, refreshment, and sociability. Those are the three things that I had to communicate in every single communication I wrote, directed, or performed for them when I worked there. And it was a pain in the butt, but the thing, and it got frankly, a little boring, but guess what? Me being bored is not what branding's about. The marketplace understanding what you're about and that you're consistent and it doesn't change is what takes you away from being a commodity player and makes you a premium brand. All you have to do is say, why does, and these numbers may not be the latest numbers, but forgive me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that Android has 90% of the mobile marketplace when it comes to operating system. Apple iOS has 20%, right? Something like that. Flip it and you've got the profit margin, which is the profit share of mobile is 80% Apple's, 20% Android. So, and you have to ask yourself, and there's an old saying that we would talk about with clients. If I start at one end of a farmer's field and you start right next to you, you pick up every potato you find and I'll pick up every diamond. If I find one diamond, I make more money than any number of potatoes you can carry. And so Apple is selling diamonds and Android is picking up potatoes. And that's a choice. That's a brand choice. Android, you can get free phones with based on Android all day long, or you can do what I do or you can do what I do every two or three years, pay 800 to $1,000 for a phone because it's not a phone. It's my number one computer. It's my number one camera. It's my number one. I don't even use it as a phone anymore for crying out loud. It's a data communication device and it has everything on it, including my COVID inoculation card and my insurance cards, you know, in the form of an image so that I can show it whenever I need to, you know? Yeah, and that's another great conversation. And there's been books and I think even Netflix specials and stuff on Apple and that as a they are, I think, probably the closest, the best thing I can think of. I mean, there are some others if you think of like a Porsche or some place like that, is that just they say we're not going to be anything but the creme de la creme, the luxury model or whatever it is that we are the high end and that's what we're going to do. We're going to sell that and we're going to give it to the people say, I don't want to be, I don't want an average, you know, Android phone. I want something that is higher quality that has some sort of, you know, usually it's got some sort of a behind it. There's like this level of respect I get because I've got it or it's got some sort of a fashion sensor or whatever it is that makes it stand out. So it's not like I don't have just a utility. I have a really cool product or a really nice thing, a great possession as opposed to just an accessory. Pencils Down. There you have part two. I hope you were taking notes. There were some great ideas and concepts that came out of that discussion. I do have a few of those thrown in the show nuts as well as links, mostly from prior episodes and some of the later parts, information so you can learn more about DP. You can get his book and I highly recommend it. And take a look at some of these things that he's mentioning. We stopped sort of in the middle of a thought. I apologize for that to some extent, but it's one of those where it just made sense to split this into a two parter, give you a little bit of a cliffhanger, leave them wanting more as they always say. But that will do it for this episode. We will come back. We will continue our conversation with DP and get your notebooks and pens and pencils ready to take some notes along the way because he's going to continue to give us some excellent little gems along there so we can worry about diamonds as opposed to potatoes. That being said, as always, go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to Building Better Developers, the Developer Noor podcast. For more episodes like this one, you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, and other podcast venues or visit our site at developernoor.com. Just a step forward today is still progress. So let's keep moving forward together. One more thing before you go. The Developer Noor podcast and site are a labor of love. We enjoy whatever we do trying to help developers become better. But if you've gotten some value out of this and you'd like to help us, be great if you go out to developernoor.com slash donate and donate whatever feels good for you. If you get a lot of value, a lot. If you don't get a lot of value, even a little would be awesome. In any case, we will thank you and maybe I'll make you feel just a little bit warmer as well. Now you can go back and have yourself a great day.