As Universities seek to differentiate themselves more effectively in an increasingly competitive war for talent both in terms of students and academics, is there a trick being missed to develop the asset of cultural identity?

A senior executive within the Higher Education system recently stated that ‘running a university is now more complex than running an FTSE 100 company.’ A fair call given the scale of resources to be managed. But if universities are now being run like businesses, why aren’t they yet branding like one?

In Mauri culture, ‘Utu’ refers to the preservation of balance and harmony within a civilisation. It was designed to create and strengthen social connections.

Social capital can be described as the value embodied in a strong and well-functioning community. It is a crucial measurement for government in seeking to drive up the quality of community in, for example, Britain’s town centres. They use it to measure the impact of redevelopment investments.

Talk to most very successful people in any business field and they will tell you that their success has been built on their ability to build relationships.

Twelve years ago, we were asked by the DTI to create scenarios for the future of work in the UK, imagining how 2030 might look, as stimulus for government policy making. 2030 seemed a long way away in 2006, but that ‘future’ is now only twelve years from now!

Most CEOs at some time will expound on the idea that their company’s people are their greatest asset. They undoubtedly mean it and the oft quoted ‘war for talent’ suggests that their competitors are as anxious as they are to attract and retain the best people.

An office building is a sophisticated communicator of the purpose and style of the people who inhabit it. In the corporate context, it is a ‘living’ communicator of a firm’s brand and corporate culture.

Of the many companies we have enjoyed working with on corporate brand proposition development, Miele stands out. It is a wonderful brand with a wonderful reputation but at least in the UK, like all great brands, sometimes benefits from a fresh pair of eyes.

If a building could talk, of what would it speak? The answer is that buildings do talk, they communicate very effectively but how, why and to what purpose is not well understood. Workplace branding in its broadest context can be an essential and valuable part of a company’s communication strategy.

The corporate brand is perhaps the best understood and managed of a firm’s intangible assets. Many firms include brand value on their balance sheets though relationship capital, for example, has rarely been treated that way. One reason is that it is apparently obvious that the marketing team are responsible for it.

A well-conceived strategy will always help you to make the most of your resources and the fascination with strategy is long standing, as readers of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” written in 5th Century BC will know. Sometimes in history however events transpire to change the strategic landscape and at those times the skills of the strategist are at a premium.

We started working with our first charity client, the Alzheimer’s Society, in 2015. It is one of the UK’s largest, boasting over 2.5 million ‘Dementia Friends’ and thousands of volunteers, all of whom are integral to the delivery of the society’s service proposition. Their vision is ‘a world without dementia'.

We had worked with BP on their commercial strategy and the development of service income, and through that relationship got talking to another part of their organisation about plans they had for an office reorganisation in Swindon.

The Workplace Intelligence Unit (WIU) was an idea hatched by us with the then UK MD Jeremy Hocking and his Marketing Director Mark Catchlove at Herman Miller.

During the four years I have been at forward thinking inc, I have had the privilege to work with some great client brands across a range of sectors.

We began working with Orange in 2000, before the France telecom takeover and in the midst of the dot com boom. They were a fast-growing business with a great collection of talent working in their brand and commercial functions and great fun to work with.

September 23rd 2018 marks the twentieth anniversary of forward thinking inc. At the time, my idea was to do great work for great clients with great people, and that’s certainly turned out to be the case.