After experiencing tremendous growth and unparalleled success as a dynamic start-up in the affiliate marketing management industry, JEB Commerce – Affiliate Program Manangement realized their logo, while professional looking, was more fitting for a business in its infancy than the maturing powerhouse it was becoming and the respected leader in their industry they were aiming to attain. Even as a relatively new player, they had already amassed an impressive client list that included brands like: Elance, Ligonier Ministries, philosphy, OfficeFrog to name just a few as well as successful experience working with brands such as Dean & Deluca and Zappos.com.

After trying an online crowd-sourcing logo design solution and being less-than-impressed with the submissions, JEB Commerce decided to approach Whitestone Design Werks to come up with a design for a new logo in order to refresh and reposition their brand. What Jamie Birch, owner of JEB Commerce thought was a simple request to design a logo, turned into an education about the difference between “just a logo” and what a well-thought out and designed identity system was and how it was crucial for developing JEB Commerce’s position as not just a well-respected brand but an authoritative, leading brand in their space.

After lamenting to Jamie (more like whining—until Jamie told me to man up) about how common a misunderstanding it is among small to medium-sized business owners about the fact that while a simple logo does become an identity by default, it is much different to have a logo deliberately designed to be applied into an identity system than to just have a logo that has been designed in a white box that you then take to a printer, web developer or sign fabricator and allow them to interpret how it is applied based upon their whims (and questionable design abilities).

After arriving at an epiphany we hit upon the idea that documenting this process would be a helpful exercise to help other small business owners understand some of the issues involved with facing the maturing of their business and its growth, but recognizing that its now time to put some “big boy (or girl) pants (pant suit)” on, as it were, and take the opportunity to invest in their identity to help elevate their brand position in order to attain their business’ ultimate goals.

In the coming weeks, Jamie and I will be highlighting the process of going through a complete identity design overhaul for JEB Commerce. I will be posting the progress and will for the first time, grant access to what is normally only a client accessible area to the general public in order to view the comps online and even provide feedback in the process. However, we will reserve the right to ignore said feedback if we disagree.

Jamie, for his part in the process, will also be posting to the JEB Commerce blog with his thoughts and updates of the process along the way in order to help educate the multitudes of Affiliates that work with and follow JEB Commerce.

So, stay tuned for what I hope will be an educational process that just might open your eyes to the value of investing in a true identity system that has been thought-through and designed to communicate the essence of your brand and then can be applied to all your points of contact with your customers thereby elevating your brand to the level of respect and authority you have earned over the years, but are being held back by an immature identity.

I do have to say that the saving grace in this storm is that it was cold and the snow was light and fluffy. So, while shoveling light, fluffy snow can be a challenge in itself (think eating peas with a butter knife), it is not as hard as shoveling wet snow. And I have to give a big shout out to my neighbors who pitched in shovels, backs, snow-blowers and plow-equipped ATV’s to help everyone shovel out each other’s driveways. Even with all the help, I pretty much missed a whole day of work shoveling. And I work from home!

So, I’m enjoying the effects of Advil now and resting up for another storm supposed to hit on Sunday that they say will bring possibly another 4-6″ of snow. Bring it on. What’s 6″? Heck, I’ll take 12″! I just hope I don’t have to shovel 30″ of snow in my lifetime again!

So, what is still missing? One of the things that Matthew mentioned was actually having a video Skype line open all day with one of his partners–basically transforming his home office into a virtual cubicle (sans cubicle walls). That was intriguing to me, because one of the advantages of real water cooler talk is the face-to-face interaction with associates, but without an actual remote business partner, that would prove to be a little difficult for my situation (random strangers might offer some interest–but too weird) and the people that I chat with on a regular basis probably wouldn’t be thrilled with the idea of surveillance. I think there is a privacy threshold that one has to take into consideration for most people. I know that while I wouldn’t mind the instant access, it is more than a little disconcerting to know that everything going on (at least within view of the cam) is observable and listenable by someone else. When there is a physical presence of others, we’re more likely to be on our better social behavior (you know, like not breaking wind or humming obnoxious songs), but without a constant reminder of someone else’s presence, we may behave in a manner that might meet with shock or irritation (or repulsion).

I know that you would conceivably have the video chat window open as a reminder, but unless you have decent screen real estate on at least two screens, the Skype window (or iChat) would be relegated to the back of open application windows while you’re working. Do I want to listen to someone tapping, typing, sniffling, coughing, yelling at others in the house (not that I do any of those things but I’m sure there are some out there who do) just to be able to have always-on access?

The more I think about it, the more I’m thinking that IM and twitter are sufficient for the task for me. In fact, the water cooler has become a whole lot bigger and filled with more interesting people than just those who I used to work in an office with (no offense former office co-peeps). Not that I haven’t worked with very interesting people, but I’m referring to the more mundane small talk that more often than not characterizes real-world water cooler talk. You know, the type that you’re just looking at the clock thinking about the deadline that you’re on, but you don’t want to be rude to your co-worker as their glossing over their gardening cleanup day or about Stargate SG-1.

Twitter allows you that certain degree of rudeness because there’s not as much expectation of an immediate reply. Therefore, you can control the involvement based on your workload. One thing that is not missing is the distraction factor of water cooler talk from the tasks at hand and in this area I can confidently say that twitter far outshines reality for this ability. There are many times when I have to turn Twitter off and set my iChat to “Away” to focus on deadlines. Something that was always hard in open-office environments. But I continue to be amazed by my ability to be distracted (oh, look! shiny!), but I am getting better as Twitter and IM have woven themselves into the fabric of my workday. While there is some overlap for me between IM and Twitter I think Twitter has become more of the background chatter and banter while IM is closer to what I would call a true water cooler experience in addition to being a critical and effective collaboration tool–something that the water cooler was never able to provide. And as for email? Email is the new Snail Mail.