A July 27 New York Times article covered the dismantling of part of a brand-new, architecturally powerful border crossing building on the Canadian border in Massena, New York. As a design professional, this caught my eye and raised my ire on a number of levels.

The design for the building in question was unveiled four years ago, and work was completed less than two months ago.

Three months ago, the Sci Fi Channel surprised everyone, including their most dedicated fans, by announcing that the channel was rebranding itself to be called Syfy – pronounced “sigh-fie.” The idea of the rebranding was to expand the audience of the channel to people who might be put off by the science fiction genre. On July 7, 2009 Sci Fi officially became Syfy, with the new slogan “Imagine Greater.”

Federal policy makers are talking once again about reforming the healthcare system in the U.S. – and this time, it looks like they mean business. This wave of change will force healthcare marketers – in big pharma, in HMOs and other provider organizations, and in medical device manufacturers of all kinds – to rethink their brands, their customer relationships and their media choices in fundamental ways.

Branding experts agree that your employees rank at the top of your most valuable brand assets. Where opinions may vary is how to communicate to them in order to foster brand understanding and compliance.

I have spent the past 10 years helping many corporations, both large and small, with brand asset management. During this time, overwhelmingly, the question I most often receive is “Can’t we just deliver PDFs of our guidelines instead of creating a whole Web site?”

There are three primary reasons behind this question: