Devoted to branding and building and protecting brands

I’ve logged all of about five minutes face-to-face with Carol “kick yer ass” Bartz back in my NetApp days (’95-’99), where she’s still on the board, but the swath she’s cutting at Yahoo makes me think I could complete her sentences.  She insists that her company know exactly what customers and advertisers value the most about the Yahoo experience.  She wants to simplify both the offerings and the company (the two always go hand in hand), and she wants to charge based on the emergent value proposition.  That, folks, is how you win.  I’m not ready to pronounce Yahoo the comeback brand of the year, or put coach-of-the-year mantle on Bartz.  But she’s articulating the right stuff. If the crew in D.C. could arouse the same level of enthusiasm and confidence she's creating, it would be worth at least a thousand more points on the Dow today. For the record, I share the Welch P.O.V. re Team Obama.  But that’s a whole other story.