It’s funny when “work stuff” resurfaces years later. Especially in strategy. 

A while back I worked for a reseller of interactive classroom white boards. I trod the halls of many K-12 schools, interviewing teachers, principals, administrators and technology professionals. After much discovery on a once-in-a-lifetime assignment, I landed on a cool brand strategy. “Leading The Educational Spring.” The CEO didn’t buy it.  Timewise it was during the Arab Spring and just after the famous Broadway play Spring Awakening. Contextually and culturally it carried a good deal of meaning. The strategy intent: classroom and learning was in need of reform after 50 years of chalkboard teaching.

The new brand strategy, the one the CEO agreed to, was “Illuminating Learning.” Not bad and certainly endemic. However today, many years later, while reading something in the NYT I’m struck that I may have let the brand down. I should have fought harder.

Movements you see – Strawberry Frog’s Scott Goodson and Chip Walker would agree – are stronger than claims.  If you can keep them. (Thanks Ben Franklin.) And the Educational Spring had a chance to be a movement. A movement with a single brand as champion.

(Caveat: Saying you’re going to create a movement and doing it are two different things.)

Sometimes you need to fight for a strategy. The brand planners’ dilemma. 

Peace.