The idea of “brand” is now synonymous with “experience.” A brand today is our cumulative experience with and perception of an entity. Not surprisingly, the single largest determinant of brand experience is an organization’s employees. Whether an airline flight or a hospital visit, grocery shopping or buying shoes, the way we perceive the employees we are interacting with has a far greater impact upon our brand perception than years of magazine or television advertisements.
Companies have often played catch-up in understanding how to harness new technologies without over-managing them. In the early years of the World Wide Web, in the mid- to-late 1990s, many organizations feared that employees would spend too much time idly surfing the Web, so they tried to control access. While some employees undoubtedly did waste time that way, many soon figured out how to unlock the power of the Internet to do their jobs better, and the Internet quickly became a tremendously valuable resource for conducting desktop research, tracking competitors and other corporate activities.