Here's how you know if someone is living the brand, is emotionally connected to the story and is literate and informed--or if they're just emotionally connected in the moment:

Ask a lot of questions.

Cornel West can talk for hours about race, the Bible or Marx. He knows it cold.

Dan Dennett can write for three hundred pages about the philosophy of free will and consciousness and he's just getting started. There's depth there.

I've talked to brand stewards from JetBlue and Starbucks that could go deep or wide or detailed for hours.

Then compare these passionate leaders to a pundit, spin doctor or troll (for just about any cause du jour) being interviewed on TV. After three sentences, they run out of assertions, facts or interesting things to say.

There's a lot to be said for being deep, scientific and informed.

(bonus: Via Xeni at Boingboing, consider this take on how we brainwash our kids. More talking points.)

Every activity worth doing has a learning curve. Riding a bike, learning to read, using Facebook... the early days are rarely nothing but fun.

Take a look at this three part chart. The first shows how much joy someone gets out of an activity. Over time, as we discover new things and get better at it, our satisfaction increases. At some point, there's a bump when we get quite good at it, and then, in most activities, it fades because we get bored. (In the top graph I've also added the Dip, showing the extra joy from being an expert, but that's irrelevant to this discussion).

The second graph shows the hassle of that same activity. Riding a bike, for example, is horrible at first. Skinned knees, bruised egos. Twitter is really easy to use the first few times, so not so much red ink there.

The third graph is just the two overlaid. That zone on the left, the red zone, is the gap between the initial hassle and the initial joy. My contention is that the only reason we ever get through that gap is that someone on the other side (the little green circle) is rooting us on, or telling us stories of how great it is on the other side.

The bigger your red zone, the louder your green dot needs to be. Every successful product or passion is either easy to get started on or comes with a built-in motivator to keep you moving until you're in. This is so easy to overlook, because of course you're already in...

The way you price expensive transactions is going to train your partners and customers in how to behave.

When selling a book to a major publisher, it’s common for the publisher to offer an advance against royalties. In fact, the advance is the most significant tool that publishers use to get a coveted author to pick one house over another--royalties and most everything else are fixed.

It turns out that if an agent offers a hot book to multiple publishers at the same time, the advance offered goes up, often dramatically. Obviously, the publisher was capable of offering the higher advance without the auction, but it was the risk of losing the book that got them to pony up more money.

This trains agents and authors to be disloyal, to shop around and to create an artificial game to raise the price.

Or consider the real estate developer who calls up an electrician to re-wire a building. She uses this electrician often, and the estimate comes back at $18,000. The developer shops around and finds a similarly talented electrician for $14,000. Loyalty is great, but that’s a huge difference. She switches to the higher value choice. Indignant, the original electrician says, “why didn’t you tell me! I could have beaten that price.”

The answer, of course, is, “well, why didn’t you quote me that price in the first place?”

You might leave money on the table if you reward people for being loyal (and don’t make them shop around each time). I think it’s money well spent, because loyalty is worth more than a little more margin. If you train your partners to shop around, expect them to shop around.

Since the launch of the Bing for Mobile iPhone app, we’ve heard some great feedback and are excited that Bing is showing up more and more as the search option for those using Safari on iOS4. We’re happy you are giving Bing a try and are enjoying some of the features like social, shopping, and the fresh homepage image every day.

Over the past few months the Bing team has been partnering with a number of companies on various apps for the iPhone. From finding what song was topping the charts when you graduated high school, to testing your movie trivia skills, to seeing what Ryan Seacrest’s favorite songs are – it’s all possible through various iPhone apps brought to you by Bing.

Take a look at some of the latest apps from Bing that you can find in the APP Store:

Top 100s by Year by Bing (music app in partnership with nuTsie)

For a limited time you are able to download this $1.99 app for Free from Bing. What were the top songs for 2009, the year you were born or graduated from high school?

Spin the wheel to find the year you want to hear. Click and listen. View the list to find the #1 song for that year, from 1947 – 2009.

These lists are not solely based on record sales or radio popularity at the time. Instead, there are lists of songs that have stood the test of time based on their initial and lasting popularity, and on their impact on the overall scope of music history.

Hip Hop 100 by Bing (music app in partnership with nuTsie)

You are able to enjoy this app for 60 days for free courtesy of Bing. After 60 days you can purchase the app for $.99.

Listen to the latest and hottest in Hip Hop. New Top Hip Hop 100 plays the full tracks of the Hip Hop songs of 2010.

With this application, the top Hip Hop songs are streamed directly to your iPhone/iTouch complete with the album art and song rank list. Get Artist information, lyrics, images, and videos brought to you by Bing.

Songs are streamed in shuffle mode like a web radio station through 3G, edge or Wi-Fi.

Pop 100 by Bing (music app in partnership with nuTsie)

You are able to enjoy this app for 60 days for free courtesy of Bing. After 60 days you can purchase the app for $.99.

Listen to the latest and hottest in Pop. New Top Pop 100 plays the full tracks of the top pop songs of 2010.

With this application, the top Pop Hop songs are streamed directly to your iPhone/iTouch complete with the album art and song rank list. Get Artist information, lyrics, images, and videos brought to you by Bing.

Songs are streamed in shuffle mode like a web radio station through 3G, edge or Wi-Fi.

Classical 100 by Bing (music app in partnership with nuTsie)

You are able to enjoy this app for 60 days for free courtesy of Bing. After 60 days you can purchase the app for $.99.

Listen to 100 full tracks of the most important and popular Classical works. Get more information about these works, the composers, the orchestras and symphonies, all brought to you by Bing.

This list has stood the test of time based on their lasting popularity and on their impact on the overall scope of musical history. 

These Songs are streamed in shuffle mode like a web radio station through 3G, edge or Wi-Fi.

This is like a premium radio station that plays just the best of the best from the classical canon.

Ryan Seacrest’s Mixtapes by Bing (music app in partnership with nuTsie)

Listen to music, view photos, search videos, check out news, and connect with Ryan through Facebook, Twitter, and email. New playlists and exclusive content will be added weekly.

With this app, MixTapes are streamed directly to your iPhone complete with album art and song-rank list. Get artist information and lyrics all brought to you by Bing.

Songs are streamed in shuffle mode like a web radio station through 3G, edge or Wi-Fi.

You are able to enjoy this app for 60 days for free courtesy of Bing. After 60 days you can purchase the app for $1.99.

Chicktionary by Bing (game app in partnership with Blackdot Inc.)

This $1.99 app is being offered for free by Bing for a limited time.

300 new puzzles not found in the other Chicktionary versions.

Winner – Best word game app in the 2009 Best All Ever Awards Show!

NEW UPDATES MADE!

- 2 Modes of game play! Timed and untimed

- Don’t think that is a real word? Now you can get the definition of a word

- Now when you quit a game you can view the entire puzzle solution so you can see any words you missed

- For those who do not want to listen to music while they play, it now has a mute button

- Now with Facebook connect integration!

Get ready for an egg-citing game.

Chicktionary is one of the most popular word games on the internet and now you can hatch up some fun on your iPhone! Each hen bears a letter. The more words you create, the more points you earn!

Chicktionary has cool feature that gives it depth and makes it one of the more engaging games on the iPhone:

- In a jam? Shake your iPhone to shuffle the chickens and get a new look at your word options. No chickens were injured in the making of this game. So shake away!

- 300 Levels of word fun!

Earn Eggchievements for crazy stuff or just playing the game like a pro!

- Other features include save game, local & worldwide scoreboards, hidden Easter eggs, game statistics and more!

Check out the Too 12 Chicktionary Tips:

http://www.kewlbox.com/iPhone

Conde Nast Traveler Gold List (travel app in partnership with SJR)

Search, browse, share, and book the best hotels, resorts, and cruise lines around the globe as chosen by the world’s most trusted travelers the readers of Conde Nast Traveler. Powered by Bing Search.

 

Vanity Fair Trivia Movie Madness (trivia app in partnership with Vanity Fair)

You’ll need a quick brain, limber thumbs, and a good working knowledge of Hollywood lore to go deep into Vanity Fair’s new film-trivia game, Movie Madness. With hundreds of fun, sophisticated questions from Vanity Fair’s stable of film geeks, you may get one or two of these questions wrong – but by the time you’ve beat the 25 levels, you’ll be the veritable Roger Ebert.

ESPN World Cup Trivia by Bing (sports app in partnership with ESPN)

Did you follow ESPN’s exclusive coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup? Show off your knowledge of the world’s most popular sport with ESPN World Cup Trivia presented by Bing.

Whether you know the sport as soccer or football, start off in the Group Stages of the tournament and answer enough questions correctly to advance through each round. Score more point the quicker you answer. Be careful, questions get more difficult as you go through each stage of the tournament!

Play your way through the finals to become the World Cup Trivia Champion.

 

You can also find Bing integrated as the search provider in a few apps such as Whrrl, iTV and Flixster. We hope you enjoy all of these apps and maybe find that trip you were looking to take or that one pop song you just can’t get out of your head. Keep checking back as we continue to release fun new apps.

Kristin Meldahl – Bing

Other posts of interest:

Shop with ease with your Bing for Mobile iPhone App

Camera Scanning on the iPhone app

Bing on your mobile browser, iPhone, and beyond

Bing for iPhone Update

New Bing App for iPhone is Here!

Most existing systems (organizations, cities, careers, governments) are resilient to external shocks. If they weren't, they wouldn't still be here. Earthquakes, edicts and emergencies come and they go, but the systems remain.

And yet, it's the emergencies we pay attention to.

No single event demolished the music business. It was a series of slow changes over the course of two decades, all the way back to the CD.

Smoking killed far more people than terrorists ever did. It's just not as dramatic.

No single technology destroyed the business model for newspapers. Sure, Craigslist hastened their demise, but the writing has been on the wall for a decade or more.

Your career won't be made or broken on the back of one interview, one meeting, one sales call. Sure, it might help (or hurt), but the sudden impact of one event isn't sufficient to change everything forever.

The slow changes in the media landscape are accelerating and virtually every pre-digital system is in danger. The slow changes in the marketing landscape are in their second decade and these changes will have their effects on every business and cause as well.

Cultural shifts create long terms evolutionary changes. Cultural shifts, changes in habits, technologies that slowly obsolete a product or a system are the ones that change our lives. Watch for shifts in systems and processes and expectations. That's what makes change, not big events.

Don't worry about what happened yesterday (or five minutes ago). Focus on what happened ten years ago and think about what you can do that will make a huge impact in six months. The breaking news mindset isn't just annoying, it may be distracting you from what really matters. As the world gets faster, it turns out that the glacial changes of years and decades are become more important, not less.