Yesterday was the 31st annual running of the Chicago Marathon. Formerly known as the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon, it is now the Bank of America Chicago Marathon as the latter bank bought the former. Drawing over 45,000 runners, it is a major event winding through the Windy City.

With the name change came a brand change. This was not surprising, as Bank of America owns the marathon. This is the former branding for the marathon:

As you can see, the LaSalle Bank name is right on top, and the colors represent the green and gold of LaSalle and its former parent company ABN Amro. But the name is subtle, and the artwork pays homage to the Chicago skyline. When the marathon was rebranded, the following was originally used as the marathon, including on the marathon Web site:

However come race day, the remnants of the old artwork were no where to be found on TV or along the course, and just the following was used:

With bank acquisitions occurring at such a rapid pace, people are almost oblivious to it. Where protests still occur to this day over the elimination of the Marshall Field’s name by Macy’s, nobody is complaining about the loss of bank names. And my guess is I am one of the few griping about the elimination of this event's unique branding, only to be replaced with the rubber stamp of another brand. I am not a branding guru myself, but I would be interested in seeing how these 2 brands go head to head at Noah Brier’s brand tags site.

For the sake of full disclosure, I am a Bank of America shareholder, though I never purchased the stock. I originally purchased stock in BayBanks, which was acquired by Bank of Boston, which was acquired by Fleet, which was acquired by Bank of America. Where their tag line is “bank of opportunity” to me it should almost be “bank of mediocrity?”

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A few months back I was invited by Joffrey’s Coffee to taste and evaluate their coffee Jamaican Me Crazy. I liked the coffee, but it was a little mild for my taste. Needless to say I was not the only person in social media to evaluate their coffee. The other day I received a sample pouch of their incarnation based on that evaluation – Coffee 2.0.

Coffee 2.0 “contains many bug fixes” as Joffrey’s stated on the accompanying brochure and based on the feedback from over 1,500 bloggers, they created this blend that is mild tasting yet bold in the caffeine department. And as you can see from the accompanying photo of the package, they have embraced social media with their packaging, complete with tagging and caregories.

I decided to throw the coffee into production and sampled it in real-time on a weekday morning. It smelled great, but the taste was a little milder than I was used to. The sample pouch was of ground coffee, and I may order a bag of whole beans, as I typically add more beans than usually recommended when brewing coffee, so the taste could be adjusted to my liking. As for the “effectiveness” of the coffee, I was in good working form the day I drank it in the morning, so the caffeine levels were just right.

Even if I did not like the taste of the coffee at all, I surely like the approach. The idea of crowdsourcing, which I covered in a previous book takeaway, is increasing globally where the crowd – the potential customers – provide their input to the eventual products and services they will buy. Companies such as threadless and crowdSPRING in Chicago are blazing this trail and are quite successful. I hope to see Joffrey’s continue to be in this good company.

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A few months back when the Chicago Bulls announced they hired Vinny Del Negro as their new head coach, many people in Chicago said, “who?” I was not one of them. As someone who grew up in the Springfield, Massachusetts area in the 80’s, it was hard not to hear about his stellar school-boy record and play at NC State under legendary coach Jim Valvano. He then went onto play in the NBA as well in Italy.

The Bulls is Del Negro’s first coaching gig, as his previous non-playing experience in the NBA has been in the front office. Many people panned the team for picking such a green candidate, not to mention one at a young age of 42. What most people don’t realize is that he is not the first person from western Massachusetts who came to Chicago to make a name for themselves. A 21-year old native of Conway, Massachusetts, a few miles from Springfield, came to Chicago in 1856 to try to make it in the business world. His name was Marshall Field. Word is he did pretty well here.

Four years ago I arrived here in Chicago and started Dunkirk Systems, LLC, after several years in Boston after my start in western Massachusetts. Where I don’t have a monumental building on State Street or an NBA coach’s income, I can't complain that business has been great!

Welcome to Chicago Vinny, and good luck! Well, except when the Bulls are playing my Celtics.

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There they are, after the job listings, education and accolades. They are like little merit badges, pinned to the scout’s uniform that is your professional profile. Each one identifies you with something, perhaps something greater than you yourself. But why are they there, and how did they come into being?

With no apologies for the drama, I am referring to LinkedIn Groups. If you are on the business social networking site, you probably are a member of a group or 2. Or many, many more. I too am a member of many, and as well am an owner of one and a manager of another. It’s an interesting tale, one that has evolved, and one I would like to share.

One day I got an email from my friend AJ, inviting me to be a member of the ex-CSC Alumni LinkedIn group. He had just created it and wanted me to be a manager and backup resource for it. I said sure, why not? We both worked for CSC and with him Down Under and me in the States, we should be covered. The role of a manager is to approve or deny membership in the group, and now to moderate discussions. People submit to be in the group, and upon review they are accepted. As anyone can create a group, it is up to them to set the rules for inclusion. As thousands if not more have worked for this global firm, we didn’t surely know all of them and that was the only way to verify people – with honesty.

And the fun began. Originally the only way to learn of a group was for the owner or manager to promote by email, or to see the group icon on someone else’s profile and click it to get to the request page. Today there is a search function on groups. When search went live, we found there were other CSC Alumni groups already, but ours was (and is) the largest. Interestingly, many people requested to join the group who never worked or were affiliated with CSC, or never replied to our request to verify their past employment by adding it to their public profile.

Coming off the success of this group, I decided to create one for former employees of IDX Systems Corporation, a healthcare software company acquired by GE Healthcare a few years ago. This allowed me to go through the group setup process myself. I created an icon for the group (or merit badge as I called them before) and where I did not use the IDX logo I did match its Pantone color. After a couple of days, the group was approved and I contacted a few people to be of the first to join. I also asked a trusted, former colleague at IDX to be a manager on the group. With similar experiences to what I found with the CSC group, the IDX group is close to 500 as of this writing.

Now what? LinkedIn is rolling out additional group features, including the ability to message the group and discussions among group members. So far, these features have been slow to take off. But I like LinkedIn Groups and it has been a great way to reconnect with former colleagues and grow my own network.

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The next likemind will be Friday, October 17, 2008 in dozens of cities around the world.

In Chicago, it will be at Spa Cafe, 112 W. Monroe, between Clark and LaSalle Streets in the Loop. Note this is a new location! The Gallery 37 Cafe closed on us last month without notice, and we needed to find a new location. Spa Cafe is a locally owned place with good coffee, tea and morning goodies, and a good setting for people to gather.

Check out the Spa Cafe Web site for more information, and you can find your way with a Google Map to Spa Cafe here.

I call likemind a gathering of creative-minded people, from various disciplines including Internet, advertising, art, social media, et. al.

No RSVP is required. You are also welcome to join the likemind Chicago Facebook group.

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