I love these quotes, the first from the creator of IBM’s first corporate design program, the second from the company’s enlightened and beloved CEO from 1952-1971.

They speak to the importance of being smart and aligning everything you do to the business objectives you intend to achieve, and eliminating everything that doesn’t specifically and purposefully advance the objective.

Companies that understand this and do it well — IBM and Apple to name two — take their business to a new level and are truly worthy of others’ envy (check out this ad campaign from IBM, for example). Those that fail to achieve a level of corporate self-actualization risk foundering in brand chaos.

Which is your business?

Read “Good Design is Good Business” from IBM 100

“When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”

– Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, to Playboy, Feb. 1, 1985

Are you one who would use the plywood because it wouldn’t be seen?

Or are you wired to put in the hours and effort required to ensure that everything you touch represents the best, smartest work you are capable of producing, and that every creation rises to your own exacting standards of exceptionalism — even though no one else will notice or care?

• What if you know the user of your product or service won’t notice or care?

• What if you know your boss/manager/customer/client (the person or group evaluating your work) won’t notice or care?

The real question is: Who do you work for?

You may remember I spoke at MarcusEvans’ big 5th Annual Internal Branding & Employee Engagement Conference in February in Miami. After my talk fellow attendee and SmartBlog writer Robert Jones said he wanted to do a quick follow up interview on the videos I showed to learn about Best Buy’s overall use of moving pictures in employee communications.

We talked, he wrote, and here’s the finished product: How videos sell values at Best Buy.

I’m not our resident video expert – far, far, farrrrr from it, in fact – but we were able to chat about some specific ways Best Buy has successfully used video to reach its employees and create a level of esprit de corps.

Be sure to check out the comments.

It all makes sense to me now …

(Credit to epicponyz, I think)

Everyone has an inventory of little things that trigger cringes of irritation, and because they’re small, we call them pet peeves. For some reason – be it our mental make up or maybe a traumatic childhood experience – these things grate on us and make us wince every time we see, hear or otherwise experience them.

One of the things that does it to me is hearing someone say “So and so really ‘gets it’.” We read and hear it a lot relative to social media.

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Try on a situation and see if you can act out a solution …

You’re one of an enlightened handful who see a situation as a problem … but lack the power, authority or influence to change it.

The people who possess the power, authority and influence to impact the situation … don’t see it as a problem (and, to one degree or another, have an interest in perpetuating the status quo).

Let’s see what you’d do …